For Love of Country and Tribal Glory.

If you live long enough you’ll see everything they say. Today was an example of that old chestnut as Ukraine (a country fighting a low level war against a superpower and one third of its territory under occupation ) prevailed against all the odds and a decent Sweden team to qualify for the next round of the euros. Now, some people like to claim that politics and sport should be kept separate, even as the reality of their inseparability stares them in the face. You wonder have they ever heard of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin which Hitler politicised to the hilt (and got plenty of support from the participants). In our own time the US boycotted the Moscow games in 1980 and Russia returned the favour four years later. Will we ever forget our amazement and innocence as East Germany and other iron curtain states overachieved at the games. Little did we know that the doctors and scientists had more to do with the gold medals than the athletes. So the question is why are nations prepared to go to such lengths for sporting success. The answer of course is our old friend tribalism. As can be seen each night of the euros where mega rich footballers give their all for love of country and tribal glory. This is not lost on the politicians, who hope to harness sporting success for their own ends. Most countries have limited means to make a mark on the world stage. They cannot project hard power (like America and Russia) nor can they project financial muscle and so sport is the best alternative and football is the medium of choice for obvious reasons. This makes the indifference of Ireland inc. to our football decline all the harder to understand. As living standards have risen across Europe (mainly due to enlightened German largesse) countries are investing in their soccer teams and a great levelling up is evident. Ireland is the exception but this generates no debate among the chattering classes who allegedly report on Irish sport. There are obvious reasons for this reticence also but make no mistake this cowardice carries a cost.
How much longer do the Irish expect the underfunded, derided and neglected housing estates of north Dublin to keep producing soccer players to compete on a world stage wouldn’t be a bad question to start with. Anyway it’s getting late. In other news an average Germany team lost a soccer match in London today all we’re missing is a comment from Matt Hancock and his floozie but no doubt that will come. Two world wars and one World Cup, you can’t argue with dat!⚽️