Whatever your view is on Stephen Kenny's tenure as Republic of Ireland manager, no one will ever describe him as being a lucky general.
Kenny must have strolled under a few ladders and encountered a litter of black cats on his first day in the job. Pretty much from the get-go, he's had regular bouts of rotten fortune.
In his third game at the helm - the Euro 2020 play-off semi-final against Slovakia - he lost key attackers Adam Idah and Aaron Connolly before kick-off because, on the plane to Bratislava, they'd been sitting less than two metres away from a member of the FAI back-room staff who later tested positive for Covid-19. That meant they were deemed close contacts.
After spurning some golden chances to win the match, Ireland were beaten in a penalty shootout. It later transpired that the back-room staff member's Covid test had returned a false positive - Idah and Connolly should have been allowed to play. They were also sitting in the wrong seats on the plane, mistakenly heading to the back with the non-playing members of staff when they should have been further up the plane with the rest of the team.
That set the tone for a miserable run of results, a carousel of misfortune and a series of unfortunate events.
Before the 3-0 friendly defeat to England at Wembley, Kenny showed his players a motivational video to gee them up. Although it's never been released to the public domain, it's understood the video was a showreel of famous goals scored against England, followed by 30 seconds of historical context of the relationship between the two countries.
After murmurings about some players being uneasy about it, the FAI launched an internal investigation. Kenny's assistant Damien Duff would later step away from his post, reportedly unhappy with how the association handled the whole affair.
Months later, when appearing on RTÉ as a pundit for the England-Scotland game at Euro 2020, Duff said: "It's a free hit [for Scotland]. Down at Wembley they will just make it outright war. If it was up to me I would definitely make a motivational video as well." Ho hum.
The highly-rated Chelsea coach Anthony Barry replaced Duff but things got worse before they got better. At an empty Aviva Stadium during the height of Covid, Ireland slumped to a 1-0 loss to Luxembourg, the nadir of Kenny's reign.
It feels like the former Dundalk boss has been desperately searching for one big victory to heal the pain of that defeat ever since.
They came close to getting it in the World Cup qualifier away to Portugal.
Several of Kenny's camps have been affected by Covid-19 and this one was did not buck the trend. Callum Robinson and Alan Browne were unavailable, while Shane Long tested positive on matchday.
Regardless, Ireland produced a stirring display. They were 1-0 up thanks to John Egan's header, and were curiously denied what looked a stonewall penalty when Aaron Conolly was bundled over by Palhinha. Two minutes from time Cristiano Ronaldo headed home the equaliser. In the 96th minute [there had only been five minutes of stoppage time signalled], Ronaldo struck again to win it.
Kenny's has had a few of those sliding doors, what-might-have-been moments against good teams that have been compounded by some bad showings against the lesser lights.
He's also endured a fair dollop of turbulence behind the scenes.
Barry - a big influence in Ireland's effective 3-5-2 approach and a setpiece specialist - accepted a role with Belgium in February 2022. He was succeeded by QPR coach John Eustace, who departed to become Birmingham City boss after only three months in the post.
It was seven months before Eustace was replaced, John O'Shea stepping up from the Under-21s to take the position ahead of a grimly difficult Euro 2024 qualification group.
A huge effort at home to France arguably deserved a point, but Benjamin Pavard ruthlessly punished a sloppy Josh Cullen pass to win it, with goalkeeper Mike Maignan unfurling an Inspector Gadget-like right arm to claw away Nathan Collins' top-corner-bound header at the death.
Kenny's men followed that spirited display with a wretched showing in Greece and that leads us to this daunting September double-header.
After the trip to France, Ireland host the Netherlands. They're two devillishly tough games, but the reality is, Kenny needs a result in one of those fixtures or he will be under serious pressure. And the bad breaks keep on coming.
Matt Doherty got involved in a silly confrontation with Georgios Tzavellas and Kostas Tsmikas at the end of the Greek clash and got sent off. However UEFA's decision to increase his suspension to a second game, and thus rule him out of the trip to Paris on Thursday, was harsh.
Seamus Coleman is still recovering from the season-ending knee injury he sustained in action for Everton in May, while Sheffield United's John Egan is a real doubt after picking up a knock against the Toffees last Saturday.
And then there is Evan Ferguson.
Kylian Mbappe humoured the Irish media last March when asked about the Bettystown teenager, saying on the eve of the Aviva Stadium encounter: "We've seen some clips about him, of course. He’s a good striker, an important striker for that team. We hope tomorrow he's going to do nothing and that means we are going to win and we’re going to do our job. But he is a good player."
It's unlikely they lost too much sleep that night. France would have been aware of Ferguson's capabilities but when you have the ridiculous abundance of talent they do, why worry about anyone else?
Still, the rise of Ferguson's profile in the months since has changed things.
The Premier League hype machine is startingly hyperbolic at the best of times but even allowing for that, his hat-trick against Newcastle at the weekend was special.
It certainly would have given the meticulous Deschamps' a little food for thought. Ferguson is so clever, so strong and composed, that the French would've had no choice but to, at the very least, mulled over how to negate his influence.
And now they don't.
The 18-year-old hurt his knee towards the end of the 3-1 win against the Magpies, with sufficient damage done to rule him out of the international window. Kenny had an ace up his sleeve and it's been carried away by an ill wind.
Adam Idah is most likely to start instead. The hard-running, selfless Norwich City man is unlikely to let anyone down when it comes to honest effort. But he's no Ferguson.
Even with the brilliant young striker, it's unlikely Ireland were ever going to pinch something at Parc des Princes. It's just that his mere presence breeds hope; it arms you with a weapon to potentially wound Goliath, and nurtures optimism that better days are ahead.
Kenny has been shorn of that. If this does prove to be the final week of his time in charge, he'd be entitled to feel that luck deserted him right to the end.
Watch France v Republic of Ireland in Euro 2024 qualifying on Thursday from 7pm live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live commentary on 2fm's Game On
