David O' Leary, Ireland v Romania, World Cup Quarter Final 1990
Ireland and Romania ended 0-0 after extra-time, despite the best efforts of Romania’s star player Gheorge Hagi, it went to penalties.
Each of the team’s six penalties were scored until Daniel Timofte’s was saved. Ireland just needed to score their next penalty – the man to take it was 32-year old center-half David O’Leary.
Not a typical penalty-taker and a man who had been in the international wilderness after a fight with Jack Charlton early on his tenure as Ireland boss.
RTE commentator put it perfectly as O’Leary stepped up “A nation holds it breath…”
He scored. People flooded out to the streets in Dublin, buses stopped, grown men cried – Ireland had reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
It ended there, as Toto Schillaci put Ireland out in the next stage.
That didn't matter though, following football can be agonising at times ,but everyone sticks with it and dreams about that one moment that can happen every 50 years.
It's worth the wait because whoever has watched David O' Leary slot his penalty will remember it for the rest of their lives.
Watch the shoot-out through this link. Click Here
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Blast from the past comes from +Jack Flynn An Irish football fanatic.
