Ghosts of campaigns past
The word ‘Macedonia’ has been the source of an international naming dispute between the Balkan republic and neighbouring Greece for the past 20 years, but in Ireland it carries the aura of a foul expletive for the nation’s football fans.
Ever since the Balkan nation became independent of the former Yugoslavia in 1991, there has been opposition from Greece to its use of the same name as a northern province in that country and the United Nations have been involved in several attempts at a resolution. Many UN members refer to the country in its constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia, while others use the provisional reference the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and the row is still ongoing, with an International Court of Justice hearing commencing this very week, stemming from Greece's objection to Macedonia entering NATO under the name.
It is an important and emotive issue, but not one in all honesty that will be at the forefront of thoughts for the average Republic of Ireland fan desperate for Giovanni Trapattoni’s side to get three Euro 2012 qualification points against their Macedonian counterparts (entered into all competitions as FYR Macedonia) on Saturday. And the majority of those fans will remember being grouped with the same opposition twice in qualifying in the 1990s and not wearing a smile after their dealings with them.
Ahead of Saturday, it is comforting for the Irish to recall that their two previous home meetings with Saturday’s opponents ended with victories at the old Lansdowne Road (3-0 in qualifying for World Cup ’98 and 1-0 in the Euro 2000 qualifiers). It was the away trips against a side that the Irish were in no way familiar with, but were soon never to forget, that means there was still a shiver ghosting down many spines when the teams were pooled together for the current campaign.
The most recent meeting was in Skopje in October 1999. It doesn’t feel like 11 ½ years ago, but I remember it more than most Ireland games and know well I am not alone in this. I was 16, and for some reason not chancing my arm down one of the local boozers to watch what was a crucial game. Rather I stayed at home with a hazardous glass bottle of Lucozade. TV3 was a relatively new broadcaster, only a year or so old, but had come in and secured the rights to Ireland away qualifiers at a time when an aerial was needed for the new station, an aerial that my parents were wise enough to not invest in. That would not be forked out for until Coronation Street moved to the channel in 2000.
It means I also have memories of trying to hold a sellotaped mini-aerial in place in my brother’s room as Ireland lost their away qualifiers in Croatia and Yugoslavia on a very hazy and snowy screen, only realising that the former had scored a 91st-minute winner a couple of minutes after the final whistle. It would be the same portable TV I would watch this final qualifier in Skopje in as Ireland, after great home wins over those same two sides, went into the game with a chance of winning the group as the Croatians and Yugoslavs simultaneously faced off in Zagreb. They would end up drawing 2-2, which meant that an away win for Ireland would see them top the group and qualify for the finals in Belgium and Holland.
The Macedonian side they faced were not of any great shakes, their line led by Barnsley’s Georgi Hristov – an infamous detractor of the local Yorkshire ladies – and Ireland started confidently, with Niall Quinn giving them a deserved 17th minute lead. Quinn had also scored the winner in the home game against Macedonia and a repeat of that 1-0 would have been enough for a trip to Benelux, but Ireland wisely chased a second with Steve Staunton going close and Gary Kelly proving to be the wrong man for a sitter to fall to as he fluffed the chance.
Into the second half and the nerves so symptomatic of Irish teams on these away trips - Israel several years later another one to stick in the gut – came to their full fruition. Ireland were not finishing it off, furthermore they were barely trying to and, as the 90th minute arrived, things could still go one of two ways.
Almost inevitably they went the wrong way for the Boys in Green. Macedonia won a corner; it was sent in, Tony Cascarino lost his man, his man, a full back by the name of Goran Stavreski got his head to the ball; the nearby Keith O’Neill slipped and Alan Kelly – and every Irish fan in the stadium and watching on good or bad pictures at home – looked on in horror as 0-1 became 1-1, first became second and the Macedonians had caused us more away heartache.
The full-time whistle went; Mick McCarthy seemed to bear a long-term grudge against the unfortunate and never-to-return O’Neill; Yugoslavia won the group; the glass Lucozade bottle which was nowhere near empty due to my nerves was flung fiercely and fatally against the wall and Ireland were paired in a playoff with Turkey that they lost on away goals. But it was in Macedonia and not Turkey that that particular qualification failed, nobody ever disputes that.
Three years earlier, Ireland’s first game against a nation that most Irish fans - and undoubtedly Irish goalscorer Jason McAteer - had never heard of ended in a 3-0 home win at Lansdowne Road with Cascarino getting the other two. That result made it two wins from two as Ireland started what would ultimately be an underwhelming campaign to reach France ’98 well. Their next game, however, would be a 0-0 draw at home to Iceland and then the following April would see the team play in Skopje for the first time. It is another one that did nothing to help me cope with any teenage angst that might have been hovering.
Ireland turned out in that memorable orange away kit and were in front after just eight minutes as Alan McLoughlin scored. RTE’s George Hamilton was the commentator and in trademark fashion put the mockers on things by exclaiming “McLoughlin! There’s number one!” If his defence there would be a number two for Ireland, but only after the hosts had bagged a number one, number two and number three of their own. Terry Phelan and McAteer gave them a penalty apiece before the afore-mentioned Hristov put himself in the shop window ahead of that move to subsequent Premier League one-hit wonders Barnsley.
David Kelly pulled one back, but an equaliser or better never looked like coming and McAteer got himself sent off for an outrageous high kick as the sun set in Skopje and Macedonia added Ireland to the teams they had previously beaten in their three years of competitive football – Liechtenstein and Cyprus (who would one day make this Macedonia nightmare pale in comparison on the all-time bad days out for Ireland list). Ireland finished well behind Romania in those qualifiers, but still came second meaning more playoff pain, this time to Belgium.
It was less a case of underestimating the opposition as self-capitulation as far as Ireland were concerned, and the same could be said two years later on that fateful night where I failed to make the most of my Lucozade. Macedonia were a regular face in the qualifying stakes now, and one to be feared, if not for the sum of their parts then for the fact that Skopje was somewhere Ireland were in no hurry to return to.
They must though. June will give the current Irish side the chance to exorcise their ghosts from away days past in Macedonia, though failure to collect maximum points on Saturday would take away, probably fatally, from any banishing of those decade-old blues. The home fixture must be negotiated successfully or it will add to the uneasiness that still exists 11 ½ years on when Ireland versus Macedonia becomes a talking point.
Back in the 1990s Macedonia were a largely unknown entity in football circles but after a decade that has seen many nations that joined the football world around the same time as them reach the big tournaments, and in a time where the world wide web makes no team a secret army, nobody will be taking them for granted. Some Ireland fans argue they are still trying to scupper them from qualifying for anything after Ilco Naumoski’s missed penalty in the 1-0 defeat to Ireland’s current qualification rivals Russia back in October. They should be more worried about the same player trying to make up for that miss in Dublin.
The star man of the current team is, of course, a man in great humour after striker Goran Pandev scored the goal that kept holders Inter Milan in the Champions League with his late winner at Bayern Munich last week. He is the side’s captain and record scorer and is back after missing the last two games.
Not always one to run all day, he still has the quality to expose an Irish defence that normally lets a goal in these days. Elsewhere, the team does not have too many stand-out names. Dynamo Kiev left back Goran Popov was the man Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli kung-fu kicked last week, surely not in homage to McAteer circa ’97, while fellow defender Nikolce Noveski is part of the promoted Mainz side that led the Bundesliga for a while earlier in the campaign.
They are a side that Ireland should have the beating of, though the absences of Shay Given and John O'Shea, fitness concerns over Richard Dunne and Robbie Keane, and the sure reluctance of Trapattoni to play the likes of Seamus Coleman* and James McCarthy from the start hints at another evening of going 1-0 up and hoping for the best.
In truth the memories of both those away games will never be completely banished, but qualifying for Poland and Ukraine next year would relegate them down the list of vivid Irish football memories. Six points against Macedonia home and away would go a long way to bringing that closer to reality. But the only certainty is that I won’t be drinking Lucozade after this one!
*This piece was written prior to Coleman's withdrawal.