OK, here we are. The moment we’ve all been waiting for: Ireland at a major tournament, for real, in front of our eyes. Strap yourselves in and enjoy the ride: this could just turn out to be the most unforgettable summer of our sporting lives.

Sure, we are not entering completely uncharted waters. Ireland have participated at major tournaments before, the bulk of them during a glorious six-year spell (1988-1994) when it briefly seemed as if these summertime adventures might become a regular feature of our lives. The awareness that we were living through a Golden Age in Irish football history wasn’t lost on anybody at the time, but for those of us old enough to remember, it is still gobsmacking to look back on USA ’94, eighteen entire summers ago, and realise that we’ve made it to the finals of just ONE major tournament since. And though in many ways Ireland acquitted themselves quite wonderfully in Japan in 2002, the memory is still entirely dominated by the horrible saga of Roy Keane’s epic temper-tantrum and subsequent walkout.
The lean years have been far leaner than we’d feared: eight qualifying campaigns, seven of them failures. In the dying embers of Big Jack’s reign and the early days of Mick McCarthy’s tenure, Ireland were in transition, with our players either too old, too young or not good enough, and it is maybe for the best that we missed out on Euro ’96 and France ’98. There was no excuse for not getting through two years later, when failure to defend a corner kick against Macedonia in stoppage-time was all that stood between Ireland and a place at the Finals. We plumbed some real depths during the qualifying campaigns for 2004, 2006 and 2008. And the cruellest cut of all came two-and-a-half years ago, when the Thierry Henry incident prevented us from joining the global party in South Africa. At times, many of us will have wondered privately whether we’d ever live to see Ireland reach the summit again. But... here we are.
Do you, dear reader, ever experience vivid REM dream sequences in which you are watching Ireland play at a World Cup or Euro finals, before the alarm clock intrudes and your wife elbows you in the ribs to remind you to get up and go to work? Foul Play most certainly has done. Not every night, you understand, or even every few weeks, but I have been periodically beset by such visions down the years, and I’m quite sure I’m not the only one. I will admit to being far more emotionally engaged with sport than most sane people, with Man City and Hibernian having put me through a psychic roller-coaster for the last nine months in very different ways, but NOTHING is more important to me than the Ireland national team. I mean no offence to my three children when I point out that Ireland’s win over Italy on June 18th 1994 remains, to this day, an extremely strong contender for The Happiest Day Of My Life (admittedly, there may have been other reasons; it was the summer of Doves and Buckfast after all). Indeed, I’ve often had ample cause to doubt that it would ever get that good again.
So, the decision to go to Poland this summer was a total no-brainer. It may be another ten years before we have an opportunity like this, and life is short. Foul Play booked flights to Warsaw last December, about fifteen minutes before the Finals draw was made. Six months down the line, much to the dismay of Mrs. Foul Play, I have spectacularly failed to organise the trip efficiently. Accommodation in Warsaw is sorted, but the actual football happens to be taking place in Poznan and Gdansk, which are many miles away and full of hotels charging preposterously extortionate rates. I have procured tickets for the Italy match, but none for the clash with Spain, leaving me potentially at the mercy of unscrupulous touts. Worst of all, at the time of writing, my return flight is scheduled to clash precisely with Ireland’s third and decisive Group game against the Italians. I will change it, of course. But with only two weeks to go, I really should get my skates on and do it NOW.
So: what of the football? Well, for many months now, Giovanni Trapattoni will have been racking his brains, trying to work out if there is any earthly way we can negotiate a passage beyond a thoroughly forbidding first-round Group which features world and European champions Spain, the eternally formidable Italians, and the deeply dangerous Croatians, all three of whom have been and continue to be semi-permanent fixtures in the top 10 of FIFA’s world rankings. Anytime we’ve reached major tournaments before, it has always been all right on the night, and on the last three occasions, we’ve managed to clear the first round.
But we really do have a colossal mountain to climb this time, as evidenced by the bookies’ odds of 1/5 on that we will be knocked out in the first round. Here we enter the zone where pure faith takes over: we know in our hearts that a central midfield consisting of Keith Andrews and Glenn Whelan will not be the envy of the other 15 teams. And with the team set up the way it is, we are fully aware also that Ireland will almost certainly spend a large majority of the time not in possession of the ball.
But we still believe. We look at Shay Given, Richard Dunne, Damien Duff and Robbie Keane, footballers of enormous distinction whose efforts down the years absolutely deserve to be crowned with a glorious flourish on a stage as elevated as this. In most cases, they are perhaps two or three years past their peak. But we look at them and we know instinctively that they won’t let us down. If we’re beaten by better teams, so be it. But we’re not thinking defeat or damage-limitation, and neither will they. It is in the nature of the sport that you often only need one goal to win, and superpowers have been humbled before at the Euros – while the so-called ‘little guys’ have risen to seize the day. Denmark became European champions in 1992, Greece did it in 2004. And now, it’s our turn.
Bring it on. Let the rest of Europe tremble.

GROUP A

Instantly strikes you as by far the least ‘sexy’ of the four sections (in terms of the footballing nations involved, if not their womenfolk). Hosts POLAND, 2004 kingpins GREECE, RUSSIA and the CZECH REPUBLIC are set to slug this one out, and with the possible exception of the mysterious Russkies, none of them would be on anyone’s shortlist of likely tournament winners.
Russia got to this stage with little difficulty, topping Ireland’s group and eviscerating us twice on truly terrifying evenings where they seemed to be playing on a different planet to us. They raced into a 3-0 lead at Lansdowne before we mounted a stirring comeback to render the final scoreline faintly respectable (3-2) and then massacred us once more in Moscow on an evening where Richard Dunne, acting virtually as a one-man Iron Curtain, somehow stemmed the tide and enabled us to escape with an almost obscene point. The sheer quality in Russia’s precision passing game became abundantly clear over those 180 minutes, and if they can replicate that level of performance, they will be a match for anybody.
They do, however, have frequent off-days and a thoroughly dismal recent record in major tournaments, the exception being four years ago when they forged an impressive path to the semi-finals. Their main man then, Andriy Arshavin, is not quite the player he was, and even at his peak had a propensity to go missing on the big occasions. Regular Premiership-watchers will be acquainted with strikers Roman Pavyluchenko (formerly of Spurs) and Pavel Pogrebnyak (recently on loan at Fulham), both of whom are currently being kept out of the side by Zenit’s Alexander Kerzhakov. Lack of cover at centre-back aside, it’s a strong line-up which should make the quarter-finals.
For historical reasons, one suspects Poland and the Czechs will not be short of motivation to give the Russians a bloody nose, though grave doubts exist over whether they have the ammunition to do so. Greece might be easy to dismiss had they landed in a tougher group, but they are widely respected for their defensive qualities. Since conquering the continent in 2004 with a succession of dreary 1-0 wins, they have predictably failed to live up to those standards: they didn’t make it to the 2006 World Cup and looked pretty shocking at the Finals of 2008 and 2010. With all due respect, there is scant evidence that they will reverse the trend this summer.
Home advantage possibly gives Poland a slight edge over the Czechs if the pair are to scrap it out for second spot. It’s been an age since Poland did anything worthwhile at international level, but things are surely looking brighter recently. The spine of the team (right-back Lukasz Piszczek, right-winger Jakub Blaszczykowski and striker Robert Lewandowski) have been in wondrous form all season for what is rapidly emerging as a brilliant Borussia Dortmund team, and Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny represents a massive improvement on his immediate predecessor for club and country (Lukasz Fabianski). The Czechs, by contrast, have the look of also-rans. They required a pile-up of scandalous refereeing decisions to nose past Scotland and claim a play-off spot, and though the immense presence of Chelsea’s Petr Cech between the sticks entitles them to fancy their chances of frustrating anybody, the line-up looks conspicuously short of star quality.

Prediction: Russia to lead the way, with Poland following them into the last eight.

GROUP B

Is the killer of the four, the official ‘Group of Death’ without which no tournament would be complete. DENMARK may be quite accurately perceived as occupying broadly a similar place in the soccering firmament to Ireland, though they did win the trophy in 1992 with a stunning smash-and-grab raid; but their three opponents (PORTUGAL, HOLLAND and GERMANY) are cast-iron contenders to go all the way.
The Portuguese are a hard one to call: prodigiously talented, temperamentally a little suspect, and an absolute joy to watch in full flight. The undeniable obnoxiousness of their shining star, Cristiano Ronaldo (of Man United fame until summer 2009) shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the fact that he will be probably the single most dazzling talent on display this summer (what with Lionel Messi being Argentinian, and unlikely to procure his Irish passport in time for the Finals).
Ronaldo has hit the heights on a weekly basis for Real Madrid this season: capable equally of zig-zagging his way through massed defences with a spectacular slalom down the wing or firing in 25-yard thunderbolts before the opposing keeper has had time to blink, his presence would give Portugal a fighting chance even if he was surrounded by nobodies, which he’s not. His compatriot and one-time Man U team-mate Nani, despite occasional tendencies towards selfishness, is a consistently effective force, and if both hit top form, Portugal will be better-served for penetrating wing play than any of the other 15 finalists. Their Achilles heel for most of the last decade has been chronically wasteful finishing and a lack of cutting edge, and the jury is still very much out on ex-Spurs striker Helder Postiga, but if the two flying machines on the wings can assume the responsibility of finishing as well as creating chances, they could go a long way.
Holland have to be potential winners, with talent of the calibre of Wesley Sneijder (Inter Milan), Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich) and the Premiership’s best striker, Arsenal’s Robin van Persie on board. The legendary aesthetic beauty of Holland’s play, a byword since the 1970s, is now allied with plenty of beast, with midfield terriers Marc van Bommel and Nigel de Jong quick to use fair means or foul – mostly foul – to stop opponents in their tracks. For a nation whose contribution to global soccer has been immense, Holland have historically under-achieved, with Euro ’88 remaining their only victory at a major Finals (even then, Ireland came within nine minutes of knocking them out before a horribly fortuitous and blatantly offside goal from Wim Kieft). The reason has usually been a bout of toxic in-fighting in the camp, but this Dutch gang seem unified enough, reached the World Cup Final two years ago and came very close to taking Spain to penalties. Sneijder’s form all season has been quite wretched by his elevated standards, but this team has every chance of taking the prize.
They will get to resume their ferocious rivalry with the Germans, who have emphatically bounced back to their usual selves in recent years after a spell of relative under-achievement. At the Final four years ago and again in the World Cup semi of 2010, they eventually succumbed to a Spanish side who would have beaten anything put in front of them; now, with the possibility that sheer exhaustion might catch up with Spain after years of almost non-stop football, Germany look primed to pounce. Their Bayern Munich contingent (keeper Manuel Neuer, full-back and captain Philipp Lahm, midfield powerhouse Bastian Schweinsteiger and strikers Thomas Muller and Mario Gomez) gives them an incredibly strong spine, and though Gomez’ clumsy display in the recent Champions League Final suggests veteran Miroslav Klose may still be their best bet for goals, Germany are indisputably a force to be feared rather than respected.

Prediction: Anything could happen here, but the safest bets to emerge are Germany and Holland, in that order.

GROUP C

Of course, is the one all eyes are focused on. And it’s tough, very tough. There is virtually unanimous agreement among pundits, bookies, fans, players and managers that SPAIN are nailed-on certainties to come through, most likely in first place. Indeed, let’s not kid ourselves here: the Spanish have more than earned the right to be viewed as the tournament’s likeliest winners, the dragon everyone else will need to slay, the supreme practitioners of the Beautiful Game.
They won this tournament four years ago in swashbuckling style and, two years later, seized the World Cup gold medal, the almighty efficiency of their precision passing game ensuring that they monopolised possession of the ball in every single match. Barcelona, since Pep Guardiola took over in 2008, have re-defined the modern game by playing a stunningly effective and aesthetically delightful brand of soccer which leaves opponents chasing shadows and carves out chance after chance: garnish that with the finest Real Madrid have had to offer, and you’ve got the recipe for Spain’s total world domination over the last four years. Their expansiveness on the ball has been allied to an unrelenting work ethic off it, pressing quickly to recover possession and usually succeeding: indeed, it was their defence which really made the difference in 2010, giving away one goal in the whole seven-game campaign.
If the ‘unbeatable Spain’ hypothesis proves true, this will leave CROATIA, IRELAND and ITALY scrapping it out for second spot. There is much to be worried about here for Irish fans, but no cause for abject terror – and there is ample evidence both historically and in the recent past (since Trap took charge in 2008) that we actually may be at our best when facing nominally superior teams in high-stakes situations. Theoretically it would be possible to lose to Spain and still progress with drawn games against the other two, but this would require three other results to all go in our favour, so if Spain do manage to outwit us, in all likelihood we will need at least one win from the other two games to harbour hopes of progressing.
Most observers reckon our best chance of obtaining one will be from our opening joust with the Croatians, an amply talented if strangely mercurial crew who have racked up some fantastic results in recent years, and will be strongish favourites to put us in our place. But there is, happily, no overwhelmingly compelling logic that obliges Ireland fans to prepare for defeat here. The Croatian public appear to have fallen out of love with manager Slaven Bilic, seen as a little too matey with a clique of senior players, and the general feedback from Croatian soccer observers is quite pessimistic. Their line-up is strong, but not intimidating: the teams’ last meeting was a 0-0 friendly draw in which Croatia dominated possession for lengthy spells without ever carving our defence apart, and it is not at all difficult to imagine the imminent Poznan match following a similar pattern and ending in a similar outcome.
The Italians will take us on in the last match in Poznan on June 18th, with Foul Play in attendance, on a night when all parties will know exactly what permutations are required in order to progress. Ideally, the match will provide an opportunity to reshuffle the line-up and give our fringe players ‘game time’ because we will have already qualified with two wins, but one suspects it will not be as straightforward as that.
I’m going to take a leap of the imagination and speculate that the first two games (Italy-Spain and Ireland-Croatia) will be drawn, and if Spain then beat us in the interim (by no means a certainty), it will be a case of Signor Trapattoni absolutely needing to mastermind a victory over the nation of his birth. Far preferable would be a situation where Ireland only require a draw, which may well suffice if two or three (or preferably, four) points have been garnered from the opening skirmishes. With this Ireland team, you would fancy us to get a draw against almost anyone, but despair of actually winning: Trap’s record of two losses in 24 competitive games in charge speaks volumes for our general indomitability, but it also includes 11 draws, and the awkward truth remains that we haven’t yet beaten anyone of any great stature, unless you stop the counting after 90 minutes of the Paris play-off in 2009.
Are we capable of beating Italy? It may be better to invert the question and ponder whether Italy have it within themselves to lose to us, and there is precedent for this happening at major Finals before. They arrived at the World Cup two years ago as reigning champions and managed to finish bottom of a Group that contained New Zealand, Paraguay and Slovakia. Many of the personnel on that occasion are still involved: bullet-hard midfield enforcer Daniele De Rossi and gifted playmaker/dead-ball specialist Andrea Pirlo didn’t earn their World Cup medals in ’06 by being anything short of first-rate, while the emergence of prodigy Mario Balotelli upfront adds a new dimension, though this could go either way. Still only 21, Balotelli’s timing, running and finishing could equip him to become one of the all-time great strikers, but there is a more than large question mark over his discipline and general temperament, and he can resemble a red card waiting to happen on days when frustration gets the better of him.
The Italians were never seriously tested in a weak qualifying group, conceding a miserly two goals in nine games, but that stat belies the fact that they no longer resemble the defensive machine of old: this side is, if anything, attacking in outlook and should afford Ireland at least the occasional sniff at goal.
We can draw huge encouragement from the fact that our second-string side beat them 2-0 last summer in a friendly on neutral turf, and we should – approach this contest without fear or excessive caution. If you’re looking for omens, the match will take place exactly 18 years to the day since we trounced them in Giants Stadium at the ’94 World Cup. A repeat here would offer Ireland fans sweet, sweet redemption after all the travails we’ve endured since.

Prediction: Spain to win the group. So, who will finish second? Come on, be serious. Who the fuck do you think I’m going for?

GROUP D

SWEDEN, ENGLAND, UKRAINE and FRANCE. For the first time in living memory, England enter a major Finals thoroughly unburdened by the ‘England Expects’ guff that has weighed heavily around their heads on previous occasions. In fact, no sane pundit among the UK press has dared to suggest they’re about to win the thing, and there appears to be a general consensus that everyone would be broadly happy if they secured a quarter-final spot.
Their preparation has, on the face of it, been less than ideal, with the manager (Fabio Capello) quitting in acrimonious circumstances three months before the Finals, and his successor (the unassuming Roy Hodgson, a cerebral sort who is light-years removed from the conventional stereotype of the English soccer manager) taking office only a month before the tournament starts.
Nonetheless, this may be far preferable to entering the tournament gung-ho and brimful of optimism with the bullish backing of Fleet Street’s finest ringing in the players’ ears. It is doubtful to say the least that England will have enough about them to go all the way, but you wouldn’t be completely stunned to see them embark on a decent run.
Player-for-player, this is not one of England’s strongest line-ups. They should be reasonably capable at the back, with three-quarters of the Chelsea back four which stormed to Champions League glory over the last few months (Gary Cahill, John Terry, Ashley Cole). The worry is up front, where Wayne Rooney will be suspended for the first two games. A lively debate continues to rage over whether Daniel Sturridge, Danny Welbeck or Ashley Young will assume the lone-forward position. Welbeck should and probably will get the nod, but the team will still be greatly diminished without their Scouse talisman, who will return in time for the deciding group game against Ukraine, by which time we should have a fair idea how their campaign is unfolding. Theo Walcott, Frank Lampard and Stevie Gerrard have repeatedly underwhelmed at international level, and Man City’s midfield water-carriers (Gareth Barry and James Milner) are hardly the sort to turn a game on its head.
Still, England are nowhere near as bad as the more hysterical teeth-gnashing of their tabloids would lead you to believe, and a spine of Hart, Terry, Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney ought to be capable of going a long way in any tournament. But better England vintages than this have malfunctioned when it really mattered, and with the live prospect of them running into Ireland in the quarter-finals, there would be no better time for them to do so. Roy Hodgson will hopefully get through the summer without becoming a national hate figure, but the knighthood and open-topped bus procession through Trafalgar Square might have to wait for another few years.
The co-hosts, Ukraine, have shown little in recent years to suggest that they will stick around to the business end of the tournament, though they did reach the World Cup quarter-finals in ’06, and home advantage in sweltering heat will be no little benefit. One Achilles heel may be the reportedly atrocious relations between the team’s Dynamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk contingents – all three of their games will take place in those two cities – and with the forward line being led by Andriy Shevchenko, several years past his peak at 35, the general consensus is that getting through the Group would be viewed as a triumph. The Swedes will be as doughty as ever, and Zlatan Ibramovich is a striker to bear comparison with any on earth. Nonetheless, a starting line-up drawn from Sunderland (Seb Larsson), Blackburn (Martin Olsson), West Brom (Jonas Olsson) and clubs such as Olympiakos and Elfsborg will have to excel itself to nose out France and England. You wouldn’t rule it out, and a bang in-form Ibrahimovich could enable them to trouble anyone, but their defensive record in the last couple of years is not all that encouraging.
In the betting ring for Euro 2012, with obvious front-runners Spain (5/2) and Germany (3/1) available at the sort of prices which require you to risk a fairly big chunk in order to win anything worthwhile, Foul Play’s eyes keep on being drawn to the French at a tasty 12/1. They couldn’t possibly disgrace themselves any more than they did at the last World Cup, crashing to miserable defeats against Mexico and South Africa, as if fully aware that they’d no right to be there in the first place after Thierry Henry’s sleight of hand against the Irish.
Since then, the spring-cleaning process has been extensive and, on all the evidence, regenerative. No-marks like Gignac, Gourcoff and Toulalan have been discarded, as has the coach who had been mismanaging them spectacularly since 2004 (Raymond Domenech). His successor, ’98 World Cup winner and Man United legend Laurent Blanc, is in the pleasing position of witnessing an emerging crop of talent which may yet have the steel and skill to emulate the planet-conquering team of 1998-2000. Premiership-watchers have been marvelling all season long at the Newcastle pairing of Hatem Ben Arfa and Yohan Cabaye, but they’ll face stiff competition for places from players as accomplished as playmaker Samir Nasri (not at his best this season for Man City, but a wondrous sight on his better days), Bayern Munich’s lavishly talented Franck Ribery and tricky Chelsea winger Florent Malouda. The back four is solid and battle-hardened, and up front, Real Madrid’s explosive Karim Benzema will enjoy firing the bullets. If it all comes together, and they start off on the right foot against England, this team has enough talent, workrate and honesty to do so in style.

Prediction: England and France look accomplished enough to get through this one. And if Ireland progress to the last eight, our opponents will come from this section.