It feels like a league with the profile of Ireland’s is going to have to get used to multi-club ownership issues.

Crying over a missed penalty at 39? Pull yourself together man. Blubbing over winning a tournament at 40? Ah come here you lovely big lummox.

To paraphrase JFK, we choose to finish second in our World Cup qualifying group and scrape through the playoffs not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

For all the abuses and corruptions the beautiful game had to endure, it seemed that the universe would deliver PSG a measure of slapstick comeuppance to balance things up. Days away from the Champions League final, that seems to have changed. 

It’s probably no harm to have all Duffer’s doings getting airtime from Ballybough to Bogota, even the embarrassing ones.

Most games now seem to swing this way and that, there is a bit more room for quality to show, enough of the tactical stuff if you are into that, but plenty chaos and unpredictability as well.

Here we have another left-footed kid out of the Barcelona hit factory who seems to be able to pull the biggest football occasions into whatever shapes he feels like

The great thing about McIlroy's Masters win was that everyone knew it was big.

The Postecoglou worldview appears doomed, but good on him for fighting for it.

As last weekend in MacHale Park and this weekend in Croke Park confirm, there is no longer any shame in just showing up for the big occasion.