Let’s start on the road to Rio right now

Hard to believe, but it was this very day 24 years ago that the Republic of Ireland thumbed its nose at the mighty Soviet empire with a display of skill and conviction in Hanover that, while lacking the desired result, kept our hopes of qualification very much alive.

A quarter of a century later and that team’s failure to reward itself appropriately with two points rather than one still sticks in the craw and yet how spoiled we were by a ride that never once let up until the end of that baking day in Gelsenkirchen.

What we would give for such heartbreak now.

There will be no one cursing another Wim Kieft next Monday evening in Poznan, no one contemplating what might have happened if one of Giovanni Trapattoni’s players hits a post as Paul McGrath did that day on the German-Dutch border.

There will be nothing to compare to the belated ceasefire with the Dutch in 1990, the drab but tense 0-0 draw with Norway or one pale Irishman’s personal memorable homage to the Far East which greeted Damien Duff’s goal in the 3-0 win against Saudi Arabia.

This was always marked down as the one Ireland were most likely to fall short in but then something strange happened.

As the weeks and months wound down, a body of opinion appeared suggesting Spain weren’t all that any more and maybe we could bag a draw.

If only.

This wasn’t 1952, when Spain put six past a Republic of Ireland side in Madrid, but it must have been every bit as comprehensive. Football is meant to be a game of ebbs and flows, of dominance swapped and wrestled. This was no such thing, it was death by hypnotism.

It didn’t just lull the Irish players into submission. Those fabulous fans in green fell under the same spell. Now and again, they shook themselves into exhortations of support but they were fleeting outbreaks and lacked the conviction of old until the very end when their voices swept up and into the Baltic Sea air.

It was a rare uplifting moment.

Most will have sat in armchairs or on bar stools watching as Barcelona or Spain do their thing but taking it all in from the stadium adds an extra dimension to it all. It was mesmeric and magical and last night it was Ireland’s turn to suffer.

Full-backs playing as wingers; Gerard Pique storming up the Irish endline; Xavi Hernandez or Xabi Alonso falling back as the last man to cover an increasingly isolated Robbie Keane and behind them all a world-class keeper in Iker Casillas.

There were no ifs or buts this time. Watching Ireland at the best of times is to accept that they will suffer on the ropes for what you always fear will be one round too many but not even Russia, in that 3-2 defeat in Dublin, pummelled them like this.

All that is left now is for Ireland to hang around and fulfil their obligations.

We talked about them doing a Greece, prayed that they could do a Switzerland or a Chelsea, but none of those scenarios have come to pass and the focus — even now, in the midst of one major tournament — needs to be on the next one.

Trapattoni has stood by his regulars, and admirably so, through the two years or so of this European championship campaign, but the road to Rio needs to start on Monday — not in August’s friendly in Belgrade or in Kazakhstan a month later.

The calls for James McClean to be unleashed from the start have been long and loud and should be listened to.

Others, such as Shane Long or even Darron Gibson, would gain more benefit from an extended run against Italy than Robbie Keane or Glenn Whelan would another 90 minutes.

The prospects of Trapattoni taking a scalpel to his side are negligible but one or two surgical incisions would at least confirm that he has processed the two losses and moved on but it is difficult to see him doing so with the Azzurri on the horizon.

Yet, if nothing else, it would perhaps invigorate a squad that has been together now since May 20. Some players have been training, eating, sleeping and training for the guts of four weeks without kicking a ball in anger.

They need a lift, something to cling to.

We all do.