TIPPING POINT:Euro 2012 is almost upon us and we'll soon be reminded that the Ireland soccer team has an ability to grab us by the collective throat like nothing else, writes MALACHY CLERKIN

EAMON DUNPHY tells a story about arriving back from Italia ’90. His plane got in to Dublin Airport about half an hour ahead of the Ireland team that had grabbed the country by its ankles over the previous three weeks and dangled it from the rooftop of its own sanity. If you’d called Dunphy Public Enemy Number One back then, it would have implied that there was a Number Two somewhere. There wasn’t – he was the beginning and the end of the list. And half the country was milling around the airport.

Dunphy and a friend of his made it to his Honda Civic without major incident but the traffic was in treacle so a quick getaway was out. When he got to the first roundabout out on the main road, the crowd lining the road spotted him in the driver’s seat and for a few minutes things started to get hairy. Some have-a-go heroes came over and started rocking the car and when others stepped in to tell them to wise up and stop it, Dunphy sent his friend off to find a Garda.

The situation had cooled off a bit when two women came over to his window and asked if they could take a photo with him. “No problem,” he said as he wound the window down. The women leaned in and smiled for the snap, all palsy-walsy. And when it was done, one of them turned and shouted in the window: “Now, f**k off, ya little bollix!”

We are all football pundits now. It was Dunphy and Gilesie and Italia ’90 that made us this way. We’re the oul’ wan at the checkout in Roddy Doyle’s The Van, merrily pronouncing upon Ireland’s chances against Romania and pointing out that they’re bunched since Lacatus got that second yellow against Argentina. We know what we like and what we like is showing what we know.

Giovanni Trapattoni announces his squad for the European finals today and while we’re not quite at Italia ’90 levels of engagement yet, it’s a fair bet that if you’re reading this you’ve used the name James McClean in conversation over the past weeks and months. You held him up as the latest sign that Trap is a dangerously dotty man to guide our footballing fortunes. Either that, or you’ve asked accusingly where all the McClean lovers were when he was just another leggy turn at the Brandywell. Whatever the make-up of Trap’s squad today, McClean will be one of the first questions fired at him in the press conference.

It has been ever thus since Trap took over. The comical vignette in his interview with Paddy Agnew in these pages on Saturday – wherein a young Irish chef upbraided the old Italian for not picking McClean even though he (the chef) had never seen him play – wouldn’t have surprised anyone. From Andy Reid to Stephen Ireland to James McCarthy, from Marc Wilson to Wes Hoolahan to Anthony Pilkington to Seamus Coleman. Pick a name, any name and it’s been laid in front of him like a trump in a hand of 25. Trap has always just shrugged like he has the ace of hearts in reserve.

In a way, it’s been highly enjoyable to watch him float above our churning outrage. Trap seems to enjoy playing the role of amused uncle who knows his nieces and nephews will tire themselves out eventually with all their running and rioting.

On the night he gave McClean his debut against the Czech Republic, we were taking bets in the press box over whether or not he’d actually do it, given that Coleman and McCarthy had both had the rug pulled out from under their prospective debuts in the past couple of years. When he did it, the roar that greeted McClean was unmistakeably directed at Trapattoni more so than at the Sunderland winger.

We don’t do this in other sports. How often is it said over the course of a Six Nations that Declan Kidney is a conservative coach? Hundreds? Thousands? And yet where is the whistling outrage from the Aviva crowd when a Conor Murray or a Felix Jones has to wait his turn? Where’s the nightly text campaign to get a Craig Gilroy or a Paul Marshall capped? It doesn’t exist in any significant way.

That’s because, fond and all as we’ve become of the rugby, we are not a nation of Hooks and Popes. The game is annexing more and more of our existence with each passing season but we’re still not there yet. For at least eight days next month, we’ll be reminded that the Ireland soccer team has an ability to grab us by the collective throat like nothing else. The three games at the Euros are at 7.45 in the evening and we already know that will be a week of talking football last thing at night and first thing in the morning. A glorious madness, whatever the results.

Football pundits all, that’s what we are. We had it easy in Steve Staunton’s day because everything was so obviously on its ear and we could gravely shake our heads at the latest San Marino or Cyprus farrago. But now results are decent, and we’ve taken our place among the nations of the continent again, we’ve had to find new nits to pick. Which is how the choice or non-choice of kid with five goals and three assists in 22 games for Sunderland gets to be a point of finger-jabbing conflict.

Here’s a thing. Maybe a solution to the whole problem comes in the post from Jack Charlton’s Ireland in the build-up to Italia ’90. Some day when you have an idle hour, flick back through the squads that went to that World Cup – 23 of the 24 countries sent squads made up of three goalkeepers and 19 outfield players (there were only 22 in each squad back then). Every country except one. Ever the artful dodger, Charlton named Niall Quinn as his third goalkeeper behind Packie Bonner and Gerry Peyton.

The mad thing is that barely anyone noticed at the time. Or if they did, nobody made a fuss. The rules were eventually changed in time for the 2002 World Cup, with squad numbers extended to 23 and each country having to name three keepers. So we probably wouldn’t get away with it this time around.

But couldn’t you just see Trap turning up today and naming McClean and McCarthy in the squad, with the number 23 against Coleman’s name and David Forde’s nowhere to be seen? And Trap feigning innocence and bewilderment whenever he’s asked about it?

Ah, it would never work. Too many pundits these days, too many fingers to point it out.