SIDELINE CUT/Keith Duggan: At last we are returning to a state of life that we are familiar with. On Wednesday night, in wet and creaky Lansdowne Road, with its flickering lights and pre-war sound system, the Republic of Ireland play Switzerland in a game that seems to carry the secret of who we are and where we are going.
This is not a very grand time in which to be a citizen of the beloved land of saints and scholars. We are hardly going to keep the grandkids spellbound with tales of life during the tribunal years. We missed out on the revolutions and the drive for a pure and Gaelic spirit, some of us can hardly even remember The Riordans.
The many crossroads where our forefathers were fond of gathering for an enjoyable but entirely innocent hooley have become dangerous and clogged up intersections. Even if we were inclined to attempt a bit of a reel instead of going to the gym or to yoga class, the junction boxes would prevent it.
The consensus among those who know about these things is that the country is fast sliding back down the very tubes of iniquity from which it so boldly climbed over the last few years. The general mood is not very good. More than ever, we need the boys in green to restore our faith in this fair land.
But since the extraordinary days of summer madness that unhinged us all while the rest of the world was enjoying a soccer festival, the fate of the country seems to have become inseparable from the fate of our heroes in green. The state of the nation and the state of our back four have merged into one giant national psychosis.
So against Switzerland, we must live or die. The similarities between the leaders of both entities could not be more pronounced as they enter their respective hours of crisis. Bertie and Mick. Two great cautionary tales of our time. Is it really only four months since they soared majestically on a wave of goodwill and adulation, dragging the country towards greatness? For those few weeks, post-election and on the eve of the World Cup, they had it all.
They are cut from the same cloth, our silver-headed leaders. Both are men of the people who enjoy a pint after a day of honest toil.
Their talk is sometimes blunt and sometimes charming, but never less than straight. Presented with a common gardening implement and tasked with naming it, both would insist that the object is a spade, nothing more, nothing less.
But for all that they have shared of late a profound difficulty in explaining themselves. They are soccer men and adhere to the principles of soccer's mythical boot room in their everyday philosophy. Loyalty, decisiveness, ambition are central to their respective visions, which are also quite similar. Mick's great plan is to bring the Irish to Portugal in 2004.
Bertie, on the other hand, wants to bring the Portuguese and as many other nations as possible to Ireland in 2008.
Neither will probably happen now. It is likely that they will both be in Lansdowne on Wednesday night for what will be a tense and baleful occasion.
That we are playing the Swiss is entirely appropriate, a team whose very nature we fear will be inflicted upon us if we take the leap of faith and become good, conscientious subscribers to Europe Inc.
At soccer, the Swiss are as neat and orderly as we are fun and chaotic. They offer their fans a reasonable chance of progression but precious little in the way of back room bust-ups, rows across the airwaves or the entire library of literary tomes which Irish soccer fans can build up.
HISTORIANS may some day pinpoint Ireland versus Switzerland as the very hour during which the country turned a corner. We are a combustible lot, after all. A 3-2 loss, with a hat-trick of own goals from Phil Babb, could see a rush from a previously indifferent electorate to vote No to Europe out of some vague motive of revenge. Mick would stand in front of us with the wounded expression he saves for days of extreme disappointment and gently chide us for not seeing "the positives".
Pessimism would be rife and Bertie's popularity ratings would plummet. The budget would be harsh and vindictive. The best fans in the world would stop saving for Portugal.
There are no heroes on the horizon anymore. Where once we had Roy, we now have Ray. The dreams of a stadium with more than two power points are nothing more than a series of expensive reports gathering dust somewhere. And all too soon, the adventures in Japan and South Korea have been forgotten.
It is a tricky time for our leaders. The fans are unhappy. This is not the way it was supposed to be, it's not the way we saw things last May. Oh, we looked like world beaters back then. We were rich in every way. Here come the good times, wasn't that the tune?
On Wednesday night, Ireland play Switzerland in a must-win game. The country is penniless, churchless, hopeless and Royless. It is also pointless in the European championships. We half believe that Mick wishes he was packing his bags for beautiful Sunderland and half realise that we can't blame him. We have forgotten what Bertie's once constant smile is like.
Worst of all, our most cherished right, enshrined in our constitution, the right to watch the boys in green on home television, has been taken from us.
So because tickets are virtually impossible to get - because we don't have an adequately sized stadium - most of us will have to make plans to head to the very place most Europeans believe we spend all our time anyhow. The pub.
It will be dark out. Pints will be costly, the price of fags rising by the hour. The politicians will be in the dock. The soccer manager will be a disgrace. We will never produce a player as great as Liam Brady - who was never great to begin with.
We will agree that the country is banjaxed, as bad as it ever was, and blame the boom.
It will be the same as it used to be all those years ago, when we tuned in just to see how much we would get beaten by. Heads will have to roll, we will tell ourselves. Then we will have one for the road because in times like this, you need it. We will be angry and disillusioned and will need to take it out on someone.
The Swiss will not stand a chance.
