Denmark had the ball but that was ok with Ireland. It’s not that the ball isn’t Ireland’s friend, it’s more that it’s a neighbour they stopped talking to a long time ago for reasons nobody can quite remember, but both sides are now too stubborn to reconcile.
Ireland shunned the ball, they drove by it when it was standing at a bus stop in the rain, they turned round and went down a different aisle when they saw it in the supermarket. They wanted nothing to do with it. They found cruel and unusual ways to mistreat it. Brady overhit a simple pass to McClean and then, seconds later, McClean launched a ball in the air for no apparent reason when he appeared to be attempting a cross. But the move wasn’t over. McClean chased down the ball and crossed for O’Dowda who, stunned by the improbability of the whole thing, then miscontrolled it. This was Ireland’s version of Pele’s dummy against Uruguay in 1970.
- Dion Fanning.