The McCarthy Hearings

After his initial misgivings and circumspection, Foul Play is starting to enjoy this World Cup campaign in earnest. Few pleasures can rival that of watching your team sneak a totally undeserved point (or three) after a lame performance on away soil against superior opposition.

I have rarely, if ever, seen a goal come as much against the run of play as did Matt Holland's equaliser. Ireland had one man up front at the time, and as you may have noticed, they went one worse by ending the match with a 4-6-0 formation, when Steve Finnan replaced a slightly frazzled-looking Robbie Keane.
Can it really be that, at last, Ireland have a genuinely decent side again? It is probably a little early to say. The genuine litmus test will come next year, when we face the big guns at Lansdowne Road, and have to come out and attack them.
The Holland and Portugal matches were essentially two rearguard actions, even if we showed considerably more guile and ilan in one match than we did in the other. The luck that deserted Ireland against Holland (if luck can be described in terms of losing concentration and failing to finish off damaged opponents) was with them every step of the way in Lisbon and they had no right to expect more.
In the meantime, we must busy ourselves with a comprehensive mopping-up operation against the small fry. Take 18 points from the six matches against Estonia, Andorra and Cyprus, and we have an extremely solid base from which to work.
Yet the fixture that keeps looming ahead is the away game in Cyprus, where Spain were walloped two years ago, and where Russia dropped two points that prevented them getting to France 98. But assuming that we saw off Estonia, in a game played two days after hotpress was put to bed, the group is now set up nicely for a three-way scrap between ourselves and the big two.
The sense persists, however, that we only find ourselves in this position due to dumb luck, fortuitous suspensions on the part of opposition stars, and the Dutch and Portuguese both apparently suffering noticeable hangovers from their torrid semi-final exits at Euro 2000.
Whether their hangovers last for another nine months or so will go a long way towards determining our chances of finally getting to another major championship.

McCarthy's mob have certainly given themselves a far better chance of progressing than England, what with that all-time classic against Germany despatching the old Wembley to sporting oblivion in the sourest possible manner.
The Jerries, who are certainly a better outfit than they had been given credit for in advance of Saturday's clash, managed an astounding 67% of possession in the first half, and barely had to get out of second gear to see off the home side.
It was fitting that the poorest England side anyone can remember should be put to the sword by such a ridiculous goal. It was essentially a thirty-yard toe-poke, for Christ's sake, with TV replays appearing to show Paul Scholes jumping out of the ball's path before David Seaman's palm helped it on its way into the net.
It looks like the play-offs for England now, at best, even if they have plundered three points from the fast-improving Finns by the time you read this (the Helsinki game was another fixture which fell under the wrong side of the deadline wire this week).
Given the perpetually anaemic displays of the Manchester United contingent for England in recent times, could it be argued (as Eamon Dunphy once did) that the presence of Roy Keane makes Beckham and Scholes better players when they line up together for their club? And indeed, vice versa, given Keane's dismal performance in Lisbon?
Right now, England remind me of nothing so much as the Ireland team at the butt-end of the 1980s under Charlton. The specifics are different (in England's case, an over-reliance on set-pieces rather than up-and-unders) but the basic instincts are the same.
If Plan A doesn't work, see Plan A. Set-piece after set-piece, send the big centre-halves up for corners, get the ball out to Becks on the right and hope for the best, repeat according to taste, ad nauseam.
The present state of affairs makes a nice change from the dark times of 1996-1997, when England spent all their time racking up remorselessly pragmatic 2-0 victories in places like Georgia and Poland. Many of us wondered whether we would ever again see a restoring of the natural order, and results and performances to rival the glory days of Graham Taylor.
The current outfit may indeed be worse than Taylor's dummies, though there is no real way of checking, seeing as England haven't played the USA or Norway lately.
It doesn't contain as many ready-made whipping boys as the team of eight years ago (Taylor was the man who handed out caps to Carlton Palmer, Andy Sinton, Geoff Thomas and a pre-talent Dennis Wise); rather, there is a general sprinkling of low-profile ineptitude throughout the squad, an overall air of honest toilers and stout yeomen floundering out of their depth.
Then there is always the worst-case scenario, that of Howard Wilkinson actually wanting to stay in the job, assuming that he got the right result in Helsinki.
I suppose they'll take what they can get at this stage.