Sideline Cut/Keith DugganIt is perhaps as well in the end that the bureaucrats of middle Europe decided that we hapless Irish didn't have it in us to stage three (or maybe even four) soccer internationals of reasonable prestige for a football festival that will take place towards the end of the decade.
As snubs go, it is hardly fatal. Enthusiasm was flagged as one of the main reasons why Ireland would make a great host nation for Euro 2008. Jolly and up for a shindig at the best of times, it seems that you and I and every other citizen were wildly enthusiastic about the notion of having the fancy Dans of the European game coming to play in the back garden.
And maybe deep down inside everyone was all a-flutter at the thought. But the funny thing was that on Thursday, at one o'clock, as our intrepid heroes from the FAI fought their way through the most important international negotiations since Michael Collins went to London, you kind of got the feeling that, on the streets, nobody really cared.
People are tired and cold and wet and it is hard enough trying to summon up a bit of enthusiasm for Christmas without being asked to get excited about a few football games due to take place in six years.
On Friday, the boys from the FAI returned to dear old Ireland bloodied and proud after jousting with the knights of European football. They threw open the doors of the plane and waved their sheet of paper that said 94 per cent. Take heart, they said. We may have been beaten, but we're still the best.
In a way it was reminiscent of the message after we had lost to Spain on penalties in the World Cup. They bore the same look of wounded nobility, our boys, a look that said: "We died out there for you, friend".
But unlike the football players, our heroic delegates got no homecoming. At best, they got polite indifference.
Such was the nature of the Scottish/Irish bid that it always had an element of pretence to it. It seemed like a madcap idea from the first day it was floated, a running Paddy Irishman, Paddy Englishman and Paddy Scotsman joke but with no punch line.
Bringing six European delegates - can't you just see them, with their Vuitton shirts and soft leather shoes and polite ways - around Croke Park was itself an unforgettable act of high comedy.
How fascinating and perplexing our continental friends must have found the existence of this magnificent stadium that cannot play host to the beautiful game.
Long and late into the night they must have sat up in the lobby of their hotel, drinking schnapps and trying to grapple with the reality of it. For the hell of it, we should have shown them our new, 50-metre pool complex and told them that, unfortunately, swimming was not allowed there.
And was it after the tour of Croke Park, we wonder, that they met our Leader, Mr Ahern? It is now coming to light that the Europeans were greatly impressed by our leader's ability to talk soccer.
They headed back to the Alps and the Low Countries with their half bottle of Irish whiskey and duty free Toblerones dazzled and stunned by our Leader's love for the game. He should be on The Premiership, they said.
We learned yesterday that the Europeans liked Bertie, that they found him amusing.
He was one of the reasons they gave us 94 per cent. Croke Park was apparently another, as was our imaginary stadium, a place that I, for one, have grown desperately fond of.
The FAI believe that Europeans liked the Celtic bid and wanted to give us the tournament. Perhaps the suits of UEFA felt that, while it might be a disaster, it would definitely be interesting and human curiosity alone demanded that they just had to see how monumentally we Celts would screw it up.
And then, at the 11th hour, they got cold feet and reluctantly decided they had better play safe and give it to the boring Swiss, with their yodelling ways and their obsession with time.
The reaction in this country would have been interesting had we actually won. In the beginning, there was the sense that the nation was happy to indulge the FAI on Euro 2008 because the likelihood of winning was so remote. Sure what harm are they doing, the poor craters, we asked ourselves. Let them go forth with the Scots and have a bit of fun. Even when word began circulating this week that not only was the Irish bid credible, it was a real candidate, deep down nobody believed it.
Astonishment would have been the initial reaction had we won the hearts of Europe. We might even have felt a bit proud and teary at seeing Milo Corcoran jumping up and down with delight while the powerbrokers of European soccer applauded him.
For a few hours, we would have been mildly chuffed, but then rumours about how much the thing would cost would have begun to circulate. Then rows over the stadium would have begun again. Then the truth about how many games we would actually get to stage would be made known.
We would have ended up hating the Scots possibly even more than the English, leaving us on friendly terms with the Welsh alone, which is never a happy prospect. There may actually have been street protests demanding that we give the thing back.
So all's well that ends well. We have had our glory days in Europe before. Remember Johnny Logan? The FAI, kicked around all year, went to Geneva and at least got to feel a bit better about life. They can frame the sheet with the 94 per cent card.
We were neither serious contenders nor were we disgraced, we were simply fourth. Bang in the middle. Mediocre. That will do just fine for now.
We need a lot of things in this country but a distant soccer party is not one of them. Let the Swiss have the football; we will continue to have all the fun. They have given us a hell of a year, the FAI and Bertie and our crazy Scottish cousins, but we need to take stock now.
Let us remember who we are. As the great Myles na Gopaleen wrote on these pages way back when we had no notions of ourselves at all: "We who are Irish come from the earth of Ireland and to it we will one day return. I am not so sure that we have not taken a grave risk by coming up at all."
