Number 28 and Damien Duff pays his respects to the Japanese Ireland fans at the 2002 World Cup.
It was a particularly annoying monkey that the Irish side had on their shoulder before our last group match against Saudi Arabia in 2002.
The monkey kept saying, “Hey lads, you know you haven’t scored over a goal in a single match at a major tournament before, right?”
The figurative monkey was right and Ireland needed to score at least two as Cameroon, our chief rivals to qualify from the group, had only beaten the Saudi Arabians by a single goal margin.
We needed that to ensure we finished above the African side should they draw against the Germans. If they lost – we went through regardless of the scoreline we notched up. If we wanted to finish above the German’s should they draw we would have needed to better their score of 8-Nil against the Saudi Arabians.
Goals from Robbie Keane, Gary Breen and Damien Duff did the job for us.
Duff scored the third goal, having been placed back in his natural position on the left of midfield and not up front as he had been in the previous matches. The ball was palmed graciously into the net by the frankly atrocious goalkeeping of Al-Deayea who would go on to win world record 178 caps.
The tournament is rightly remembered as Keane’s and Duff, the two young stars played magnificently for Ireland and it’s great that they will grace an international tournament again this summer.
In this match Keano did his famous “bow and arrow” celebration to the camera to win a bet against some of his friends.
Duffer’s one caught the eye though as he did an oriental bow to Ireland’s large contingent of Japanese fans, who were strangely taken by Ian Harte too. It’s something Duffer somewhat regrets according to Fulham teammate Stephen Kelly.
Today marks 28 days to go until the start of Euro 2012, so stick with us every day as we present another memorable Irish soccer moment.
