We can get a win in Germany

Only for a ref in Belgium in 81 we would have won a game we were expected to lose heavily. O'Leary got injured the day of the game and with Lawerson already ruled out Mick Martin and Kevin Moran stepped into the breach. We were with over 12,000 travelling fans brilliant that night against a very good Belgium team. I see this match against Germany almost as mirror image of what happened that night in March 81. We had just got hammered at home by Wales 3-1. We had players missing. But we put up a wonderful team performance against the odds. And we will match that type of gutsy performance on Sep 2nd. Robbie Keane for me is the key player. Truely world class at the moment. Duff is almost back to his best. Why not save the best for the Germany game! See you all there!

I hope to god your right brother, with confidence and belief anything can happen but i dont think stan is a very confident manager at all.

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Originally Posted by Noelys Guitar

Only for a ref in Belgium in 81 we would have won a game we were expected to lose heavily.

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Slight exaggeration as I was at that game. Only for the ref we would have managed a draw as the score was 0-0 when the Belgians scored that late winner.

I admire your optimism. Based on all previous Irish football history, including the Big Jack era, it will be a miracle if we win in Germany but that's the beauty of football - hope springs eternal and we'll all be travelling in hope. First step we need to avoid the dreaded injuries to players this weekend. Second step belief. Third step passion. Fourth step luck (and lots of it).

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

Slight exaggeration as I was at that game. Only for the ref we would have managed a draw as the score was 0-0 when the Belgians scored that late winner.

I admire your optimism. Based on all previous Irish football history, including the Big Jack era, it will be a miracle if we win in Germany but that's the beauty of football - hope springs eternal and we'll all be travelling in hope. First step we need to avoid the dreaded injuries to players this weekend. Second step belief. Third step passion. Fourth step luck (and lots of it).

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What about Stapo's perfectly good goal that he disallowed?

What about the stories that came out years later that Anderlect bribed referees at that time in European games. At the time it was said if this had happened in Sofia everyone would have known the ref was bribed. We do now.

Oliver Cromwell is only the 2nd most hated man in Irish history after Mr. Raul Henry Nazare. We know what happened that night.

Although we lost 3-1 at home to wales in a friendliy we had alreasdy beaten Holland (then world cup runners up), Cyprus twice and drawn at home v the Belgians so we were in a strong position at the time to qualify. We missed out only on goal difference to france and a point to the Belgians.

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Originally Posted by Noelys Guitar

We were with over 12,000 travelling fans brilliant that night against a very good Belgium team. game!

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I remember the game well, but i would say a max of 5,000 irish at the game, we were robbed of a draw, not a win as previously said! Twas my 2nd away game and if i hadnt got hooked id be a rich man now :D :D see you in stuttgart :D

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Originally Posted by Noelys Guitar

Only for a ref in Belgium in 81 we would have won a game we were expected to lose heavily. O'Leary got injured the day of the game and with Lawerson already ruled out Mick Martin and Kevin Moran stepped into the breach. We were with over 12,000 travelling fans brilliant that night against a very good Belgium team. I see this match against Germany almost as mirror image of what happened that night in March 81. We had just got hammered at home by Wales 3-1. We had players missing. But we put up a wonderful team performance against the odds. And we will match that type of gutsy performance on Sep 2nd. Robbie Keane for me is the key player. Truely world class at the moment. Duff is almost back to his best. Why not save the best for the Germany game! See you all there!

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You posted this at half three in the morning! I can only assume that alcohol had something to do with this.:D I'll be cheering them on as I always do and we're always good when we're up against it but this team is very, very different from that of 1981 in terms of its toughness and ability to grind out a result.

Wasn't that Stapleton disallowed goal the one that prompted one of Phillip Greene's more colourfull rants?

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Originally Posted by endabob1

Wasn't that Stapleton disallowed goal the one that prompted one of Phillip Greene's more colourfull rants?

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Really? Anyone got any ideas what that included? Would love to hear it now! Couldn't imagine Gabriel Egan doing the same!

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Originally Posted by gspain

What about Stapo's perfectly good goal that he disallowed?.

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I remember Frank having one chalked off in Paris (my first away game supporting Ireland) and have only a fuzzy memory of the one on that wet and miserable night in Brussels. Has anyone seen a replay of it since and was it a definite goal ?.

That's why I said luck will play a big part in Stuttgart on Saturday.

Wishful thinking to suggest we can win in Germany, taking into account we have a rookie manager that has been very unconvincing and a very sick adviser! An unfunctional midfield and a Porous defence and a record away from home that is far from impressive and this against a German side that played an impressive brand of Football in the World Cup. I would think 2-0 to the hosts.

The optimism of Irish Supporters is at times Staggering!

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

I remember Frank having one chalked off in Paris (my first away game supporting Ireland) and have only a fuzzy memory of the one on that wet and miserable night in Brussels. Has anyone seen a replay of it since and was it a definite goal ?.

That's why I said luck will play a big part in Stuttgart on Saturday.

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Yes has been shown a few times - definitely nothing wrong with it.

Tribune showed a video to the sad little man in his Portuguese home and he made a pathetic attept to justify it.

Paris is another story. Stapleton's goal in 76 at 1-0 down and Moran's in 1980 at 1-0 down were both dubiously disallowed. Then you have Sofia 77 - Giles's winner disallowed late on and then the Bulgarians grabbing a late winner. We were done in 87 too as the foul for the winning penalty was a yard outside the box but Gary Mackay did his bit for us a few months later.

Brussels was by far the worst though.

almost as staggering as your pessimism

Beautifulrock - We gave a great account of ourselves in World Cup 2006 and then we did very well to Beat the Dutch.

Irish Fans must first earn the right to be optimistic! nothing i have seen in recent months gives me any grounds for optimism.. wait and see when the German Prediction thread starts, most people who contribute to this forum will be predicting a draw or better.. Just like the french prediction thread last year.. Some Irish Fans are blinded by the Halycon days.. Wake up we're average with a rookie manager.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

Slight exaggeration as I was at that game. Only for the ref we would have managed a draw as the score was 0-0 when the Belgians scored that late winner.

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We'll never know what the score would have been if Stapleton's goal stood. :) It would have been 1-0 and anything could have happened, obviously events would have been different and we might have went on to win 3-0 (maybe even lost 3-1). btw, the freekick which Belgium scored from should have been a freekick.

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Originally Posted by gspain

Yes has been shown a few times - definitely nothing wrong with it.

Tribune showed a video to the sad little man in his Portuguese home and he made a pathetic attept to justify it.

Paris is another story. Stapleton's goal in 76 at 1-0 down and Moran's in 1980 at 1-0 down were both dubiously disallowed. Then you have Sofia 77 - Giles's winner disallowed late on and then the Bulgarians grabbing a late winner. We were done in 87 too as the foul for the winning penalty was a yard outside the box but Gary Mackay did his bit for us a few months later.

Brussels was by far the worst though.

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Always worth a read...

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 an ugly 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 on two 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 Frank Stapleton; 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, in fact, 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 been paid 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 still employed, 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 the champions of the world. When you are a player and you make a mistake, you can go and 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 that night 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 times do 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 on the 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 see it 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.

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 one recalcitrant 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 up to 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 Stapleton clearly 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 quarter time, “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 close to the screen. Stapleton's contact is even clearer on this television. Then Raul remembers 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. I remember 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 amongst the players. Frank Stapleton, you can see, is trying to get to the ball, and his instinct 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 happens on 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, there is 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 stop the 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 would never have hit my back and Ireland would have gone to the World Cup.” Out in the street, he performs a little mime act by way of a farewell, blowing an imaginary whistle, 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 left with the shock of seeing ghosts he thought were long ago laid to rest.

That night in Brussels still haunts Eoin Hand. He can't mention Jack Charlton without saying "it should have been me". One of the most miserable away experiences I have had. Next was when we were thumped 3-0 in Portugal and it pis*ed down on us all night like Brussels. No singing in the rain on either of those nights and of course the play-off defeat in Brussels when Belgium scored from a throw in that should have gone to us.

As I say luck is what's needed and then some more.

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Originally Posted by Noelys Guitar

I see this match against Germany almost as mirror image of what happened that night in March 81. We had just got hammered at home by Wales 3-1. We had players missing. But we put up a wonderful team performance against the odds.

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I see this game as an almost mirror image of Amsterdam in September 2000. The best 65 minutes away from home we've played in recent times and, despite the subsequent debate, a crucial away point and 2 homepoints our rivals failed to get.

There are some good omens, for the superstitious:

The Dutch, the hosts of Euro 2000 only 2 months earlier, were beaten in the SF by Italy. The Germans were hosts of the recent WC and lost in the SF to Italy. France & Italy contested the final in each competition.

The Dutch impressed big time in Euro 2000 despite being unfancied and having a controversially appointed young manager, Rijkaard. He resigned after losing to Italy. Germany's performance in WC06 was almost identical, and for Rijkaard read Klinsmann.

In 2000 we were expected to be thumped. If I recall we were beaten at home to both Scotland & Greece in the run up. We also had injuries back then.


Fingers crossed, but we'll need a hell of a performance & a decent bit of luck. No fancy tactics please Stan.

Great Thread lads some great reading there. There is nothing wrong with optimism and makes the away trip a lot more fun when you go over feeling optimistic in my view. I think it will be a tough night in Stuttgart but a few of our players have started the season very well but we will need to be well organised and solid in central midfield and defence. I am not sure about either at the moment but you never know.