Ireland's newspapers said Tuesday the football team's third straight Euro 2012 defeat ended the misery but also called time on many of the players and the team's tactics.
Some papers also drew comparisons between the "humiliation" on the European football stage of Giovanni Trapattoni's side and the republic's bailed-out, battered economy.
"End of pain, end of an era," said the Irish Examiner.
"This was by some distance the most spirited and disciplined Irish performance of these Euro finals.
The Irish Times drew parallels with the country's bailed-out economy.
"The Irish soccer team's humiliation exposed the false pragmatism that rules our political life," wrote Fintan O'Toole.
Source: AFP
