Ireland fans in Prague: "International football is the most glacial form of disappointment. But you just know we’ll be back"

“Unmeasurable forces have manipulated our lives since the beginning,” reads a blurb outside the Franz Kafka museum. No Irish fan drifting around Prague this morning is in the mood for existential literature.
Supporting the Irish men’s football team is by its nature Kafkaesque. Drawn-out qualifying campaigns, Nations League structures no one understands, losses in decrepit stadiums, new managers, false dawns, and just the right amount of hope before it’s snatched away.
But perhaps that’s the wrong lens to look through. We weren’t even meant to be here. Before Portugal came to Dublin in November, it was about how many we’d lose by. Then Troy Parrott gave us hope. The team ultimately took the scenic route, as did these fans in Prague, via complex webs of connecting flights and train journeys.

Our odyssey starts 36 hours earlier, at 4am at the kitsch-paddy pub in Terminal 2 of Dublin Airport, where friends are hugging and high-fiving to the sound of loud ‘wheeeys’. We’re booked on a flight to Germany, to get a train to Czechia, for a match that none of us have a ticket for.

The vacuum-packed breakfast wrap sits in the stomach like mortar, as a pink sunrise wakes me on the descent into Berlin. You can see the TV tower from up here and the sense of history takes over. The war. The wall and its fall. Iggy and Bowie and Zidane’s headbutt.

Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof is a five-storey cauldron of train platforms and shopping centres. Odours of doner and fast food are strong, and a few chirpy Corkonians go straight over to a currywurst stand, to get loaded up with meat and a bottle of beer at 10 in the morning.

I make my way down into the inferno to platform 3. The train pulls in, I find a seat, and within a minute a German woman in hiking gear comes over, and looks at me like I’ve committed some local mortal sin. As far as I’m aware, I haven’t crossed the street on a red or recycled incorrectly.

“Hast du das reserviert?” she asks rhetorically.

I’ve come too far to argue, so I shuffle to the end of the train, where there’s an empty four-seater opposite two young journalists from the national broadcaster. They were meant to be three, but their buddy couldn’t find his passport this morning. Sickener, but his mates don’t seem too sorry for him.

A fella from Tipp overhears us and joins in. He has a ticket he could buy, but it’s in the home section and there are rumours they won’t let Irish fans in.

“Not worth risking 250 quid on,” he muses. “Sure the craic will be in the pubs anyway.”

He’s a season ticket holder. These games are a way for him and his mates to keep up. He’ll be moving to Thailand with his family soon, and you get the feeling there won’t be many of these trips left.

“We’re meant to be heading over to Bangkok in June,” he adds. “But I told the missus if we qualify, she’ll have to wait.”

After four hours passing through the Elbe Valley and Bohemia, our train pulls into Prague. The city is going about its business; you wouldn’t know there was a match on.

That’s until I meet up with some old friends and the green bedlam of Old Town Square reveals itself. It resembles a Christmas market, full of stalls selling beer and sausages. Irish fans are dancing and chanting as tricolours fly from lampposts and balconies.

Green army in Prague

The square is ringed by impossibly beautiful buildings, the showpiece of which is the Astronomical Clock: a 600-year-old mechanical masterpiece that maps the movements of the sun, moon and zodiac. The hour strikes and a skeleton figure rings a bell, while other figures representing vanity, greed and lust shake their heads. The Apostles appear in windows above the clock, before the spectacle ends with a crowing rooster.

Irish fans underneath are throwing a rubber horse head in the air and cheering every time someone catches it. Then someone’s shoe gets launched towards the sky and lands atop a gazebo.

“I think we’re going to do them,” says one fan, whose oversized top hat is falling off. “With the momentum behind us, how do we lose? I don’t want this to come back and haunt me. I can see it going to extra time or penos.”

It’s his 29th Away Day, but he’s too young to have ever seen Ireland at a World Cup. Before I laud his commitment, he points to his mate, who’s wobbly.

“I came from Perth. I just came, like, fuck that. Whatever, like,” he croaks. “We were meant to go with Qatar. Never go with Qatar Airways, useless. Long trip. Long. But I couldn’t miss this.”

ET looks for a VAR review.

GREETED WITH ROARS

When it quietens down, it dawns on us that we need somewhere to watch this match. The Irish bars near the square have been packed since 10am, so we don’t bother. Someone in the group who’s been here before says there’s a massive sports bar with 50 screens not too far away.

The caveat is it’s called The Londoner.

It doesn’t go down well with the pilsner and patriotism. A Dub in a tricolour clown wig outright refuses, but comes around when he’s reminded that it’s an hour until kickoff and we’re still stranded and screenless.

We arrive and The Londoner is full of green. In the basement, four lads in Donegal and Celtic shirts are red-faced and strung out on the sofas in front of the big screen, like they’re in a kif den in Tangiers. One of them musters some energy and leads the chants by bashing his uncoordinated fist against the wall.

RTE show Shay Given pitchside and he’s greeted with roars, followed by silence as the room realises this is actually happening. The anthems come on and people well up.

It kicks off and we can’t quite believe how well Ireland are playing. The Czechs don’t want it. Every throw-in or foul won is cheered like a goal. Collins swipes at one and it cracks the bar. Fuck.

Another long throw and Collins goes for it again. He’s been nicked. Surely ref. He goes to the screen. He gives it. Parrott with nerves of a triple-welded alloy. The Londoner vibrates.

Somehow it’s two-nil before 25 minutes are gone. It’s a horrible goal but that doesn’t matter. Beer is being thrown around and that doesn’t matter either, because the pints are cheap and we smell like it anyway.

Then the referee points to the spot in the wrong box. It looks like a dive at first but the replay shows a shirt pull. They score and half-time comes as a reprieve.

The second half is an ugly blur of half-chances. Molumby hits the post. Parrott gets onto a flick-on which their keeper saves. It’s tense but there’s a belief we might hold out.
A Czech corner. It’s a good ball in and a collective utterance of ‘bollocks’ ripples through the room. Heads are in hands as the air is sucked out of our lair.

When the referee blows for full time, the chants start up again with an undertow of desperation. Extra-time is a slog and now we’re settling for penalties even though we were two-up.

WORSE THAN A FUNERAL

Some can’t watch. Neck and neck until Kelleher saves one and the basement shakes harder than it did for the goals. Then Azaz misses. Then they score. Then Browne misses too. Their lad buries it in the top corner, and that second goal feels so long ago now.

It’s worse than a funeral here. The Irish don’t really mind funerals. Out on the street there’s anger. One lad sends a line of Lime bikes over like dominos. Another is crying. Some curse Ryan Manning. Most are silent.

The next morning is a gorgeous, cloudless day. Red Irish faces are scattered around Old Town Square, hunched over tables with sunglasses on and their voices gone. Not many want to chat. Those that can stomach it are optimistic.

“That was probably one of the best matches I’ve ever been to. We were booking Dublin when we went 2-0 up,” says a gentleman who’s due back in LA for work on Monday. “The team is solid. I’m impressed. I like the manager. I can’t fault the team man, they gave it everything. I’m still all in.”

That evening we walk up to the castle on the hill. The sun is sinking behind the fortress above and we’re the only souls on the narrow staircase, save for a busker whistling Sinatra’s ‘Strangers In The Night’ over jazz guitar.

International football is the most glacial form of disappointment. There is no next year. No rebounds. But you just know we’ll be back. The unmeasurable forces say so.

Franz Kafka: even he didn’t know what Ryan Manning was thinking.