Spain in Suwon, the summer of 2002. Did ever a sports event before or since bring Irish fans beyond the two extremes of agony and ecstasy?
If you were someone in your late 60s, a retired bank manager, say, with no interest in the sports world, and you took your afternoon walk on that Sunday afternoon – the game kicked off at 12.30pm Irish time, predicating a ghost town atmosphere at the Donegal-Derry GAA Championship match taking place on the day – you might have thought the end of the world had left you alone behind and vanished everyone else out of existence.
But listen closer and you’d have heard the cries of joy and anguish from every door and window at the climax of Ireland’s summer in the east, a sprawling eddy of emotions that had started with the injury sustained on Manchester United duty which left Roy Keane facing a race against time to be fit, and continued through all that that Saipan bother and an unbeaten group stage until a last of 16 clash with the mushy, fragile Spaniards.
The GAA won’t make the same mistakes this summer
Fernando Morientes gave Spain an early lead but we had our chances – most notably Ian Harte’s duffed penalty and Kevin Kilbane’s fluffed follow-up – before our guardian angel, Swedish referee Anders Frisk, pointed to the spot a second time moments before the end of the 90 minutes. Harte had been replaced by then so he was spared the decision of whether he’d have the nerve to step for up a second time, and we were spared the pain of being forced to watch him him step up again.
Instead it was Robbie Keane, record-goalgetter-in-waiting and already the scorer of an injury time equaliser against a world power (Germany) a few days earlier, who stepped up and held his nerve to leave the ball tucked in the corner and the keeper, the soon-to-be-great Iker Casillas, rooted to his line.
Into extra-time, then, and who knew that Spain were down to ten men after the number of injuries into substitutions didn’t go? Not Mick McCarthy, anyway, and a win before penalties fell from our grasp. Five of the nine spot kicks were missed – Holland, Connolly and Kilbane failed for us – before Gaizka Mendieta bobbled the winning kick down the middle. Tears at the end of the journey, then, but what a journey.
Fast forward ten years and Spain are mushy and fragile no longer. But they have to be godawful tired after four years of global dominance and about 70 games a season for all their top performers. If ten men in Chelsea white can beat Barca at the Nou Camp, there’s hope for us all. Roll on June 14th…
Today marks 39 days to go until the start of Euro 2012. Join us every day until then for our countdown of Irish soccer’s 50 most memorable moments.
