All passion spent for Boys in Green

Sideline Cut: Like the old chant goes, you'll never beat the Irish. The Swiss were more than happy to prove that point at a demoralised Lansdowne Road on Wednesday night and since that long night of nothingness, the recriminations and epitaphs have been coming hot and heavy.

RTÉ's flagship current affairs programme Prime Time even dedicated a half-hour slot on Thursday evening to the demise of the Boys In Green. Eoin Hand - perhaps the most dignified man in the history of Irish soccer - was interviewed. Pat Dolan, as dapper and pin-striped as a Bugsy Malone extra, offered the home league perspective. And Eamon Dunphy, the Lear of Irish soccer, wore his gravest face for the occasion. There was a time when the appearance of Dunphy on the heavyweight analytical programmes made for must-see television. Sometimes argumentative, sometimes bullish and sometimes despairing, Dunphy always had a line. This was during a period when the fortunes and fate of the Irish soccer team were woven through the national character.

Most people over the age of 20 have a clear memory of when Irish soccer occasions had a hypnotic effect on the people of this country. They made many people tingle as only childhood Christmases used. The potential had been simmering for years through the disparate affection and pride felt towards the individual achievements of Irish boys like Brady and Stapleton, O'Leary. It took Jack Charlton's bluff confidence - the know-how colonialism - to channel that bashful pride into something loud and focused and ultimately unique.

For a short period of the European Championship in 1988, before the hucksters got their act together and before being among the Best Fans in the World became a fashion, the relationship between the people and Charlton's team was profound. For a time, Irish soccer seemed like a comet hurtling on the fuel of goodwill and it was beautiful to watch. In a country yet to tap into its self-confidence and vanity (hard as that is to imagine now) those Charlton teams and players like Lawrenson, McGrath, Bonner, McCarthy, Houghton, Aldridge, Staunton and later Keane, Quinn, McAteer and Townsend mattered in ways that went beyond the mere beating of other countries.

They were giants of men, dominating the landscape, and people felt passionate about them. Eamon Dunphy felt passionate about them, sometimes for the gas of it, sometimes because he couldn't help himself. On television the other night though, the fire was all spent. The analysis was sober and sensible and Dunphy spoke in muted tones about the need to get a young, hungry hustler in to succeed Brian Kerr - someone on the up like Iain Dowie. He said the best fans in the world would have to show some patience now as it might be over a decade before Ireland gets back to the big dance.

What he didn't say is that in Ireland it is no longer so important anymore. That surely was the point of the dismal sight of the slow dimming of Ireland's light in the soccer world. The debate raged around Brian Kerr and the unknowable nature of Ireland's rich and unaccountable young soccer princes. On Prime Time and elsewhere, the pertinent question was defined as where "we" go from here. But surely the real question was about where we have come from.

What has happened? It was clear that as well as missing plenty on the field, Ireland's do-or-die soccer night - remember Windsor Park in 1993? - was lacking in much more besides. For sure, Lansdowne Road was noisy and thunderous and the fans sang and for a while it bore comparison to those irrepressible nights of Irish soccer when God was on our side. But in recent years, it has all come to feel rather forced and fabricated. The occasions of authentic passion and fervour - the visit of the Netherlands in 2001 and perhaps even Paris last autumn - became more rare.

Rows and recriminations, most spectacularly during the 2002 World Cup, became more commonplace. The lions of yesteryear, dramatic heroes like the beanpole Quinn or the majestic McGrath, had faded from the scene and were replaced by a new generation who had less defining characteristics. There were some heartbreaks in recent years and some delights, but in atmosphere they all felt like a hankering after what had gone before rather than anticipation of what might lie ahead.

Against Switzerland on Wednesday night, it probably became clear to the entire country that not much lay ahead of us. That it was Switzerland, of all countries, stung the Irish sense of humour. It would be one thing to bow out after a fearsome battle with the Danes or the good old white shirts of England. But to vanish in a fog of 0-0 against a nation of bankers was like the final irrefutable proof that romantic Ireland was dead and gone. And the final 10 minutes, when Ireland lobbed high, hopeful balls into the penalty box and we scanned the athletes anxiously, praying for the ghost of Quinn or Big Cas, was like Jack Charlton's last laugh.

There was a time when we felt we had become too refined for the Geordie's crude football sensibility but we blindly returned to his favourite tactic. This time, there was no reprieve. And we accepted it. That was the thing. Ireland just does not care about soccer as much anymore. As a nation, we are no longer so impressionable or so needy that we can buy into the notion of 11 warriors in green, ready to conquer the world.

It is undeniable that the contemporary heroes are of a paler shade than men like Kevin Moran. But when we gripe about the vast salaries that Kerr's young team now command we are equally griping about the ostentatious wealth that has come to define Ireland. Some coldness or wariness, a meanness of spirit or bitterness, has seeped into the national character in the last decade or so and it is reflected in how we judge the present Irish soccer team. We can never be so forgiving or caring again.

There is probably some truth that Brian Kerr did not distinguish himself as he might have in this campaign. There is equally some truth in the fact that in limiting the Dublin man to just one campaign, we remain at heart a brittle and self-doubting little nation. Maybe it is the wistful memory of the Charlton era that makes the FAI and public pine for the classic football man, with a playing history in England's finest grounds. Maybe Kerr was not the man for the job.

But Kerr and the hapless young players he went down with have been caught up in something broader, namely the end of the relationship between the Irish people and the national soccer team as a rare, popular movement.

There may be bright days ahead again but let us not delude ourselves that we are capable of generating that magnificent, heartfelt surge of emotion for the battling heroes of Irish soccer anymore. For all this country may have gained in recent years, that remarkable and simple pleasure has been irretrievably lost.