The article below is an excerpt from the free Monday edition of the Miguel Delaney: Inside Football newsletter. With Ireland at 2–2 and needing just one goal, they opted for one desperate last attack. I can already sense some responses: that this wasn’t the World Cup, that it was just a qualifier, and that there are still play-offs to come. But this is also the glorious thing about sport – especially a global sport like football – that Parrott so perfectly articulated. It can't all be big games with big teams all the time… or else none of it is big.