TIPPING POINT:Be afraid, be very afraid when Trapattoni's cautious Republic of Ireland side are chalked up as odds-on favourites to see off worthy underdogs Estonia

IT’S QUIET: too quiet. I don’t like it. Sniff the air. The whiff is unmistakable. There’s presumption out there, creeping up on us, blade gleaming in the moonlight, just waiting to scalp the hell out of our Euro 2012 qualification. Sure, there are picket guards, making the right noises, letting it be known they’re awake to the reality of the job still having to be finished off. But it’s got the feel of cant, routine bullshit for the sake of being seen to make the right noises. Nobody really believes it. We’re there. I have a bad feeling about all this. There’s no getting away from it – Ireland expects. And we all know how that works out.

There’s something about Ireland and the favourites’ tag that can turn our sporting psyche into a vertiginous maiden aunt, scrambling onto a stool and hoicking national skirts over our eyes before launching into a dizzying tailspin dive of disappointment.

There are exceptions of course. Roy Keane would fart in the general direction of such feeble-mindedness. Pádraig Harrington would make that psycho-eye face. Brian Cody would happy-slap the crap out of any Cat getting weak-kneed at the idea of expectation. But there’s no getting away from it: as a rule we don’t usually do favouritism very well.

No, we appreciate being the plucky underdog, just like the rugby bods at the World Cup. Don’t mind those opportunist spiel-merchants who claim to have seen that win over the Aussies coming. Nobody saw it coming. That’s what made it so amazing.

And then when ‘na cailíní’ went into a meaningful contest against Wales with a horizon of opportunity opening up in front of them, they surprised nobody by coming up short when every reasonable form line indicated they really should win.

And it’s the fact that nobody was really surprised that makes this upcoming qualifier against Estonia such a banana-skin. Because this relish for being the underdog has burrowed its way into the national psychology like a tick. And there’s nothing useful about it. In fact, parse it down and it’s all a massive cop-out. Win, and it’s great. Lose, and, sure, we were kinda expecting it; the perfect each way get-out bet.

Take it further and the logical corollary from this underdog obsession goes a lot deeper. Underdogs are underdogs because – guess what – they lose most of the time. The bookmaking industry is built on that reality.

But bookies are the bad guys. And the one thing guaranteed about underdogs is that they’re popular. Everyone roots for the underdog. The dangers of verging into cod-psychology here are obvious but there’s something deeply, nipple-chewingly needy about a nation so desperately in thrall to being liked by others. The evidence of that is all around us.

It isn’t that long since Der Taoiseach emerged in Brussels to boast about how our national sackcloth and ashes programme is an example to the rest of the world in how to bleed your population dry. Did you feel proud? Did you wrap that green flag tighter? Did ya?

Although evidence of this corner’s rickety predictive powers are regularly advertised on the racing pages, here’s one forecast that is a stone-cold cert. As we get closer to the first leg of this play-off, I bet some worthy in the Irish set-up will try and spin some yarn about how we really are the romantic option here, the ones up against it.

And that really will be wishful thinking because, no matter what way you look at it, Estonia is where the romance is in this equation.

We’re talking about a country that shook off the shackles of over 40 years of Soviet oppression by singing at them, no bad trick considering the Russians were sitting in tanks at the time. The Singing Revolution is one of the most heart-wrenchingly touching examples of power-to-the-people ever seen. Three hundred thousand people, damn near a quarter of the entire Estonian nation, stood in front of public buildings and other Soviet symbols in 1988 and sang traditional songs that had been banned. And they won. The T-80s measured them up in their 125mm sights and took a swerve. Two years later there were free elections.

As for the Irish obsession with oppression, and our misfortune to be parked next door to a big power, the Estonians trump that by having been a sandbox for totalitarian lunatics of both Nazi and communist persuasions.

You know you’re pretty screwed politically when you see Nazis marching down the street and they seem a more amenable bunch of nutcases than the commies. But that was the fate the tiny Baltic state found itself facing in the second World War. Now that’s a dilemma; enough to put our own mostly rancid little sectarian history into the context it deserves.

There’s no way anyone bar us will want Ireland to win. We’re the biggie in this particular scenario, the favourite, the bully, the oppressor of little nations who’ve never made the finals of anything before, bar the 1941 Oh Christ What Have We Done To Deserve This Cup. And you know as well as me that these are circumstances in which Ireland know only too well how to screw up.

It’s not as if the Irish football team is set up to win. Trapattonis defensive instincts are spectacular even for an Italian. He has a sniper’s caution. Faced with Lourdes Celtic’s Under-10Bs, he would probably play 4-5-1. And his predisposition for the long ball is famously entrenched. If Estonia gang up at the back, there’s little chance of a Trap team teasing them open with quick-witted interplay. Even in Dublin, it’s easy to see the little guys having more of the ball, growing in confidence, rising to the challenge, stiffing it to the big guys; all classic underdog stuff.

Defiance, personified by Richard Dunne in Moscow, won’t be much good then.

A different type of bravery will be required, the sort that eyes up a challenge and constructively goes about meeting it. But that isn’t the Irish way. We worry about what others think about us and in a sporting situation like this that’s worse than useless.

There are some 5-2 odds floating around about Estonia getting the best of the two legs and qualifying. Ireland are 1-3. Now, that’s a favourite. Be very afraid.