But on Monday they were able to seize the day and beat Poland 2-1 with a team including players from the Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Swedish and Cypriot leagues and two who’ve just been relegated from Serie A and the Bundesliga.

Finland’s players ply their trade at an even more modest level. Their first team draws from the Greek, Scottish and Cypriot Leagues, The Championship and a domestic league ranked below the League of Ireland in the European rankings while including two players from mighty US outfit Minnesota United.

Yet they managed to win their first ever major tournament match, 1-0 against Denmark. That game took place under extraordinary circumstances but the Finns were also unlucky not to earn a draw against Russia.

Then there’s Wales, whose results against Switzerland and Turkey may have secured a place in the last 16. Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey are better than anyone Ireland has at the moment, but most of the Welsh players occupy the same type of station within the game, Swansea, Cardiff and Stoke City, Bournemouth, Luton Town, the bench at Leicester and Spurs, as ours do.

Look how well Kieffer Moore, who four years ago was playing non-league football, has done for the Welsh. Like their run to the 2016 semi-finals, Wales’ performance is a reminder that football can be the art of the possible. As is the fact that their current heroics are being achieved under a caretaker manager who four years ago was sacked by Northampton Town.

There’s no reason Ireland can’t emulate Slovakia and Finland or aspire to the heights reached by Wales. Qualifying for a 24-team European Championships should be within our compass.

Yet the current gloomy conventional wisdom surrounding our national team suggests these things are too much to hope for. As we apparently don’t have the players, it is our lot to accept defeats by the likes of Luxembourg as inevitable until some radical restructuring of the domestic game enables us to be competitive again. 

This type of talk lets the manager and the players off the hook. You have to play the hand you’ve been dealt, which is what Wales have done with great skill after their preparations were disrupted when Ryan Giggs stepped down.

Ireland don’t possess the same quality of players that we did 10 years ago, but other countries are coping better with limited resources. The majority of the side which lost to Luxembourg were first team players in the strongest league in Europe.

It may be that Ireland will never again reach the heights of the Charlton era but that still leaves us plenty to play for. One of the unfortunate by-products of Saipan was the insane insistence that not only could we have won the 2002 World Cup but that anything short of such a triumph should be considered a failure.

This was premium grade Celtic Tiger bullshit and it got fresh impetus when, during the 2012 finals, Roy Keane sneered at the Irish fans for being happy just to be there. This line of attack was very popular with the kind of lads who say “I’m a perfectionist” when asked for their biggest fault. But the truth is that countries like Ireland should be happy to qualify for major tournaments.

It’s an achievement in itself. Only the utterly soulless would look at the Hungarian team saluting their fans in the aftermath of their gallant 3-0 defeat against Portugal and think, “Losers. What have you got to be happy about?”

The cynical sour-faced, “I’m glad we didn’t qualify because if we did, we’d only make a show of ourselves,” stuff makes no sense. Slovakia, Finland and Wales have shown it’s not true.

But if the Euros are a realistic target for most countries, the World Cup is a different story. Almost half of the teams in this year’s finals won’t be among the 13 European qualifiers for Qatar.

World Cup qualification is an almost impossible task for the likes of Ireland. So it’s absurdly unfair to suggest that falling short will constitute major failure on Stephen Kenny’s part.

It’s also why, however the current qualification process plays out, the Irish manager deserves a chance to try and make the finals of Euro 2024. He should be judged on his ability to reach a reasonable rather than an unreasonable goal.

There’s no point denying that Kenny’s reign has been an almost unmitigated disaster so far. Those of us who clamoured for him to get the job need to be honest about that. The change in the style of play, the blooding of youngsters and the token nods to the League of Ireland will mean nothing if the results don’t improve. 

But patience could be a virtue. Finland’s manager, Markku Kanerva, started with two wins from six World Cup qualifying games before masterminding his team’s historic run to Euro 2020. North Macedonia’s Igor Angelovski brought his team to a historically low point in the Fifa World rankings but then moved them up over 100 places and secured their first ever major finals qualification.

The margins are so tight for the smaller countries that the gap between abject failure and relative success is not that large. And these finals have confirmed the wisdom of Kenny’s overhaul of our national team’s footballing philosophy.

Even if the incumbent is ousted, it would be unthinkable to see a new Irish manager propel the team back into the stone age. Whether Kenny is the saviour or just a John the Baptist figure paving the way remains to be seen. But let’s not rush to judgement.

The acid test will be whether we’re at the 2024 Euros in Germany. That shouldn’t be too much to ask for. Slovakia, Finland, Wales, Scotland and Hungary have shown the way.