THIS was a football team we could – and did – all get behind. But more than that, it has been a masterpiece of compassion and a necessary reminder of how things should be.

The Wild Boars and their young coach, trapped underground in a Thai cave system for 18 days, were finally rescued on Monday in a story that has held the world captive.

“We are not heroes,” the British diver John Volanthen who helped in the rescue mission, said to universal disagreement. “What we do is very calculating, very calm. We take it one step at a time and hopefully we come up with the results.”

Calm, calculated and ending with positive results. What an extraordinary example this rescue team has set against a backdrop of belligerent, incoherent international politics. Where we are faced with a US President’s first official visit and are bandying around phrases like “balloon controversy”.

When it feels like government is imploding and nothing is certain other than the vanity of headline-seeking, vain politicians.

It was a truly international rescue effort, about which the Thai authorities have been happy to give credit to those who travelled to the country to assist.

Respect, and credit where it is due. These feel like rare commodities.

What must it have been like, down there without light and with the waters rising? Don’t most of us have dark dreams of being trapped in small spaces? Nightmares about struggling to breathe.

It is such a universal fear and surely part of the reason this story resonated so strongly with so many.

Would they be able to drill an escape tunnel to bring the boys out? Would they have to leave them in there until the waters receded? Could they teach them to dive? While all this was being considered, one man, former Navy Seal diver Saman Kunont, died trying to take oxygen into the caves, highlighting the difficulty of the mission.

The skills and expertise brought together by the global team of British, Australian, Belgian, Finnish, Canadian, American and Danish divers assisted the Thai authorities in completing the rescue. We don’t know an awful lot about them because the hundreds-strong rescue party has largely chosen not to speak to the media but focus on their job.

Richard Harris, an Australian doctor, had just the right skill-set of cave diving experience and anaesthesiology. Who’s had enough of experts now?

From all sides, there was empathy. Water pumped from the caves flooded nearby fields. Farmers’ responses were so affecting.

One, Bua Chaicheun, said: “I am worried about the well-being of these boys as they are like my own children and I really want them to be safely rescued out of the cave.”

“With the farming, we can make money again,” another farmer, Lek Lapdaungpoin, said, “But 13 lives are not something we can create.”

The parents, at the mouth of the Tham Luang cave complex, wrote to coach Ekaphol Chantawong, to tell him he is forgiven.

“We want you to know that no parents are angry with you at all,” the mother of Nattawut Takamsai, 14, wrote, “So don’t you worry about that.” How generous, how different from our blame culture.

Was it a miracle or was it science, one of the rescuers asked. Rear Admiral Arpakorn Yookongkaew, Thai navy Seal commander, described it: “It was a hell of a job.”

While waiting, one boy asked for fried chicken. Another of his birthday celebrations.

A hell of a job and a hell of a lesson. In dark times we need light shone on the glorious elements of the human condition.