The Man never breaks a sweat

As the throngs waited for the gates of Lansdowne Road to be flung open, the locals must have concluded the game had been switched to Tuesday night. Not so, this crowd had simply turned up 24 hours early to hear the pre-match musings of one man.

But not just any man. The man.

You'd be forgiven for thinking he's a mere mortal as you watch him wandering in to the pre-training press conference. Everyone is slow to genuflect, sensing that, perhaps, he might regard the gesture as a touch over the top, maybe a little discomforting.

He sits at the top table, has a little look around and evidently marvels at how such a teeny room can accommodate so many media folk and all the equipment that goes with them.

It's hot. Very, very hot. The only one who isn't perspiring is the man himself. Cool out. Zinedine Zidane.

There's a slight technical hitch with the press conference: French man Zidane answers questions put in French by the French media. The neck of them. After a few minutes of scribbling Irlande, important and Roy Keane in their notebooks, the local press wave a mono-lingual white flag, decide to bury their pride and ask for a translation.

"Okay," says the man to Zidane's left, "Zinedine say: 'Everybody dreams of playing such a match, I am honoured to play in Lansdowne Road, such a mythic stadium. You just have to look at the results achieved here in Lansdowne Road by Ireland, it's very difficult to win here. It's such a different stadium to the Stade de France, it has a soul."

("Did he say 'It's a hole'?"

"No, he said 'it has a soul'."

"Right.")

"If we want to find hope we must not lose this game, but our objective is to win. It will be a great match. I have played many important matches, this will be one of them. Maybe it will be one of the last important matches in my career, but I still have the guts and the feeling to go after a result."

What do you fear about Ireland? "What I fear in this Irish team is everything and nothing. What they have achieved is well deserved, they have great strengths, we have to play a great match to win here. The key is for us not to panic, to play our game. We may not have the freedom to develop our style because of the atmosphere, because of the stadium, it will be very difficult, but we know what we have to do and we will try to do it."

Roy Keane? "I am very happy to play against Roy Keane, very happy to meet him, I have a lot of respect for him, I am very happy for him to be on the pitch. He is a great asset for the Irish team, of course."

And then a bright spark asks "Have you been getting any voices about what the result might be tomorrow", in reference to Zidane's comment that a "voice" told him to return for France. He was ridiculed at the time, later clarifying the comment by saying it was his brother who persuaded to come back. Dragging up the "voices" business again prompted Zidane to bid adieu.

Enter the French coach, Raymond Domenech, or Zinedine's assistant, as they'd have us believe.

Patrick Vieira v Roy Keane. You said Keane returned for Ireland just so that he could play against Vieira? "That was just a joke. Definitely," he grinned.

"I don't want to play the old man giving advice to experienced players, they have the experience themselves, they know what they have to do. But we would love to have normal Irish weather conditions for the game," he adds, "windy, raining - that is what my players would expect from a match in Ireland."

What do you think of the stadium? "It is a good stadium," says Domenech, with not a hint of a grin.

Ah no, really? This time Domenech grins, and laughs.

And then a train trundles by. Incroyable, he's probably thinking as he, too, bids adieu.