Was Ireland’s defeat in Armenia the most calamitous loss in the history of Irish football?

It’s a whole 28 years since Ireland had a Macedonia in Skopje with that 3-2 World Cup qualifying defeat, so a refresh was overdue. From here on in, then, the worst player in Irish training should have to wear a bib with “I had an Armenia” inscribed on it.

Was it the most calamitous loss in the history of Irish football? Well, there are quite a few contenders for the title, that Macedonia hiccup certainly in the running, as is our 1995 scoreless draw away to Liechtenstein whose population, as we know, wouldn’t fill the Aviva Stadium. But so many options are there, we’re confining our search to the 2000s.

If Heimir Hallgrímsson didn’t sleep too well on Tuesday night, spare a thought for those tasked with raking through the records in an effort to discover if that 2-1 humbling in Yerevan was indeed our low point. Because the raking dredged up many a disturbing reminder of performances that we’ll all have tried to erase from the memory bank.

First, the near misses – as in when we came perilously close to results of shambolic proportions. We’ll start with San Marino away in 2007, when Stephen Ireland made his granny proud by scoring the winner in the ... 95th minute. San Marino were ranked 196th in the world at the time, making Armenia look like Brazil.

There was another decidedly narrow escape in 2012 when Ireland needed an 89th minute penalty from Robbie Keane and a 91st minute winner from Kevin Doyle to beat Kazakhstan 2-1, Giovanni Trapattoni visibly ageing as he watched his lads play like the Dog and Duck. They produced a similar display against a rock in 2019, Jeff Hendrick’s goal all they could muster against Gibraltar.

There have been strings of mortifying draws too, among them one against Cyprus (more of them anon) at Croke Park in 2007 when Ireland needed a 93rd-minute equaliser from Steve Finnan. And against Azerbaijan at the Aviva in 2021 when another defender, Shane Duffy, earned the ‘spares blushes’ award for his 87th-minute leveller.

You can add draws with Albania and Montenegro (twice) to the list, while friendly stalemates, as they say in the trade, with Qatar, New Zealand and Luxembourg (last June) weren’t too exhilarating either.

There have been a sprinkling of mullerings by useful opposition along the way too, none heavier than Germany’s 6-1 World Cup qualifying win in Dublin in 2012. Then there was the Christian Eriksen show five years later, when he scored a hat-trick for Denmark in their 5-1 World Cup play-off win at the Aviva. A year later, we had to endure a calamity in Cardiff, Wales winning a Nations League meeting 4-1, and last November all was going grand at Wembley until Liam Scales got himself sent off – after which England scored just the five.

Right, time for the defeats’ hall of shame. Because it was a friendly, that 3-0 loss to Australia in 2009 doesn’t count for much, but it was the first time Thomond Park hosted a senior football international and so rubbish was the performance by Trapattoni’s men, they were probably sorry they opened their gates.

Grimmer still, because it was a World Cup qualifier, was a 2021 result that Emmet Malone described as “arguably Ireland’s worst ever home defeat”. Gerson Rodrigues’s goal five minutes from time gave Luxembourg, the world’s 98th ranked team, victory at the Aviva. “Historic ignominy,” was the Guardian’s take on a result that left Stephen Kenny winless after 10 games.

A bit on the ignominious side too was a 1-0 Nations League defeat in Yerevan a year later, the only relief about the abysmal display against Armenia that it was unlikely ever to happen again against the same opposition – in a “forewarned is forearmed” kind of way.

We’ve reached the top of the pile – or bottom, if you prefer. Which was worse – 2006’s 5-2 mauling by Cyprus in Nicosia or Tuesday’s dog’s breakfast in Yerevan? It’s like comparing apples with apples, really, one was as woeful as the other, so we’ll make them the joint winners of our omnishambles prize.

Mind you, if you’re a demon for world rankings, which you shouldn’t be, you’ll go with Tuesday because it was the first time Ireland ever lost to a side ranked outside the top 100 – Armenia are at 105, Cyprus were at 80 back in 2006.

But the point of the story, really, is that we’ve had so many cataclysmic calamities down the years, we should really be inured to them at this stage. Maybe Eamon Dunphy was right with his typically measured response to the performance (Hallgrímsson is a “BLUFFER!”), the fellah no doubt running out of pens to chuck across his livingroom during the game. “Ireland have become minnows.”

True. And they’ll remain that way until they stop having Armenias.

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