Emotion leaked out through our screens on Saturday. It began on Network Two with Johnny Giles filling up, his big doggy eyes telling more than he wanted. It ended on BBC 1, commentator John Motson gagging on his statistics, Alan Hansen on the verge of admitting that England were a good side.
An Irish team laying their hearts on the line, flogging themselves the extra yard, riding their luck. Holland, with all that ordinance up front, that flank firepower and the five-star generals. But what can you do when the magazines jam, the detonators are dud and your leaders go AWOL.
Giles, always the most cautious of the Eamon Dunphy, Liam Brady RTE trio, couldn't, in honesty, figure a way around the Dutch team before the match at Lansdowne Road began.
"The Dutch are capable of being better than us. But it's on the day," he said hopefully but without conviction.
Brady was "a little bit scared" about the centre of the makeshift Irish defence where mistakes might be made. The former Irish playmaker was immediately proven correct in his analysis as Patrick Kluivert set himself up for the first cracking miss of the match.
Dunphy was into Ireland's passion, their occasional brutality, the ability to soften up targets while remaining on the pitch, their strengths. Jim Beglin, commentating with George Hamilton was on the same track and when Roy Keane typically clattered Marc Overmars in the opening minutes, there was an agreed consensus.
"If we can get a few tackles in like that without getting a yellow card, that's what we need," said Beglin.
The drama of the match and its emotional climax was rooted in the simple demonstration of Ireland's heroics. It is the most attractive theme football can offer and it is where television shines.
Even within the main plot of little 10-man Ireland and big Holland there were striking sub texts of struggle and even morality.
There was the manager Mick McCarthy being rewarded for his courage and belief in players that most thought could not do what he had asked. His impassioned plea after the match that Jason McAteer deserves Premiership football will evidently further cement the bond with his players. McCarthy was verging on indignation, arguing that McAteer should be given a club deal. There was little doubt that the question was burning in the footballer's mind too. McAteer has not played a competitive club match this season.
"He (McCarthy) has been more than a football manager. He's been a friend. I paid him a little bit back in Holland and hopefully I paid him a little bit back today," said McAteer.
The notion of salvation through hard work, grind, commitment, loyalty, team work, selflessness has a resonance in the Irish team and to life itself. Most of us are not special. That, in one sense, is why the victory was so beautiful. Ireland, because of their visceral abilities, achieved something they shouldn't have and there was no reason or there was a million reasons why it happened.
"We all jumped up in the air when McAteer scored," admitted Bill O'Herlihy. "Objectivity went straight out the window." Dunphy, shining a light on his old pal Giles observed: "It was like someone had offered him a bottle of Barcardi and a gallon of coke."
On BBC 1's news before Match of The Day Bacardi may have explained the riot police charging yet another crowd of English fans in another square in another European city, this time Munich.
Misplaced optimism perhaps, which reflected how the panel of Alan Hansen, Peter Reid and Mark Lawrenson prefaced the England match against Germany. Misplaced only for the first 10 minutes.
"I don't think you can find rivals as big as Germany and England," mused the considered English coach Sven-Goran Eriksson before the match, his entire demeanour a stunning contrast to the city wreckers in down-town Munich.
The mix of a former Republic of Ireland skipper, a Scot and and English man worked well for BBC. Hansen tore into the German defensive frailties before a ball was kicked, prepared to eat his words after the first quarter and then went to dinner on Germany at half-time.
Reid apologised to the viewers for having to agree with Hansen and declared that Germany "are so bad at the back that it's a joke." Lawrenson rechristened the German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn't (Kahn) as Michael Owen set about kicking his way into the history books with a hat-trick.
Motson, on top of his game as usual, pointed out Germany's monolithic success throughout the years.
"They haven't lost in the Olympic Stadium since 1973 ... it was 100 to 1 odds for a 4-1 England win this morning ... Germany have lost only once in 60 qualifiers ... England won 6-3 in Berlin in 1938 ... the German spectators are walking out in disgust ... pinch yourselves," he exhorted. "In 25 years of covering England I have never been so uplifted."
Lawrenson, like Hansen, was bemused at the German defence as much as England's ability to finish. Scrolling back the video tape, Beckham's long 60-yard raking pass to Owen was broken down. "No need to freeze it," quipped Lawrenson. "They're (German defence) frozen already."
Saturday in both RTE and BBC studios will be remembered by the soccer scientists as the day they rediscovered their sense of wonderment, that the game cannot always be broken down into inert parts of good or bad. No amount of dissection explains why Kluivert or Zenden or Sebastian Deisler for Germany missed bread-and-butter chances that might have turned the complexion of both matches.
Nobody was lost for words but for explanations, totally.
