Seven o’clock, 45 minutes before the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League tie away to Kosovo, and the reality of Peter Collins, a sports broadcaster hosting an actual sports show, delivering an intro focused on the football to come sounded strangely odd.
The past seven days have been so dominated by the two upcoming Group B3 games against Israel that the sight of an early montage showing celebrated goals scored by Ray Houghton and Wes Hoolahan in past campaigns jarred more again.
The build-up to, and start of this, international window has demanded a wider focus on genocide, sucked in the Taoiseach during his trip to New York for a United Nations engagement, and relegated football to a place way below secondary importance.
RTÉ got to the nub of it soon enough.
For nine minutes Richie Sadlier and Kevin Doyle debated the Israel question, and Ireland’s and the FAI’s answers or evasions on it, before we were taken back to Pristina where Tony O’Donoghue interviewed Heimir Hallgrimsson pitchside.
The Ireland manager looked like a man being put through a wringer, even as he was asked about the game in front of him, or when fielding the most gentle of probes on the game fast approaching in the Hungarian city of Debrecen at the weekend.
RTÉ will be covering that in the most cursory of fashions. No studio chat, a Yellow Pack commentary from an international feed, no sponsorship or advertising. Some of the print media is taking stripped back approaches of their own, others will be present.
If no-one can quite agree on how to cover the Israel games then there was an obvious discomfort with the approach to this one too. It felt like everyone was waiting for the first whistle here so that heads could be buried in some sand.
If only for 90 minutes.
Even that wasn’t an undiluted option. Not with the widespread anger locally over the sentencing of prominent Kosovans in The Hague and the presence of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) banners in the ground.
As for us, there is one obvious problem with using Irish matches as a means of escapism: an Irish team that has caused supporters heartburn for very frivolous but keenly felt footballing reasons down the years. This was no different.
Yugoslavia was once known as the Brazil of the Balkans. Kosovo had been built up as their successors this week. They had a striker from Juventus, three Hoffenheim players, a Fenerbahce forward nicknamed The Pirate. And a Baynern Munich whizzkid off the bench.
They’d beaten Sweden, Slovenia and Slovakia.
Stephen Kelly stood in the centre circle beforehand and furrowed his brow at the uneven surface. It didn’t seem to bother Kosovo as they turned the screw in the first-half against an Irish side fielding five centre-backs in a 3-5-1-1.
Vedat Muriqi, the aforementioned buccaneer who plundered more goals in La Liga last year than anyone but Kylian Mbappe before moving to Turkey, had a shot cleared off the line, volleyed one over the bar and had a header turned away by Caoimhin Kelleher.
Veldin Hodza had another effort thwarted by a covering Irish defender. All of that happened inside 17 minutes. Kosovo were very decent but Ireland, not for the first time, made it so that an opposition side looked better than they probably are.
Kosova had 17 attempts on goal, Ireland three.
Anthony Gordon, now of Barcelona, was talking this week about the differences in how English and Spanish teams hold on to the ball. The same discussion revolves around Ireland every time they face a continental opponent.
They just didn’t, maybe couldn’t, hold the ball long enough to release the pressure valve in the first-half. There wasn’t any sense of ill fortune when, amid an escalating blizzard of late shots, Muriqi managed to find the net with four minutes to go.
A 1-0 defeat, an end to a six-match unbeaten run (over 90 minutes), and the sort of performance that, in normal circumstances, would have guaranteed endless sports news cycles on this team and where it is at.
Not here, not now. Not with Israel’s Sayed Abu Farchi being sent off after his goal against Austria for wielding a corner flag like a gun that he fired in celebration. Not with Ireland facing Israel in Hungary this weekend.