{"id":414257,"date":"2026-04-01T03:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T03:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/414257\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T03:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T03:13:10","slug":"six-year-old-fan-at-aviva-sums-up-the-eternal-mystery-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/414257\/","title":{"rendered":"Six-year-old fan at Aviva sums up the eternal mystery \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> had said in the immediate aftermath of Ireland\u2019s<\/a> World Cup<\/a> elimination in Prague on Thursday that \u201cour job is to pick ourselves up tomorrow when we wake up and start again\u201d. This is simply the duty of a professional. But sometimes even the most professional of us feel like calling in sick. <\/p>\n

A big question beforehand was how many Ireland fans could go back to the well so soon after that crushing experience. Everyone had heard of a lot of tickets floating around for this sell-out against North Macedonia. In the end, most of the seats were full. There was no mass abandonment \u2013 not yet, anyway. <\/p>\n

Hallgrimsson had said his priority for the game was to put on a good performance for the fans. In keeping with his general gradualist approach to evolving the team, he made only three changes from the game against the Czech Republic. <\/p>\n

Maybe it was a mistake not to make more changes. Players who had just been through the most disappointing night of their international careers proved unable to muster tremendous energy and enthusiasm for this box-ticking exercise. <\/p>\n

The first 30 minutes were especially grim as Macedonia pressed energetically and Ireland struggled to put anything together. After that the Macedonian tempo dropped and some moves started to happen. Finn Azaz<\/a> might have won a penalty, but the referee gave a free-kick outside the box. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Troy Parrott\u2019s star shines again, but Ireland can\u2019t find way past North Macedonia<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The end of the first half was enlivened by Troy Parrott<\/a> scoring two nice but offside goals in quick succession, delighting his legion of kid fans. <\/p>\n

The last three matches have earned him a superstar status among the young Ireland fans that it\u2019s hard to remember an Ireland player having since Keane, and I mean Roy not Robbie. So many were wearing Parrott merch of one kind or another. The cheer for his name as the team was read out before the match was conspicuously louder than the one for anyone else. <\/p>\n

Maybe I was paying more attention to crowd demographics than I normally would be, as I knew that somewhere there in the south end my brother was sitting with his six-year-old son, who was being brought to his first Ireland match. <\/p>\n

After a few minutes of the eventless shadowboxing that followed the kick-off, I had started to feel anxious with a kind of second-hand embarrassment. Nothing was happening in this game. Not even any good fouls. There wasn\u2019t much noise or any kind of atmosphere for a kid to get excited about. What if he was bored senseless by this non-game and ended up being put off football forever? Please, somebody have a shot for the boy\u2019s sake. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland player ratings v North Macedonia: Dara O\u2019Shea and Finn Azaz stand out in stalemate<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Reassuringly, I was told that he had reacted well to Ireland\u2019s first set-piece \u2013 a corner that went nowhere \u2013 turning to his Dad and saying excitedly, \u201cThat was close by Ireland!\u201d The kind of fan every team could do with a few more of. <\/p>\n

The first half had ended with Jayson Molumby charging forward and Boris Johnsoning into a Macedonian defender, who lay on the pitch gasping for breath as everyone else walked off for the interval. <\/p>\n

\"InternationalInternational Friendly, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 31\/3\/2026
\nRepublic of Ireland vs North Macedonia
\nIreland’s Finn Azaz and Tihomir Kostadinov of North Macedonia
\nMandatory Credit \u00a9INPHO\/Ryan Byrne <\/p>\n

In the second, a nice move between Azaz and S\u00e9amus Coleman<\/a> brought a chance from eight yards for Parrott who spun and hit the post. <\/p>\n

You wondered why Hallgrimsson hadn\u2019t made a substitution yet. There was nothing actually on the line here \u2013 why not let us have a look at Harvey Vale? <\/p>\n

Except for the manager it\u2019s never really a case of nothing being on the line. For all Hallgrimsson\u2019s talk beforehand about wanting a good performance, he also wanted the result and these were the players to whom he had entrusted the job. <\/p>\n

The changes arrived just after the hour \u2013 Vale, Bosun Lawal and James Abankwah for Molumby, Azaz and Coleman, with Mark Travers replacing Caoimhin Kelleher<\/a> in goal. The sight of two full debutants \u2013 and another making his home debut \u2013 immediately lifted the atmosphere. <\/p>\n

All three players, if they can stay fit and keep their development going, are candidates for big roles in the Ireland side over the coming two years. Lawal has a taller and more powerful build than any other potential Ireland midfielder, and this is a manager who really respects height. <\/p>\n

Vale, besides being a dead-ball specialist, has shown an ability to hit early perceptive passes which bodes well for his potential chemistry with a quick-thinking forward such as Parrott. <\/p>\n

Abankwah was playing right wing-back after Jake O\u2019Brien came on for John Egan. The centre-back positions seem to be fairly well nailed-down in this team between O\u2019Brien, Dara O\u2019Shea and Nathan Collins, but that right wing-back slot seems likely to be up for grabs. <\/p>\n

But the game refused to move in a way that these players could take advantage of. Lawal charged down a ball in the Macedonian box that bounced behind. Vale had a good chance to come on to a promising situation on the left of the Macedonian box, but Scales played the pass short and it was intercepted before it reached him. <\/p>\n

Abankwah\u2019s night ended in a bad way after he was kneed in the thigh in a heavy collision in midfield, and limped off in what looked to be considerable pain. <\/p>\n

Adam Idah<\/a> pulled rank on Vale to take a free-kick that deflected off the wall and wide. Johnny Kenny got on for the last few minutes and ended up having maybe the best chance of the game, but he hit his shot straight at the keeper. <\/p>\n

A few minutes before the end I checked to see what they were making of this in the south end. The word came back: \u201cHe is struggling to understand why Ireland won\u2019t just score.\u201d <\/p>\n

A new generation confronts the eternal mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson had said in the immediate aftermath of Ireland\u2019s World Cup elimination in Prague on Thursday that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[21081,73137,18,183640,17065,19,17,27959,6634,6370,132,29833,35350],"class_list":["post-414257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-adam-idah","tag-caoimhin-kelleher","tag-eire","tag-finn-azaz","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ken-early","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-seamus-coleman","tag-sports","tag-troy-parrott","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116327272439437453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}