ACCORDING TO THE laws of probability, there was only ever a 25% chance that the Republic of Ireland would draw Israel in their upcoming Nations League group. 

But the laws of probability mean nothing when it comes to the Irish men’s soccer team, which has never been governed by what is most likely to happen, but simply the most painful possible outcome. 

And painful this is. Painful in a way that far transcends Gaizka Mendieta rolling his penalty past Shay Given in South Korea, Packie Bonner parrying Donadoni’s shot straight to Toto Schillachi in 1990, and even Roy Keane boarding his flight at Saipan International Airport. Ireland vs Israel is set to be the most dispiriting fixture in the history of Irish football, and that is saying something. 

Ireland will play Israel twice this autumn as part of our Nations League campaign, first in a neutral venue (though Israel is pushing to be allowed host its own home games again), and again a week later on Irish soil. The draw took place in the same week an Al Jazeera investigation found that US-supplied thermal and thermobaric munitions burning at 3,500 degrees Celsius dropped on Gaza over the course of the war caused thousands of Palestinians to simply evaporate, erased from existence in instants by Israel’s war machine. The IDF has recently accepted the long-reported death toll of 70,000, and this week an Israeli minister declared ‘de facto sovereignty’ over the West Bank. 

As you would expect, therefore, calls for Ireland to boycott the game began immediately. For Ireland to refuse to play the games would see us forfeit the points, an outcome that is presumably unthinkable to the elite athletes and coaches that make up the Irish football team. The loss of a presumed 40,000 ticket sales is, presumably, similarly unthinkable to the FAI.

There will be protests, which will almost certainly intensify as the game........

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