In 25 days, Ireland play their biggest match in a decade – a World Cup qualification playoff that was secured thanks to two of the most beautiful victories in the history of the national team. It is sadly typical of today’s football that what should be a time of excitement and anticipation has instead been dominated by an increasingly acrimonious debate over the unfortunate Nations League draw against Israel.
The FAI reaffirmed last week that Ireland would be fulfilling the fixtures. Good luck to them making that decision stick, as just a couple of days later, Israel and the United States launched their latest illegal attack on Iran.
This time, there was not even any token effort to manufacture a legal justification –…