We were not expecting any trouble on arrival, but such a pleasant welcome allayed some of the fears and apprehensions that the players had. It is easy to be blas?bout travelling to other countries, but this one is different. Iran has an alien culture to us and a very powerful belief in religion. We would not be human if we weren’t a little nervous.Tuesday, 13 NovemberTrained early in the morning to try to shake everybody into the new time-frame.

I had not really thought about the altitude, but I certainly felt it in training. Most of the squad struggled a bit for breath but it was accentuated by the heat of the day, whereas the game has an evening kick-off, when it will be a lot cooler.A few of the players went into town to visit the gold market to practise their bartering techniques. They received plenty of attention but that may have been because they were seen as easy sales. I was tired and stayed in the hotel to sleep – that’s my published excuse to my wife and I’m sticking by it. The people were very friendly and when we met them we didn’t feel threatened, just a little jostled, a by-product of their wonderful enthusiasm. During the evening there was a showing in one of the players’ room of the Lions tour diary of Australia – we could tell how much it meant to the players and staff as the Irish manager, Donal Lenihan, broke down in tears after the final Test defeat.Wednesday, 14 NovemberTraining this week has been very similar to the sessions in Dublin before the first leg.

It is encouraging to hear the usual banter and feel familiar with the routine because it shows that the pressure has not affected us yet. There is tension around us and within us but importantly it is not controlling us.Trained in the stadium in the evening watched by about 1,000 Iranian fans. Tomorrow 120,000 are expected, and if they make 120 times the noise this 1,000 did, people will be able to hear it back in Dublin. Mick McCarthy announced the team and conducted a short meeting, the gist of which was we are too good to allow ourselves to let slip a two-goal advantage.People were starting to psych them-selves up, some by becoming more withdrawn and others by talking and fidgeting more. I just started to think more about the game and started to focus on the opposition It’s a simple equation. Playing well for 90 minutes equals World Cup.Thursday, 15 NovemberWe arrived at the stadium about two hours before kick-off and it already had 70,000 people in. The noise was extraordinary, and during the warm-up we avoided the touchlines because they were within range of the fans and their impromptu missiles, mostly small oranges and bottles.I’ve never experienced an atmosphere as intense and it hit us when we walked through the tunnel to the pitch.