Comment: reality of Israel games will force uncomfortable questions

Heimir Hallgrimsson is preparing his set-up for a testing international window in the coming weeks.

POLITICAL FOOTBALL: Head coach Heimir Hallgrímsson speaks to the media during a Republic of Ireland men squad announcement. Pic: Ben McShane/Sportsfile

Heimir Hallgrimsson did his best to delay the inevitable. The Republic of Ireland manager likes to kick off press conferences with an opening address to the assembled media, and he held onto the ball for an age when naming his latest senior squad.

He filibustered for somewhere between eight and nine minutes after taking his seat on Thursday. It was a feat all the more impressive for the fact that, good as his English may be, it is not his first language. Come to think of it, he probably leaned in on that at times, too.

Another few seconds sundered.

The Ireland boss talked through his squad, gave his take on the summer camp held and on the games played at the back end of last season. He reminded us about how important this window is for the team, and the implications on seeding for the next Euro qualifiers.

His side hasn’t lost in seven games. The need to continue that “positive spiral” was pushed to the fore. And the FAI suits would have surely appreciated his brief take on how all that good stuff would feed into the association’s finances, perilous as they still are.

Six minutes passed before Israel was mentioned. Even then he stuck to football.

But it’s been seven months since Ireland and Israel were corralled together in Group 3 of the Nations League’s second-tier and there can be no more evading the fact that this is finally on the brink of happening despite the long campaign to have the fixtures boycotted.

Hallgrimsson comes across as a decent man. He has made clear his belief that Israel should be treated just as Russia was by football’s authorities after the invasion of Ukraine, but this political football is going to be his lot from here through to the first week of October.

The word that comes to mind for the next fortnight? Grim.

And that’s no bad thing.

The scene at FAI HQ for Hallgrimsson’s messaging was one of cold and corporate mundanity. Journalists checked in to be handed ID badges. Questions from the floor. Businesslike, stern faces squared up to a task difficult in all sorts of ways and on all sides.

Compare all that to the pageantry and projection of power that we witnessed in Doonbeg last weekend when US president Donald Trump stole the show at the Irish Open despite Shane Lowry’s sublime golf between the ropes.

Trump’s record in office, at home and abroad, is a catalogue of immoral alarm but he was feted in the club members’ bar on Saturday night and applauded onto the 18th green the next day where his Irish whiskey tariff promise capped off his PR blitz.

Here was the old Roman dictum of bread and circuses writ large on a modern stage: from his dramatic flyover in Air Force One to the landing in Marine One that interrupted play, and all the way through to his central role in the play on that final afternoon.

Odious he may be, but the man knows the value of spectacles and soundbites. You couldn’t look on at all this happening, in our backyard, with the yahooing of our own people, and not tweak that famous Karl Marx line about religion being the opiate for the masses.

It can only be good that there will be none of this distraction tossed like glitter across the two torturous weeks to come. There won’t be anyone dazzled by the backdrops in Debrecen in Hungary on Sunday week, or in Backala Tolola in Serbia seven days later.

The Israelis, clearly, won’t be launching any charm offensives.

The Hungary game, Israel’s ‘home’ tie, will play to a backdrop of a mostly empty stadium. The return, behind closed doors, will bring back memories of the pandemic when the voices of players and managers rung hollow in the void.

RTÉ’s coverage will be stripped back to the basics.

Different media are choosing different ways and means of covering the games. Or not. Journalists from some outlets have chosen not to attend or report on the fixtures. Others feel the need to be present, to ask questions and to record whatever happens for posterity.

It’s two-and-a-half years since Ireland’s women’s basketball side faced Israel in neutral Riga in a EuroBasket tie. James Weldon’s players opted not to shake hands with their opponents beforehand and stood off the court for the playing of the national anthems.

Five players had by then made the decision not to travel, Israeli player Dor Saar had accused the Irish of antisemitism, and her association had shared images of their team being visited by active members of the Israeli Defence Forces.

No Irish footballers have opted out of facing Israel in the weeks to come, and we can only wait and see if there are any gestures made or withheld in Hungary or Serbia, but there is no avoiding these games now and the questions they pose for every one of us.