‘Murder on the Gdansk floor’

Ireland’s press on Friday reflected on the national side’s 4-0 defeat to Spain in Euro 2012, assessing that Giovanni Trapattoni’s team of spirited battlers had been simply outclassed by Spanish masters.

“Murder on the Gdansk floor” the Irish Sun said in its headline, summing up the rout by the European and world champions in the Group C match in northern Poland on Thursday.

The tabloid quoted aptly-named fan Karl Spain as saying: “Watching that game was like playing a football match on the play station with a broken controller. That Spanish side were the best team I’ve ever seen. It’s such a pity.”

The Irish Times dug deep into its stock of Spanish references to describe the game, which saw Fernando Torres score twice, with goals too from David Silva and Cesc Fabregas and long periods where the Irish side were chasing shadows.

“They really should ban Spanish bullfighting,” the Times said on its website irishtimes.com.

“Nobody needed a blindfold but there were times last night when it was sad to watch what Spain did to the Republic of Ireland...

“The 4-0 scoreline was a true reflection of what happens when a profoundly brilliant team meets a limited one... Never did the old schoolyard phrase seem truer: they ran rings around us. Any hope that it would be otherwise proved delusional.”

Ireland’s green army of travelling fans won almost universal praise for their response to the defeat, raising the roof with a rendition of Irish folk song “The Fields of Athenry” while Spain stroked the ball around as if at an exhibition match.

But former captain Roy Keane, who quit the Irish squad during the World Cup in 2002 after a row with then-manager Mick McCarthy, provoked fierce debate on the newspaper message boards by suggesting that having great fans was not enough.

“We’re a small country, we’re up against it, but let’s not just go along for the sing-song every now and again,” the former Manchester United midfielder said.

Keane won some support on the comments section of the irishindependent.ie but one contributor did not agree.

“We sing at funerals and weddings, this was a wake so we sang Roy,” they said.