If spirit, character and determination could have won the Irish soccer team a place in the World Cup quarter finals, victory would have been theirs yesterday. As it was, they were beyond question the better footballers: they played with greater skill than their Spanish opponents, they had greater heart and a gallant troupe of loyal supporters - at home, around the world and in the stadium - willing them on.
Probably the best supporters in the world? Definitely the best supporters in the world. They have done their team and their country proud and in all the euphoria, now dampened down by disappointment, their role deserves special acknowledgement.
The past 16 days have truly been remarkable. As the team and managers set off - what seems now a very long time ago - few could have imagined the ugly days that attended their arrival in Saipan. Whatever about the rights and wrongs of that argument, the fact that the players and their manager rose above it all to achieve what they did speaks volumes for their character. And more than any individual player (and it is almost invidious to single out Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Matt Holland, Niall Quinn and Shay Given for mention), it is Mick McCarthy who deserves special praise. Behind his self depreciating style and droll manner, there clearly lurks a man capable of winning the hearts and loyalty of his players, a man capable of inspiring them and willing them to excellence in the most unpropitious of circumstances. McCarthy did us proud. More than that, however, and more importantly, he did himself proud.
No one who has observed the effect of Ireland's participation in this World Cup can deny the unique place football occupies in our lives today. From children to housewives, to factory workers, farmers big and small, office managers and white collar workers by the score - all swung behind a group of (mostly) young men kicking a ball about a pitch. And for what? For the sheer joy of competition, for the pursuit of excellence against a keen opponent, for the chance of victory. It is the Olympic spirit at work. And it it the same throughout the planet. The men and woman skipping a day's work to be in the Submarine Bar in Dublin may be thousands of miles removed from the empoverished of Dakar, gathered on the sides of dusty roads, ears glued to radios, but football levels and unites in a display of uplifting nationalism.
And the tournament continues, of course. Today will determine whether Brazil or Belgium meet England in the quarter finals. It would be nice to think that the generosity of spirit that has attended British commentators and media observing Ireland's progress would be reciprocated here. Spain battle on: they won fair and square yesterday, if in the most heartbreaking way for Ireland. But there was nothing dishonourable in their victory and perhaps we were beaten by the best. Commentators and football analysts will argue for years about what might have been. But the ifs and buts argument is a sterile one. Perhaps the best epitaph came at the end of yesterday's match from that cheerful and authoritative commentator, Bill O'Herlihy of RTE. "Disappointed?" he asked. "Undoubtedly. Proud? Unquestionably."