Few enough laughs in this funny old game

Soccer drama isn't what it used to be. The grand old soap opera of Irish soccer is flagging as badly as Eastenders. Maybe that is why the FAI are determined Brian Kerr should be buried in their basement.

There was a time when these penultimate qualification evenings seemed like elemental battles featuring all the best components of the Irish spirit and bloody-minded passion. But this evening's affair in Cyprus seems to have boiled down to a labour relation dispute with a soccer match on the side.

It is clear Kerr has been placed in an invidious position by the FAI's deafening silence over the renewal of a contract that he is clearly unlikely to be offered. Back in the heady days of the FAI purges, the appointment of Kerr was regarded as a sound leap of faith by the FAI and was declared an enlightened and correct choice by that much maligned corps, the Irish soccer writers. Much was made about the Genesis report, and there were solemn vows that never again would Irish soccer return to those Dark Ages. There would be no fags, fewer pints, no second World War islands without pitches and no carousing with the media, devilishly handsome and riotously good company as they may be.

We ran and re-ran images of those notorious training sessions in Saipan as if they were the Zapruder film and shivered at what we saw. Never again.

Kerr was to be the link between the grassroots of the FAI, the most shining representative of the countless soccer men and women who invest time into the game and the association's most prized possession, their international team.

For a while, most memorably in Paris just over a year ago, it all went sweetly and the hordes of travelling fans and commentators left radiating in the fact we had shown the most cultured soccer nation in the world a thing or two about the beautiful game. Back then, Brian Kerr had everyone on his side - or at least it seemed that way.

This morning, he is the general of an army whose command is content to wait for the outcome of the next battle before they decide to court martial him. From the FAI's perspective, it is a perfectly professional and acceptable position, but it does not exactly ring with honour or loyalty or true faith in the manager.

Equally, members of the soccer media have been circumspect in their observations on Kerr's position, content to report that his future hinges on qualification without offering any definitive measure of support - or otherwise - for the embattled manager.

Given the rapturous acclaim his appointment received, and the glowing tributes to Kerr's football smarts and shrewdness and popularity that appeared in the days afterwards, the present state of media neutrality seems strange and damning. No one seems ready to declare that they are no longer enamoured of Kerr, but hints at strained media relationships and the reported unhappiness of "certain players" have been much more damaging than straightforward criticism.

In the first wave of Irish international soccer euphoria, the key to success was full-hearted stubbornness on the field and a ribald love of adventure off it. Jack Charlton re-invented our team as gregarious troubadours, game enough to take on the suave and beautiful Italians on a sweltering afternoon and earthy enough to sink pints of the black stuff and belt out old Dubliners classics after dark. It was a combination that appealed to the nation for almost a decade.

When Mick McCarthy came in, he tried to maintain that sense of adventure and unique Irish spirit, within reason. But the humiliation of Saipan changed all that. The consequence of raising the standard of professionalism has been that Irish soccer weekends are probably no longer as much fun for the players or for the media assigned to cover them, and no longer have the same grip on the popular imagination.

The recent furore over the night out in Lillies, the ubiquitous hot spot for the powered and moneyed, highlighted the strain between a hankering after the old ways and a duty towards the new. Much was made about the fact this social gathering took place five nights before the defeat against France at Lansdowne Road, and it was widely noted that you would never catch an elite (or even a struggling) GAA team ragging it up days before a big championship match.

While that is true, it is also completely irrelevant. GAA players are unique in their fastidious and almost religious devotion to the cause of playing for their county. Ireland's soccer players have been raised in a cut-throat professional business where selfishness, greed, narcissism, disloyalty and paranoia are all regarded as healthy traits. In fact, one of the astonishing things about the present generation of Irish players, guys like Shay Given, Andy O'Brien, Damien Duff and Steven Finnan, is how grounded and polite they remain despite constant exposure to the overblown and graceless excesses of Premiership life.

Those same players must be aware of the strangeness of this weekend, the sensation of the FAI and media ever so quietly and subtly distancing themselves from Brian Kerr. Perhaps, as has been reported, some are disenchanted by Kerr's obsession with studying opposition games or are disparaging of his input at training sessions. But again, Kerr has been managing football teams for two decades and there were no gripes about his acumen when he was appointed. Why now?

If Ireland fail in Cyprus tonight, Kerr's goose is cooked. Then the FAI can cough politely and announce with regret that Mr Kerr will not be invited to renew his terms and they can go after the big-name appointment. Alex Ferguson has been fancifully mentioned - as if big Alex has long harboured dreams of tinkering with the Morrison-Doherty axis. Bryan Robson is believed to be a contender. (Bryan Robson? Really? Why?) Phillippe Troussier, the miracle man of international competition, is reportedly in the frame.

If Ireland fail in Cyprus tonight, how attractive will the management post seem to this glamorous list of successors? Of course, the dark horse in all of this is Roy Keane, who, of course, would make a perfectly sensible and potentially brilliant choice as Irish manager. But Keane will come on his own terms, if and when he is ready, and immediately following Brian Kerr would not be ideal timing.

But the thing is, Ireland will not fail in Cyprus tonight. They will win and then, given the nature of these things, Kerr will probably enjoy his first bit of good luck in the campaign against Switzerland and Ireland will make it to the play-offs. A favourable draw and who knows?

We will, once more, become the boys in green, and who could blame Kerr if there isn't a bit of malice in the glinting eyes then? Who could blame him if he doesn't turn the heat up on his employers a little bit?

It would be a uniquely Irish feat to manage to return to another World Cup in a state of mutual distrust, private loathing and with nobody really liking anyone.

True, it is a funny old game. The pity is that there are precious few laughs anymore.