34 days left until kick-off and on our countdown today we relive one of Ireland’s victories at a European Championship.
As we have noted Brian Kerr really lit a fire under Ireland’s underage teams when he began coaching the under-16s through to under-21s.
Having finished third in the World Youth Championships and blooded Damien Duff in Malaysia in his first tournament as coach the previous year, Kerr introduced us to a second batch of young Irish world-beaters in Scotland for the Under-16 European Championships.
Having drawn with their hosts in their first group match, Ireland beat Finland and four-time winners Spain in their third to top the qualifying pool.
They then went on to beat both Denmark and Portugal en-route to facing Italy.
David McMahon and Keith Foy scored the goals for Ireland in their 2-1 victory against an Italy side that featured a young Giuseppe Sculli who was recently seen confronting the Genoa ultras.
This Ireland squad was more successful than the World Youth Championship one the year before in terms of producing players that would go on represent the senior Irish side including John O’Shea, Andy Reid, Liam Miller, Joe Murphy, John Thompson, Graham Barrett and Jonathon Douglas.
Let’s hope that O’Shea can lead us to another victory over the Azzurri this summer.
As we will see later in our countdown, Brian Kerr wasn’t finished providing us with memorable moments.
Today marks 34 days to go until the start of Euro 2012, so stick with us every day as we present another memorable Irish soccer moment.
