Right then. Dust off the jersey. The FIFA calendar for the 2025 World Cup & Euro Qualifiers is upon us. It’s a proper football imbroglio, a real double-whammy campaign to get to both big shows.
The Boys in Green face a thorny path. Are there ever easy matches? From the Aviva in Dublin to some godforsaken pitch in Eastern Europe, it’ll be a test of mettle. You just know we’ll draw some behemoth like France or the Netherlands, its always the way. Remember Italia ’90? That still smarts a bit. Toto Schillaci. A national villain. This feels different though, the hope is back.
The first matches kick off in March, the tension will be palpable everyone feels it. Each game is a cup final. We must get off to a flyer. No time for faffing about. This isn’t a dress rehearsal.
So, start saving your euros for that away trip. Or at least for a few pints down the local to roar at the telly. This is our grand chance to dine at the top table again. Let’s not make a complete pig’s ear of it this time. COYBIG
▶ Our Quadrennial Kerfuffle
Ah, the draw. A ritual humiliation, live on television. You just know the football gods are having a giggle as they concoct our group. It’ll be some juggernaut we can’t possibly beat, a maddeningly disciplined Scandinavian side, and a jaunt to somewhere icy on a Wednesday. It’s a tale as old as time itself.
You save up your shekels, pay a fortune for a ticket. And for what? To relive a national trauma? It’s the phantom limb of Irish football, that Henry handball. Mention it in any pub from Cork to Donegal and you’ll still hear a groan. Sheer, unadulterated skulduggery, that was. And we’re still paying the price.
Still, we’ll be there. The players, they just need to show a bit of gumption. This whole mad dash on the road to Euro 2026 is more about heart than anything. We dont expect miracles. Just a bit of fight. A lucky deflection. A goal that goes in off someone’s backside. We’re not proud. We’ll take it.
▶ The Last Gauntlet
And so it comes to this. The final matches in this whole 2025 World Cup & Euro Qualifiers shambles. The nights are drawing in. Real, damp, bone-chilling cold that gets inside your coat and stays there. You’re stood on the terrace, watching the lads hoof it about, and you genuinely start to question your own sanity. A tenner for a flat pint that tastes of regret. For what?
To see us struggle against some team of part-timers from a country you couldn’t find on a map. You see the ball bobble on that cursed Aviva pitch. You see another sideways pass. It’s a familiar ache, isnt it? A deep sigh that the whole row feels at once.
But you’ll go. I’ll go. We’ll all be there, giving out yards about the manager, the referee, the price of a sausage roll. It’s not about logic anymore. It’s just what you do on a Tuesday night in November. It’s our beautiful, frustrating, ridiculous burden. Suppose we wouldn’t have it any other way. Or maybe we would. Who knows.
- Never Mind the Bayerns, Here’s the Bundesliga - September 9, 2025
- That Italian Job: Your 2026 Football Punt - September 8, 2025
- That Purple Light and Other NBA Guff - September 4, 2025
