The grand illusion. In out-of-season Rimini nobody sips espressos under Campari umbrellas outside the street cafes. The wind whistles through the gay awnings and the beach bars are shuttered. Anything which opens at all shuts down early.
It's a downbeat place in February, and the mood was unaltered late on Monday night when a busload of Irish media types were installed into a hotel on a street named for Federico Fellini.
Through pecking at their laptops and sifting through player quotes the fourth estate have been working like an effects department to drum up some excitement for Ireland's European Championship campaign.
It ain't easy. We feel like candyfloss vendors in the out-of-season.
Unless everything we know is wrong (and hey!), Ireland should beat San Marino here tonight by a hatful of goals.
Alright, a capful. Ireland don't score goals by the hatful anymore and the statistical (never to be equalled) quirk of the campaign so far has been our trick of conceding as many goals away to Cyprus as we scored at home to San Marino.
Still. What injects some drama into tonight's panto is the stark reality that anything other than a win would spell the end of Stave Staunton's Republic of Ireland managerial career. If he loses control tonight there'll be a hefty sheaf of newspapers he'll want to avoid tomorrow.
Staunton's demeanour is that of a man under pressure. It's not exactly mission impossible that he has been handed, however. In 37 starts in European qualifying games San Marino have never nicked a point off anyone.
Despite being famous for having briefly held the lead against England when they scored a goal in seven seconds into a World Cup qualifier 14 years ago, San Marino have never held the lead in a Euro qualifier. (What a heady time that must have been. San Marino pinched a draw against Turkey in the same campaign. Their Charlton era.)
They start tonight knowing that their last game here against Germany saw them suffer a record 13 goals to nil drubbing.
It's 12 years since they scored in a European qualifying campaign (Pier-Domenico Delle Valle is the name you're trying to think of. He scored against Finland).
Their current goal difference in the group is minus-25 after three games. Their choice of goalkeepers for tonight is between the man who conceded 12 in two games and the man who conceded 13 in one.
If Staunton thinks he has problems, he is right. He just shouldn't have any here.
He has brought a young side with him and he needs to have the guts to play a few of them tonight.
It's true that an upset would cost him his job (and FAI chief executive John Delaney would walk the plank too), but if we are to take seriously the talk of four-year plans that's a risk which has to be taken.
Qualification already looks beyond us with eight games left and six points cutting us off from the top two teams in Group D.
If we forget all the nonsense about Delaney scouring the world for a world-class manager like Tommy Lee Jones searching for the fugitive and we accept Steve Staunton as what we ended up with, we will remember that the principle qualification claimed on his behalf at his coronation was that he was a motivator who would bring the passion back to Irish performances.
Fair enough. Now is the time.
Irish support will forgive almost anything except gutlessness on the field and off it.
A young Irish team for the next couple of years sprinkled with the Shane Longs, the Aiden McGeadys and Kevin Doyles (both sadly absent here), the Paul McShanes, Anthony Stokes and Stephen Irelands, could whet Irish appetites all over again. If we get one genuine wonderkid from the possibilities offered by teenagers Terry Dixon and Jamie McCarthy it would be a huge bonus too.
There's a chance to get past this era of surly non-performance and re-establish ourselves as a team which plays in the spirit of the nation it comes from.
Ireland finish this campaign in Croke Park next October with a game against Cyprus and then a trip to Cardiff the following month. We have become accustomed even in the leaner times to being in the shake-up for qualification right to the last games. This time such a finale is unlikely and Croker and Cardiff could be lonely places in winter.
Lee Carsley spoke the other day about his first qualifying campaign with Ireland when Mick McCarthy brought him into an Irish squad trying to qualify for France '98. It was a campaign with some major setbacks along the way, but we made a play-off series versus Belgium and along the way McCarthy blooded the basis of the side who would reach the next World Cup. Carsley made his debut as a 20-year-old in the home fixture versus Romania.
It took guts back then to bring kids to places like Bucharest and Skopje. Ian Harte was 19 and thrown in at centre back in Bucharest.
We missed a penalty and lost 1-0, but such was the feeling of hope and passion which the game threw up that the FAI offered McCarthy a contract extension on the way home. Sometimes you just need to show that you are on the right road and have the right instinct.
Steve Staunton has the young players with which to implement a four-year plan. He has the remnants of Mick McCarthy's younger teams and the products of Brian Kerr's sterling work all coming into their primes. As a player, Staunton was about guts and motivation and getting the most out of himself.
Tonight, if he starts managing in the same way, he could bring some people with him, but an unadventurous team selection suggests that Staunton isn't ready for that leap.
