Modric and Co looking for one last dance against Spain's young guns

Albania play the Ireland role at Euro 2024. 

Croatia's Luka Modric, left, talks to Croatia's head coach Zlatko Dalic. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

David Squires, the peerless football cartoonist, was tasked with chronicling the story of the Euros in historical objects for The Guardian this week. When it came to his instalment from 2012 he zeroed straight in on Group C, that tournament’s undisputed group of death, but focused his pencil on the team that finished rock bottom.

Above a drawing of a sea of arms raising aloft a pair of black brogues and a fluttering shamrock sock, the caption read “John Delaney’s shoes and socks — lost while the FAI CEO was being carried back to his hotel in Sopot, expertly reinforcing his reputation as a professional operator and underlining the fact Ireland weren’t just there for the party”.