WOE! Woe! Woe! Hard times today and hard times ahead.
The Republic of Ireland dropped three crucial World Cup points here in Skopje, losing 3-2 to Macedonia in a performance of such comprehensive ineptitude that all future assignments at home and abroad look perilous.
The team occupies third place in its qualifying group, three points adrift of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Ireland are five points behind the group leaders Romania whom they have still to play at home and away. Not the stuff of dreams.
Having already dropped two points at home to Iceland late last year, Ireland must now hope to scrap for second place in qualifying group 8, thus keeping hope alive by proceeding to a two legged play off with one of seven other second placed teams in the European qualifying series. Victory in that playoff would provide Ireland with qualification for the World Cup finals in France next year.
Nobody told Mick McCarthy there would be days like these, days when his emotional investment in Irish soccer would yield such a bitter dividend, days when the minnows would bite back.
Yesterday his highly paid professionals from the highly hyped English league left the field in Skopje looking like comical fall guys stepping on big banana skins. Meanwhile, the Macedonians were bowing to the crowd over and over again like dizzy Eurovision winners.
This morning Mick McCarthy's team will evacuate Skopje in a trance. As his players pack up their troubles in their expensive kit bags, McCarthy must figure out a way to get Ireland back into contention for World Cup qualification.
Ireland, indistinguishable from 11 match stewards in their silly new orange jerseys, made the best possible start yesterday, scoring after nine minutes. Thereafter, it was disaster in dayglo as Ireland's tentative football allowed Macedonia back into the game.
Two penalties, both for handball and both converted by Macedonia's Mitko Stojkovski, closed the game down by half time.
The Macedonians, gathered in the towering cantilevered stand on one side of the ground, roared their surprised approval. Despite several respectable draws, Macedonia had never before beaten an acknowledged football power.
The Irish fans, fewer than 200 of them, tucked away in a corner of the stand, bit their nails and kept their counsel as the sun began to sink over the Vardar river.
France seemed a long long way away.