Tommy Martin: Italia '90 hangs over current crop, but remember it all started in Bulgaria

There is a joke among people who are too young to remember Italia ‘90 about the people who do, which sees them adopt an exaggerated millennial voice and say, “did you know, we didn’t actually win the 1990 World Cup?” 

As the Republic of Ireland manager prepared for this week’s twin assignments against Bulgaria, he was reminded of the days when the Irish football team could beat all comers, or more accurately, draw 1-1 with all comers. Despite the ravages of time, we can all still remember names of the Italia ’90 squad after 35 years. Most people can’t remember the names of Hallgrimsson’s squad after 35 minutes.

And so, the great summer of love and inflatable shamrocks has progressed from being an inspiration to Irish football teams to being a great historical millstone, the likes of Niall Quinn and Kevin Moran peering from the past like paintings of long dead aristocrats on the walls of a dilapidated stately home.

It doesn’t help that we are never more than a few months away from commemorating something to do with the Jack Charlton era or having some tangential excuse to watch endless clips of it. George Hamilton putting a book out, poor old Schillaci passing away or just that episode of Reeling in the Years with the old guy crying after David O’Leary’s penalty goes in – it is an almost constant presence in the warmer, soggier parts of the Irish psyche.

Conversely, we are never more than a few months away from another contemporary disappointment, be it qualifying failure, gloomy Nations League toil or a friendly spanking by England. This in turn leads to the replaying of old footage of Irish teams putting the English to the sword, or, again, simply drawing 1-1 with them.

It is a vicious circle where the worse the team do nowadays, the better the Italia ’90 team get, even as they slip further into their doughy-bellied dotage. In fact, if there is a conceptual obverse to the golden summer of the Italia ’90 World Cup, it may well be a Nations League promotion/relegation playoff in Plovdiv.

All of which is quite unfair on the modern lot, given the exponential change at the top level of the game since 1990. If you were to be harsh, you’d say that the football of 35 years ago bears as much relevance to today’s game as 16th century jousting or some other peculiar historical activity.

Certainly, the globalisation of the game and advancements in sports science make tales of World Cup quarter-finalists clambering out of hotel windows in search of pints seem slightly quaint. It’s unlikely the current players would get hearty laughs if they appeared on the Late Late Show telling stories about matchweek escapades in the nightclubs of Leeson Street, even if they knew how to find them.

Still,c of Jack Charlton’s World Cup Diary and other cash-in bestsellers of the era. The main one being that his team of soon-to-be legends were no great shakes too before he got his hands on them, and frequently fulfilled fixtures in front of a nation despairing of ever reaching a major tournament, just as it does today.

And it was, of course, in Bulgaria that it all started, albeit with no Irish involvement other than a dumbfounded TV audience watching on as Scotland won in Sofia to send Ireland to Euro ’88. It is here, or a few miles up the road in Plovdiv, that Hallgrimsson finds himself now, with a tie on which the stakes might be described as low were they not so damned high.

Get through this and preserve Ireland’s proud League B status and Hallgrimsson might be seen to have turned the corner, to have gathered up the encouraging threads from the opening months of his stewardship into a sturdy bit of cable to pull this team along.

Amid the gloom there is a lot to like about this Irish squad. (There’s a lot not to like as well, if you are into top class midfield generals, natural full backs and free-scoring centre-forwards, but let’s not dwell on that.) 

There is enough evidence in the fortunes of Caoimhín Kelleher, Nathan Collins, Jake O’Brien, Matt Doherty, Dara O’Shea and Troy Parrott to suggest that things might at least not have gone backwards over the winter. Adam Idah has failed to nail down a starting place at Celtic but has three Champions League goals to his name, which is not nothing. Evan Ferguson’s move to West Ham hasn’t gone well but you’d hope he’s a bit sharper than he was last autumn and he will be certainly be motivated.

Josh Cullen and Jason Knight are no Xavi and Iniesta but they have both been solid starters for upwardly mobile Championship clubs – in Cullen’s case, with a Burnley team that have only conceded 11 goals in thirty-eight games, a record that will appeal to a meat and potatoes manager like Hallgrimsson. Finn Azaz too has sparkled at this level with Middlesbrough and Robbie Brady is back fit just in time to bring his left foot wand out of its case.

Big picture wise, international tournaments are so big now that Hallgrimsson only needs to get these guys playing a little better than they have been to have a chance of qualifying for tournaments. Maybe the current manager, like his celebrated predecessor, will have his Bulgaria moment that started it all.

Let’s hope so, because it’s only four years until the USA ’94 reunion.