I think this may generate some interesting discussion. In your years following the Irish international team, what moment was the most gut-wrenching? The most upsetting? A moment you still can't stand to watch? And who, if anyone, is to blame for such moments? I think there have been more of these than there have been great moments, so I expect a great deal of variety in the discussion. For me: Macedonia, 1999. Never in my life have I been so upset. A minute away from qualifying for the 2000 European Championships, Stavreski's free header finds its way into the back of the net. The only thing that would have made it worse would be if Croatia had scored vs Yugoslavia to eliminate us completely.
A few here: The wicked bounce of the ball by Wim Kieft when we lost to Holland in 1988 where we were minutes away from the Euro Semis. However, my personal worst memory is the game in 1981 in Belgium. I was only a kid at the time but the referee disallowed a perfectly good goal by Frank Stapleton which would have led us going to the World Cup in 1982...in my opinion. Here's an article from a few years ago about it: Sunday Tribune April 28, 2002 THE afternoon swells hot and bright in Barreiro, the southern Lisbon suburb where the Tagus pours into the Atlantic. It is low tide and fishing boats are stuck fast in the sand, while the gulls comb the ground for lugworms and sing anugly squawking chorus. The man who was accused by Eoin Hand of taking a bribe, who drove Liam Brady to tears, who stopped perhaps the greatest Ireland team ever from going to the World Cup finals, sits in the corner of his favourite restaurant, admiring the scene, picking through his lunch of barbecued cod. He's a simple, quixotic old man, unfailingly courteous, with a tendency to see events through a romantic scrim. He is spry for his 64 years, immaculately turned out in a sober suit, a pink shirt with creases you could cut yourself on and a tie knotted with a neatness that hints at an obsessive nature. It's more than 20 years since Raul Nazare's most controversial night's work in nearly four decades of refereeing, yet the impact of his decisions in Brussels in 1981 has never been forgotten. "It was a historic game and I was very aware of this, " he says. "If Ireland had got a draw that night, they would have gone to the World Cup in 1982. If that happened, it would have been huge. And I honestly say to you that secretly I wanted Ireland to win, because they were more humble. They needed to go more. And because I liked Mickey Walsh. He played here, with Oporto. We were friends. He had the opportunity to score that night, but he missed so many times. I felt like biting his ears." His memory of what happened is oddly patchy. He remembers the lightning and the fire-hose from the heavens that almost caused him to abandon the match. And he remembers that the game turned ontwo vigorously disputed decisions, one at the end of the first half and one at the end of the second. First, he disallowed a perfectly legitimate goal by FrankStapleton; then he awarded Belgium a dubious free-kick from which they scored the winner three minutes from the end. "I know there was some agitation after the game, I think because all of the Irish knew they weren't going to the World Cup. I will always remember what Walsh said to me. He said: 'Raul, I am very sad. The hearts of all the Irish nation are crying.'" Walsh, infact, called him a cheat, while Brady asked Walsh for the Portuguese word for thief, then confronted Nazare with it, jabbing a finger in the referee's face byway of punctuation. Hand recalls saying to Raul: "You're a disgrace. You've beenpaid off. You've robbed us." "I don't speak too good other languages, " Raul says, as he waves to some friends at an adjoining table. "But I was always very good at reading what was in a player's eyes. One time, I refereed a match with Spartak Moscow and this player, he shouted something at me. I couldn't understand him, but I knew it was something bad, so I gave him a red card and he left the field crying. At half-time, the FIFA delegate came to me and said the manager of the team was warning the players: 'Be careful. That guy speaks Russian.' But in the game in Brussels, I saw only sadness in the eyes of the Irish players, regretting that they weren't going to be in the World Cup. And Walsh saying to me about the hearts of the Irish nation. I'll never forget that." He finishes picking the bones on his plate clean, lays down his knife and fork and frowns importantly. "My wife did not like me being a referee. Too dangerous. Too many police escorts out of stadiums.Not every wife is strong enough to be a referee's wife. Their life is very lonely. We have a daughter. Elsa is her name. When she was a little girl, she was a ballerina. I missed almost every show she did because I was never at home.It makes me sad to think about this." When he wasn't away refereeing, Raul worked as a trade union representative with Portuguese Telecom, where he's stillemployed, mostly brokering early retirement deals for older employees. His work takes him abroad to conferences, where he regularly meets Irish people who want to rake up the past. "My conscience is tranquil, " he says. "This is what I say to them. I tell them that yes I know I made the hearts of the Irish nation very sad when I disallowed that goal. But you Irish people have problems recognising that there was a fault." So, twenty-one-and-a-half years on, can he explain for the first time what the fault was? "Frank Stapleton was the fault, " he offers, folding his napkin in front of him. "He was offside. I remember this very clearly. It was not really my decision, you see. It was the linesman who gave me the indication. When you are a referee,you have to have total trust in your assistants. And I say this as someone who has refereed many international matches and who was considered three times the Portuguese referee of the year, that when I made this decision I had the full conviction that I was doing the right thing at the time. "No-one is perfect. Perfection does not exist. They said that Christ was perfect, but I am not so sure about that. I had a colleague in the World Cup in 1986. He was the referee for Argentina against England. Everybody in the ground saw Maradona score with his hand, except for him and his linesman. For one week afterwards, he did not sleep. He knows today that his mistake made Argentina thechampions of the world. When you are a player and you make a mistake, you can goand score a goal to compensate for this. When you are a referee, you have to live with what you have done." He says he's lived easily with what happened thatnight in Brussels. "It was not a goal, " he says, waving his hand blandly. "I spoke to the linesman after the game and also on the plane coming home. He told me he lifted his flag because he felt that Stapleton was offside. In fact, I remember now that I had blown the whistle before Stapleton touched the ball. So technically, you see, I did not disallow the goal, because there was no goal to disallow." Has he ever watched a recording of the incident. "No, " he says. "Very few timesdo I watch matches that I have refereed." So would he like to see this one? "If you have the tape, I would like very much to see it." Raul's apartment, on the sixth floor of a dayglo pink flat complex, is much like the man himself, compulsively tidy with a polished, eager aspect to it. He owns the entire landing, he explains. Elsa and her husband, Antonio, live in the apartment next door and they too are crowded around Raul's widescreen television to watch this match they've heard so much talk about. Raul slides the tape out of its dust jacket, noting two peremptory exclamation marks written in biro after the words,'Ireland v Belgium' on the side of the tape. He looks at it quizzically. It's Eoin Hand's copy of the match, it's explained, and a grin flexes across his face. "Now, " he says, "I understand." He slips the tape into the machine and Stapleton's goal is replayed in 48-inch technicolour. Ireland have a freekick onthe edge of the Belgian penalty box. Brady is standing over the ball, Stapleton loitering around the penalty spot. Just before Brady chips the ball into the box, Stapleton makes a run for the near post, beats the goalkeeper to the ball and side-foots it into the net. The whistle is blown after the goal is scored. Raul looks at the screen, his eyebrows are knotted in consternation. "Let me seeit again, " he says. Antonio rewinds the tape and once more Jimmy Magee's voice fills the living-room. Kevin Moran has come forward for it. Ireland have positioned Moran, number five, Stapleton, number eight, and Robinson, number 11.They're the only three. There's nobody out of shot STAPLETON! The referee's going to disallow it, I think. Once more, controversy surrounds Ireland in an important match. Now what's the reason this time? Raul gets up from the sofa and moves closer to the television. He asks to see the sequence a third time, watching it this time on his knees, his nose no more than six inches away from the glass. For years the idea that Stapleton was offside has salved his conscience, but here in front of him now there's this onerecalcitrant image that refuses to support his story. The linesman doesn't signal at all; not until a full three seconds after Raul has disallowed Stapleton's goal does he guiltily raise his flag. Can he explain this? "I think, " he says, looking askance, "that I made a mistake when I told you it was offside. Yes, now I remember. I awarded an indirect free-kick. My hand is upto say it is indirect. And Liam Brady shoots direct . This is why the goal was disallowed. Nobody touches the ball before it goes into the goal." But Stapletonclearly does. He practically volleys the ball into the net. "Let me see it again, " he says, putting on his glasses. Antonio, a dutiful sort with milk bottle lenses and severely parted hair, obliges. "Yes, I can see now, " Raul says. "It goes straight into the goal." "My father-in-law is right, " says Antonio. "This Frank Stapleton man, he does not touch the ball." Antonio drops his credentials into the conversation. For a living, he sells slow motion technology to television companies. And this, he says, allows him to speak with conviction. "You see, " he says, rewinding the tape, then replaying it in quartertime, "the ball goes straight into the goal. Straight in. Not one man touches it." The slow motion replay clearly shows Stapleton catching Brady's free-kick on his instep. "I do not like slow motion, " says Raul. "It flickers too much. You cannot see anything." "But father-in-law, " Antonio says, "you can see that the ball does not touch anyone." Elsa isn't so certain. She loves her father but watching the tape she can't help but think that the flight of the ball changed direction before it entered the goal. Raul suggests a smaller television and the debate repairs to Elsa's old room, where a 14-inch portable sits among a menagerie of stuffed animals. The incident is replayed again, four sets of eyes pressed closeto the screen. Stapleton's contact is even clearer on this television. Then Raulremembers something. He can't believe it didn't occur to him before. "The ball hits off me, " he says. "It hits off my back and goes into the goal. Iremember now that that is why I disallowed it. Yes, you were right, it does change direction. But this is only because it hits me and not Stapleton." "My father-in-law is right, " says Antonio. "The ball hits his back and goes into the goal. Frank Stapleton does not touch it." "My position is not correct, " Raul acknowledges. When the free-kick is taken, he is running backwards towards the six-yard area, right into the eye of the action, where he collides with Walter Meeuws, the nearest Belgian player to the ball. It's doubtful whether Raul even saw the goal and might have instinctively disallowed it because he felt he'd unfairly stopped the Belgian defender from getting to the ball ahead of Stapleton. "I should have been at the edge of the penalty box, not in amongstthe players. Frank Stapleton, you can see, is trying to get to the ball, and hisinstinct is to get me out of the way." He uses Elsa and Antonio to choreograph the scene. Antonio is Raul, Elsa is Meeuws, Raul is Stapleton. "So I'm in the penalty box, where I shouldn't be, and Frank Stapleton pushes me and he turns me." Antonio and Elsa perform an awkward do-se-do. "And when I turn, the ball hits off my back and it goes into the goal. I remember now." The evidence on the tape, though, is confounding. You can watch the sequence a hundred times, until the image becomes a blur of Mondrian pixels, and you will never see what Raul claims happened. He is at least four feet away from the ball when Stapleton kicks it. "My father is right," says Elsa, but with little conviction. The tape is forwarded to the other incident on which the game hinged. It happenson the very spot where Brady took his free-kick. There are three minutes left and the Belgians are becoming increasingly frustrated at being shut out. Eric Gerets takes matters into his own hands. Meeuws sends a long ball over the top of the Irish defence and the Belgian captain takes a dive on the edge of the box. His effort to win a free-kick is utterly artless. There isn't an Irish player within touching distance of him and he hits the ground some 10 yards away from where he left it. Raul asks to see it again before he explains himself. "Yes he is clowning, thereis no doubt, but there is some physical contact with this player, Steve Heighway." The camera picked up no such contact. "You can't see it on the tape, but I could see it where I was, from the ground. Gerets makes a spectacle of himself, but he is touched. I admit it's a light touch, but this contact is there, I can promise you." The shell-games continue for 20 more minutes before the tape rolls onto what happens next. Rene Vandereycken sends a rasping shot over the Irish wall. The ball hits the top of the crossbar and flies high into the air. Seamus McDonagh, who dived to save the original shot, is lying in the mud and can't stand up in time to stop Jan Ceulemans climbing high over a posse of players to nod the ball into the net. "Irish people say that this is the reason why your team never went to the World Cup, " he says. "It is because I gave the free-kick. But do they ever ask where are your defenders? Where are they when the goal is scored? Why do they not stopthe goal?" He is struggling to be believed now and he knows it. "And this Frank Stapleton goal that we watched, " he says, "why did he not protest to me? He just throws his arms open." Perhaps because Raul was already surrounded by furious Irish players? "No, it was because he knew he didn't touch the ball. It hit my back. And the Irish, they asked FIFA to investigate this and FIFA didn't even want to interview me. So this proves that my decisions were correct. Three times I won the golden whistle for being the Portuguese referee of the year. They know I am an honest man, that my conscience is tranquil." His defence is taking on a more desperate edge. The sacred verities that give shape to his world are being challenged by a complete stranger and in front of the family he cherishes. Watching the footage of Hand accusing him of taking money and Brady calling him a thief would be pointless. He is having trouble enough with his compass now. In the elevator, he does make one concession, a last effort almost to plea-bargain away his culpability. "I am very angry with myself because of my position for the goal, " he says. "This I admit. I was to blame, because I should not have been standing where I was, in amongst the players. Then it wouldnever have hit my back and Ireland would have gone to the World Cup." Out in thestreet, he performs a little mime act by way of a farewell, blowing an imaginarywhistle, then proffering an invisible red card and, as the car pulls off, pointing in the direction of the road, this bizarre little man who has been leftwith the shock of seeing ghosts he thought were long ago laid to rest.
Interesting topic. The first that spring to mind for me are Suker in the 94th minute in Croatia & Macedonia scoring in the last 10 seconds (both in the Euro 2000 qualifiers), and the plethora of missed penalties against Spain in WC '02 - Harte's miss in play, Kilbane slicing the resulting rebound in front of an open net, and the shootout itself. Absolute agony.
And for that matter, the Saipan saga before the World Cup. When it finally sank in that El Capitán would not be playing for us - especially under such circumstances - I was speechless.
Israel at home was certainly one of the more frustrating days.... I remember feeling physically ill after the match. BTW, great article Father Ted.
Although I haven't been following the Irish team for as long as some of the others around here, mine goes back to the 2002 WC and losing to Spain on penalties. What a sad day that was. I think that is the first time I've ever cried because of a football match.
Well, I've learned the hard way never to watch a match at the Auld Dubliner pub in Temple Bar. My first trip to Ireland was during the world cup in 2002. I had been there a month and my dad joined me for the last 10 days. He can't stand soccer but I got him to watch the Saudi Arabia match and he was absolutely hooked because of the atmosphere (watched it in Ennis, then left for Waterford and stumbled upon a crazy party still going from that afternoon). We were in Dublin that weekend, and even though we had been out until 5AM Friday and Saturday there was no way we weren't going to get a choice spot in the pub. We didn't know of anywhere particularly good to watch the Spain match in Dublin, and figured that at least there would be a crowd in the Temple Bar, so when some good looking girls I met said they would be watching the game at the Auld Dubliner I figured it was good enough for us. I still don't want to get into the game, needless to say that the ups and downs were unrivaled, but I would like to relate a story that still gives me the chills and is why I am a devoted fan of Ireland now. Not unexpectedly the mood was dour after the loss. The several pints of Guinness I already had that morning had knocked the edge off of the previous night but they weren't doing anything for my mood right about then. A few people around the pub half-heartedly tried to lighten the mood but it just wasn't happening as we all streamed out into a typical "soft" day. Not wanting to end the trip on a bad note my dad said, "Hey, it's our last day in Dublin, we've got less than 48 hours left in the country, lets not waste it". We headed over to The Temple Bar where the mood was much the same as the Auld Dubliner we had just left. You heard an occassional grumble, but not much else. We had probably been there about an hour when something astounding occurred, and from what I understand, similar scenes happened across the country. For us, one fella, looked like he had some rugby in his days, balding, and in his late 30's, stood on a chair and addressed those of us assembled. His speech was something to the effect of, "Hey! Since the match ended I've heard some rumblings about how the boys blew it, or that we weren't good enough, or that they're losers. That's shite! Utter shite! I've never been prouder of the Boys in Green than I am today. No one even expected us to make the finals, let alone the elimination rounds - and that was before Keano stalked off. Instead, we drew with one of the greatest teams in the world and today we outplayed another one. Be proud of the boys and what they accomplished and how it reflects on us! Not another word putting down our boys out of any of ya! Here's to you, lads!" It truly was incredible. It was like a palor lifted from over the room. From that moment on everyone was in a good mood - almost giddy. That ended up being one of the greatest nights of my life. An absolute blast. On the way home from the pubs at 3AM we stopped at a pay phone outside our hotel to call my mom and confirm when she would pick us up from the airport. People were still milling about outside, singing, and having a great time. Her exact words were, "Are those people singing by you? Are they celebrating? I thought they lost." They did lose mom, but you'd never know it. The next day all the papers had headlines saying things like, "Come on home lads, we're proud of you". I loved it. In America there would have been page after newspage of editorials and columns about how we blew it, why we blew it, who's fault it was, and a litany of television shows with overfed sportswriters arguing the same points ad nauseum. You probably wouldn't have gotten one "We're proud of you" from the whole lot of them. My next trip to Ireland was last summer. I was living in Zurich and finishing grad school and one of my best friends from back home is a pilot so he flies free. We decided to meet up in Ireland, and we arrived in Dublin the day before the Israel match. Sure that this would be a win after the debacle at Israel we tried everything we could (for two people with no connections) to get tickets to the game. Well, that failed but we were still determined to have a hell of a time watching the game. The problem turned out to be that, unbeknowndest to me, the Communists had taken over the Temple Bar area sometime between 2002 and then (probably about the same time smoking was banned in pubs now that I think about it...). We arrived at Gogarty's, resplendent in our Ireland kits, ready to watch the match - and they wouldn't let us in. I couldn't believe it. We couldn't get in anywhere. Nobody allowed jerseys. It's like we were sporting gang colors or something. 3 years before every last soul was decked out in either an Ireland or Celtic jersey. And now they weren't allowed. It was getting close to kickoff and the only place that allowed jerseys was the Auld Dubliner. I couldn't believe that fate would berate me like that, but we had no choice. My fears were assuaged when we scored in the 7th minute and went up 2-0 later in the half. I figured that karma was balancing out and that all the devestation from my last trip would be paid back. But we all know how that one ended. I'm never going to the Auld Dubliner again. No matter what.
Switzerland 2 Ireland 0 that eliminated us from Euro 2004 Qualifying. After WC 2002 I was itching the see the Irish in a major tournament again. But the most hurtful was the way we mucked up the WC campaign this go round. We blew what looked like almost certain qualification. Guess we know not to get too giddy unless we are on the plane to the tournament. A few games from this time's campaign that hurt me: 2-2 draw at home with that Israeli team. 1-0 loss the France at home 0-0 draw at home with the Swiss. 1 goal would have sent us to Germany.
Haver to agree with this one. Those Israelis. They even shagged me up on World Cup 2006 Xbox360 game. gggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
My worst memory is probably of Ian Harte's penalty miss against Spain in 2002. I was obviously gutted becuase we were still behind but also gutted for Harte who has an amazing record from the spot for us. It just wasn't his year nor Ireland's. Everytime I watch it again, I still believe Kilbane will put the rebound away. He never does. It's definetly my least favourite memory due to how gut wrenching it was for both me and the player. Don't blame Harte at all for the miss, that's football but it was just so difficult to watch It did make Robbie's late penalty all the sweeter however http://southterraceview.blogspot.com
Who wore #9 at Italia '90?? John Aldridge?? Paul McGrath?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaY592Vwpgk&search=hagi
I am going with John Aldridge!! http://liverpoolfc.allsportgallery....Aldridge&Team=Liverpool&Count=6&Start=0&End=9