The concept of spreading the competition around the continent was effectively a Michel Platini brainchild, but he left the building under a cloud, long before the preparations really gathered pace.

It was left to those behind to pick up the baton. When Platini called out Dublin’s name in September 2014, the Irish delegation, led by John Delaney and Michael Ring, provided the press-release platitudes.

A few years later, then Taoiseach Enda Kenny joined Delaney at an event in the Irish capital to launch the logo for our wing of the competition. Kenny reflected on his mixed memories of another major sporting event coming to these shores.

“When I was back in tourism in the mid-’90s, we had visits from Seán Kelly and Stephen Roche to bring the Tour de France, we made arrangements for that,” he recalled.

“When they came in 1998 – the 200th anniversary of the French landing in Killala – it turned out not to be the best Tour de France for reasons that you will recall, syringes falling out of suitcases and so on.”

At least the Tour did make it here, warts and all.

Covid-19 restrictions spelled the end for Dublin’s dream, but there was limited upset when the inevitable was confirmed. Delaney wasn’t around to fight the case, of course, for he’s got another case on his mind these days.

His 2020 vision was to welcome the great and good of European football to his backyard for four games.

After securing a seat on UEFA’s all-powerful Executive Committee, it would have represented a personal triumph of sorts.

Perhaps, his only consolation is that his FAI successors have also been deprived of that opportunity, too.

For Irish-based fans of the game, these finals will be a TV experience.

There’s a lot of what-ifs in our lives at the moment – and wondering about the Euros summer that might have been is unlikely to rank high on many lists, given how much else has been lost.

If Ireland had qualified, it would have been a different story. But round-robin group games involving Poland, Sweden and Slovakia weren’t getting the pulses racing.

Granted, if we were living in normal travel conditions, with full stadiums permitted, then it could have been fun.

The Swedes are a good time and the Polish community in Ireland would have embraced the opportunity, and possibly even enjoyed payback for the support the natives gave the green army back in 2012.

But crowd scenes were off the agenda when the final decision was made.

The glamour option was the prospect of a round-of-16 tie between England and Germany, if results went in a particular way. Perhaps that one would have functioned better without crowds; Dublin City Council would have had more to worry about more than bins and toilets.

But the show must go on and, in reality, when the play gets under way, thoughts of the fallen hosts will quickly fade from memory.

Deprived of a central hub, the tournament will be lacking a lot of the traditional colour. Some matches will have a partisan home crowd – and others will be populated by indifferent locals, but that’s all preferable to fake crowd noise. 

Predictions are a dangerous game. It’s three years since the World Cup in Russia and a lot of water has gone under the bridge for the various protagonists.

The eyes are drawn to France again, yet a devilishly difficult Group F, with Portugal and Germany, could send them in any number of directions.

All three could go through and the third-placed side has the potential to kill confident predictions crafted on the old-school tracing of wallcharts. There are lots of variables to consider.

Spain and the Netherlands have the kindest draws of the big guns, but the Dutch will miss Virgil van Dijk, while the former are not the team they used to be.

Belgium have knocked on the door in recent tournaments, without having the conviction to go through it, but it’s possible to sketch a path for them to go all the way into the latter stages. They are a tentative selection.

And then there’s England, the closest thing to a home side in the tournament, in the sense that if they top a pool – where they play three times at Wembley – their round-of-16 tie would also be at base (the game moved from Dublin so it’s still the runners-up from the Group of Death that lies in wait) with a Rome quarter-final the only diversion ahead of the semi-finals and final at the FA’s HQ. 

That will bring its own expectation for what is beginning to look like a new golden generation, including a pair of players – Messrs Grealish and Rice – that would have figured in Irish Euro 2020 ruminations somewhere along the way.

The road to the Euros has been paved with bumps, with the final destination a distance removed from the picture that was painted all the way back in 2014.

Expect a few more twists and turns before a champion is crowned.