Irish Believe They Can Go All the Way by Tying a Few More On

In the midst of this wine-drinkers’ mecca sits a watering hole called the Red Garter, an old-fashioned inn where any thirsty Irishperson who prefers pulling a cork to sniffing one can stop by late at night to sip some Wild Irish Rose, or to acquire a foamy mustache from a full glass of Guinness Stout.

On Saturday, this bar should be hopping.

Because on Saturday, the Irish play football.

They play not in South Bend, Ind., but in the southern bend of Italy, in Rome. And they play not for Lou Holtz, but for Big Jack Charlton--who, unlike the football coach at Notre Dame, hopes to conclude the season in charge of not the No. 1 team in the nation, but the No. 1 team in the world.

The Red Garter might be one of the few sanctuaries available in the entire republic of Italy for anybody who dares side with the Irish during Saturday’s quarterfinal game of the World Cup soccer tournament. Ireland happens to be playing Italy in this particular game, which means that every Italian father, mother and child--or so it seems on match days, at least--will be lending support to the home team.

For luck, perhaps, the Irish coaches and players took their cause straight to the top on Tuesday. They received an audience with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, where they presented the Pontiff, an old soccer player himself as a youth in Poland, with a green Ireland jersey.

Usually a team waits until a championship is won for a visit of such magnitude, as when the Detroit Pistons recently presented one of their uniforms to President Bush. The underdog Irish, perhaps, figured that they had better do their business now, before it is too late.

“We could use the Pope’s blessing,” Big Jack Charlton said. “We could use all the help available to us.”

They sure can.

Italy is a team--playing at home, to boot--that has not yet lost a 1990 World Cup game. Ireland is a team that has not yet won a 1990 World Cup game, at least not in regulation time. In the first round, Ireland tied England, 1-1; tied Egypt, 0-0, then tied the Netherlands, 1-1. This was enough to earn the Irish a second-round match against Romania that, after 90 minutes of regulation play and 30 minutes of overtime, remained tied, 0-0. Only in a post-overtime shootout was Ireland able to advance to the quarterfinals.

Charlton says he has the rest of the tournament all figured out.

“We are going to become the only country ever to win the World Cup without winning a single game,” he joked.

Behind his back, or in an affectionate manner by the hardy fans who follow his team, the coach is sometimes referred to as Jack O’Charlton --since Big Jack himself happens to be English, not Irish. Matter of fact, sometimes it seems as though the most difficult thing to find on Ireland’s World Cup squad is an Irishman.

Charlton gets a kick out of a joke that has been going around, particularly among British soccer fans:

Question: What do Englishmen, Scotsmen and Welshmen have in common?

Answer: They all play soccer for Ireland.

Even though there are 3.5 million inhabitants of the republic of Ireland, and 106,568 registered soccer players, the Irish national team is largely made up of players from other nearby regions, who have taken advantage of their Irish ancestry to qualify for the roster.

One of the players who will take the field against Italy, in fact, is Tony Cascarino, who could not be any more Italian. It should be interesting to see what sort of reception Cascarino gets. The United States had players with Italian roots, and they were cheered, but Cascarino is actually from Italy, and furthermore, Ireland, unlike the United States, is seen as an actual threat to Italy’s Cup bid.

From an Irish pub or otherwise, it should be fun seeing how this game turns out.

The Irish fans, singing their hearts out all game long, tend to be more fun than their team. Ireland’s players specialize in low-scoring, mucking-around matches in which they appear to see their roles more in terms of annoying the opposition than attacking it. Remember, in 390 minutes of soccer through four contests, Ireland managed the less-than-awesome total of two goals.

Is Ireland a lousy, lucky team?

Hardly. For 19 months, this team has stayed together without losing a game to anybody.

Charlton is no stranger to the World Cup. He played for England for many years, and is considered one of that country’s greatest athletic heroes.

“But I consider what we have accomplished here this year greater than anything that has ever happened to me before,” Charlton said. “This is quite exciting for me, as well as for everyone Irish.”

So exciting that, the night of the victory over Romania, when Charlton was asked what his plans were to prepare for the Italy game, the coach replied: “I will address that tomorrow. Tonight is for drinking.”

And so it was.

The next day, Charlton said: “We woke up with happy hearts and sore heads.”

Sunday morning, it could happen again.