The Brass Donkey

The existence of any football team is as cyclical as the area between Sir Chris Hoy’s thighs – sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down.

Sometimes you’re a free-flowing attacking unit of marvellous flair and precision, then one managerial change and a cost-cutting exercise later and you’re craning your neck to follow the flight of a ball lumped over a midfield of narrow stodge, struggling to recall the last time you felt anything close to joy in your blighted heart.

These vicissitudes of footballing circumstance go double when you’re playing with the genetic roulette of a national side, and triple if that country is trying to fish its prime talent from a smaller gene pool.

Just ask any Hungarian fan – they’ll likely be able to wax lyrical for hours about a team of world-beating superstars who revolutionised the game decades before they were born, then treat you to the hardest stare they can muster if you beg their opinion on how Tamás Priskin and the lads are going to get on in next World Cup.

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