As a forlorn Antonin Kinsky trudged off the Metropolitano Stadium pitch after just 17 minutes on Tuesday night - seemingly without even a glance from his embattled Tottenham Hotspur manager Igor Tudor - it would take the stoniest of hearts not to have felt for him.
Spurs were down 3-0 to Atletico Madrid in their Champions League last 16 first leg and Kinsky had been culpable for two of those goals.
But aside from a sense of pity, from an Irish perspective, there was one tangential aspect to the turn-of-events. Namely, his nationality, because Kinsky hails from Czechia.
With the World Cup play-off semi-final in Prague on 26 March closing in fast, any players from the central European nation are of greater interest to Ireland fans than usual.
However, in Kinsky's case, even if he had had a stormer in Madrid, he would almost certainly not have been even a background participant at the Fortuna Arena that he had called home during his Slavia Prague days.
For one, the 22-year-old is uncapped at senior level and his only previous senior Czech call-ups came in October and November 2024.
Czechia have appointed a new manager since their most recent fixtures four months ago. But it would be a surprise to see the veteran head coach Miroslav Koubek not plump for PSV's Matej Kovar as his number one.
Since the start of their 2024-25 Nations League campaign, the 25-year-old has started 13 of Czechia's last 15 competitive internationals. He is also back playing after sitting out two Eredivisie games due to injury last month.
The only other squad regular with more than a couple of caps to his name is Jindrich Stanek. The Slavia Prague keeper has missed the last couple of games for his club though, with Jakub Markovic deputising.
Lukas Hornicek (Braga), Martin Jedlicka (Banik Ostrava) and Markovic are the leading candidates to fill out the gaps in the goalkeeping department. The latter two were both called up by the Czechs in November when Stanek was working his way back from an injury lay-off.
Ex-St Patrick's Athletic cup winner Vitezslav Jaros won't be involved in a fortnight though. The Liverpool loanee, who is spending the season at Ajax, has picked up a knee injury that will rule the shot-stopper out for the remainder of this campaign.
Evan Ferguson would sympathise with Jaros' plight given he too has just had surgery on a season-ending injury - albeit to his ankle in his case.
Ireland striker Ferguson confirmed he has had surgery via social media
Ferguson is among a host of Irish players either definitively ruled out of the play-off or facing a race against time to be fit for Prague.
The Czechs have had their own set of injury concerns to key players in recent weeks, although not as acute as what Heimir Hallgrimsson is facing in light of absences to Ferguson, Josh Cullen and Mikey Johnston among others.
One of those is attacking midfielder Pavel Sulc. The 18-cap international has been a revelation in his first season for Lyon in Ligue 1.
Sulc has weighed in with 14 goals and 10 assists in 35 games across all competitions including the Europa League.
But the 25-year-old has not played at all this month since being sidelined by a hamstring injury late last month.
His return date remains unclear and, at best, it appears that it will be touch-and-go whether he will have regained fitness in time for Koubek to risk calling him up.
However, it looks like any concerns they may have had about lead striker Patrik Schick are abating.
His country's fourth highest all-time goalscorer - a list that admittedly excludes the preceding Czechoslovakia era - Schick had missed Leverkusen's last two Bundesliga games after picking up an unspecified muscular issue.
But the 30-year-old, who has netted four times in the Champions League this season, did train on Tuesday ahead of Leverkusen's last 16 first leg against Arsenal and was an unused sub on Wednesday night.
Slavia Prague winger Lukas Provod had also been a doubt for 26 March. But the 35-cap international returned from injury to play all 90 minutes of the Prague derby win over Sparta on Sunday.
But his club team-mate David Doudera, who has flitted between filling in at full-back and further forward on the flanks for the Czechs, has missed Slavia's last four league and cup games with a calf injury. But he has yet to be explicitly ruled out of the play-off.
Hoffenheim forward Adam Hlozek also has a calf issue, but an even more long-standing one.
The 23-year-old has already played more than 40 times for his country. But he has been kept out of action since the Bundesliga returned from its traditional winter break in January.
Even if he did return in time for the play-off, Hlozek would be far from match sharp.
In any case, he wasn't in their last squad selection and the Koubek factor aside, one would not except wholesale changes for what's to come in two weeks' time.
However, it will be worth keeping an eye on another situation which emerged as a result of the Czech's low points during the qualifiers - the nadir being the shock defeat to the Faroe Islands in October.
The Czech FA stripped West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek of the captaincy for at least one match as part of a collective punishment for the players not acknowledging their supporters after a 6-0 group qualifying win against Gibraltar. We all know what the next match is, so watch this space.
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