Euro 2008 qualifying The fallout: Tom Humphriesreflects on the current crisis in Irish football and argues the FAI must be brave and bold in their search for a new manager.

"We will certainly have a team that will be hungry, determined, one that will not go down without a fight . . . I'll make sure of that."

- Steve Staunton, Jan 16th 2006.

Wednesday was one of those great soccer nights. All over Europe 20 games of football unfolded bringing an unlikely unity to the daydreams of 40 disparate tribes. From Azerbaijan to Moscow, from Paris to Tirana international sides were hustling and bustling for points and glory.

Well, fewer than 40 tribes actually. Ours is not to daydream. We Irish were involved in a nightmare sideshow. Thousands who had bought tickets decided not to show up in Croke Park.

Those of us who did regretted ever buying into the jaw jaw about war war with, uhm, Cyprus.

This was the minnow that we would be taking revenge on? Have we come to this? The reality was even more depressing than the hype. There was no revenge. An Irish team composed almost entirely of Premiership players, a team surely not lacking motivation given the scorn they had brought upon their own shoulders in Nicosia, a team managed by Steve Staunton, struggled to scrape a fortuitous draw at home to Cyprus.

Cyprus! Not to be disrespectful but the Cypriots travel like cheap wine in a cement mixer. They went to Slovakia and lost by five, they went to Prague and lost by one, they even went to Cardiff and conceded three. Even in San Marino they could only scrape a win by a single goal. (Yes! At least they kept a clean sheet there.) Cyprus! This is the dream the Football Association of Ireland has for the national team? This is the vision? Slugging it out with the Cypriots, the Welsh and the Slovakians for the minor placings while Germany and the Czech Republic bounce on into the finals without ever having to break sweat?

This abject, shameful display by a group of absurdly well-paid professionals playing in front of their own people was the most which Steve Staunton could wring from them? Steve Staunton - who when hired by FAI chief executive John Delaney came with a warranty concerning his ability to motivate people.

Will we be hearing more delusional nonsense this weekend about the "run" we have put together? About learning curves? About the character of a team which has twice in this campaign needed late goals in order to spare itself even greater humiliation. Is that the last vestige of our pride? That we'll scrap for a few minutes to avoid being the complete laughing stock of the international soccer world.

We aren't going to the European championships and under the current management we will not be going to the next World Cup. Instead we will be taking four years out of the brief careers of the young players we have produced and just flushing them away. These are the facts. This is the level we have been brought to by John Delaney and the FAI, the people who operate under the collective logo, We Care About Irish Soccer.

There is little point at this stage in sifting through the wreckage of this European Championship campaign. To engage in serious discussion about selections or choice of tactics or incidents upon which games might have hinged is to lend dignity to a farce. It is equally futile to suggest Steve Staunton's persistent bungling shows any evidence of an ability to learn or a willingness to absorb criticism. Just about every team selection brings a comical gamble wherein the manager attempts to shoot for the moon by playing some hapless mediocrity out of position in the hope of showing us all he the Gaffer is smarter than the average bear.

The jig is up. Let us have no more cringe-worthy forelock-tugging deference either to that old duffer, Sir Bobby Robson. There was always something cynical, sickly and uncomfortable about the relationship with Robson, the FAI's watery sycophancy in his presence and their cold determination to stick the man into the firing line on radio talk shows when nobody else would go.

Let's not bother either digging through the old files to see if the pup which John Delaney sold us was tagged at the time as "a world class manager" or merely a "top class manager". It's too late for that. It's time to see what we will do next.

If the list of names (Aldridge , O'Leary et al) and usual suspects which the bookies have installed as favourites to replace Staunton is anything to go by the Irish public is assured what we will do next probably won't be imaginative and it probably won't be inspiring.

The most dispiriting thing about the "campaign" just past has been the tacit acceptance that this dross is all we are capable of. Those romantic days when we organised ourselves, got passionate and went out and punched at a level considerably above our weight seem to be gone forever. The national team it seems is an instrument of the egos who play for it and who control it. It doesn't have to be this way. John Delaney, whose work at other levels in the organisation shows a mix of political expediency that Machiavelli would shudder at and a competence which serves the association well, needs to up his game.

His manoeuvrings within the FAI have been such that even if he were to appoint Steve Staunton Irish manager for life and to grant him the title emeritus Professor of Football, it is unlikely there would be any demurring from the blazers who are left.

Delaney knows he is untouchable. He knows too his legacy is at stake here. His gamble on Steve Staunton was always a long shot and placed Staunton, a decent man, in a dreadful position. It is time to put us all out of Staunton's misery. He needs a transfusion of imagination. He needs to speak to the sort of manager who won't always say the words which John Delaney most likes to hear, Yes John.

The significant instances of punching above weight in international football in recent years have one thing in common, the experience and pugnaciousness of the managers involved. Otto Rehhagel led Greece to win a European Championship three years ago. Phillipe Troussier brought South Africa to the 1998 World Cup finals and led Japan in 2002.

Guus Hiddink's work with South Korea in 2002, Australia in 2000 and this week with Russia makes him the stuff of legend. Leo Beenhakker has in the space of a few months revived Polish soccer. The only such achievement brought about by a man managing his own national team was Turkey's run to the 2002 World Cup semi-final. Their manager for that little piece of history was Senol Günes who had 13 years of top management experience under his belt when he took the reigns of his own national side.

The FAI has the windfalls from Croke Park and from German TV rights to play around with. The next few weeks is a cattle mart as managers free themselves or are set free at the end of international campaigns.

Dick Advocaat finishes up next month with FC Zenit in St Petersburg. Australia are already sniffing about. Phillippe Troussier is living under a different name (Omar) as a Muslim in Rabat in Morocco. Otto Rehhagel is retired. Senol Günes is working in Seoul. Martin Jol will soon be free.

It is worth noting that of the last three World Cups Mick McCarthy and Glenn Hoddle are the only men from these islands to have brought teams to the finals. In Germany last year there were four Dutch managers (at last count there are over 90 Dutchmen working abroad as professional football managers), three Brazilians, three Argentinians and three Frenchmen. It is time surely to set the sights a little higher.

It is hard to believe John Delaney is content to sit with his business chums and his faithful FAI retainers for the next few years as Irish teams endure the sort of derision and scorn which reflects on himself. Time to be bold. Time to be brave. Time to quit the bullshit about looking for a world class manager and just go out and act like a world class administrator. The rest will follow.