IT is 25 years to the day since Giants Stadium turned green.
Ray Houghton lobbed Gianluca Pagliuca and Paul McGrath became an Irish legend, while Jason McAteer nutmegged an Italian one.
SunSport looks back at Saturday, June 18, 1994.
THE BUILD-UP
IRELAND had hoped to be in Boston, where they would be guaranteed the backing of the large expat community — but instead were drawn to face Italy in their US stronghold, New Jersey.
Jack Charlton had settled on a 4-5-1 formation in warm-up games, with Tommy Coyne up front and John Sheridan in midfield. The only big selection headache was Houghton or McAteer.
HOUGHTON:“It was Kevin Moran who told me I’d start. He didn’t pick the team but he said a few days before, ‘You look your old self, I think Jack will start you’.”
PHIL BABB:“The stands just go up and up and up and everywhere there was green, white and orange.”
HOUGHTON:“We were led to believe it was going to be a load of Italians and a few Irish. When we got here an hour and a half before, we couldn’t believe it. There were hardly any Italians here at all.”
CHARLTON:“It was a great atmosphere. I was expecting 10-12,000 Irish to be here. The Irish must have spent fortunes on tickets.”
THE JERSEY CHANGE
IRELAND prepare to wear their change strip of white.
But the Fifa official who comes into the dressing room to summon them into the tunnel panics as Italy are also wearing white. Ireland change quickly into green.
BABB:“We’re in this huge American football dressing room, loads of space and just waiting. Then a guy walks in, ‘Why are you wearing white? Italy are wearing white’.”
ANDY TOWNSEND:“Pandemonium in the dressing room. After one and a half hours sitting twiddling our thumbs, we have one and a half minutes to strip and change our kit.”
DENIS IRWIN:“It was a scramble. I think if you look at the official photograph, you’ll see Terry Phelan is missing. He was back in the dressing room changing his socks.”
THE GOAL
JUST 12 minutes in and Ireland take the lead when Houghton reads a poor Italian clearance and sends it over Pagliuca’s head and in.
HOUGHTON:“It was just a long ball played forward. Franco Baresi went to head it and I just anticipated where he was heading it down to. I saw the ball, saw the flight of it, saw his header, came into position, chested it down . . . ”
CHARLTON:“It was a good lob. I don’t know if he meant it or not but it went in the right place. He tries that shot in practice all the time and I have never seen him make it.”
HOUGHTON:“He’s telling lies. I always score off that one.”
STEVE STAUNTON:“When Ray got the goal I was on the outside of him out left, I expected it.
“Nine times out of ten, he would have played me in there. I’m glad he didn’t.”
DANIELLE MASSARO:“An ugly goal from them and then nothing.”
HOUGHTON: “Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.”
McGRATH v ITALY
NOW viewed as one of the greatest individual performances by an Ireland player, McGrath was unbeatable despite being nowhere near match fit.
He produces stop after stop, winning headers, making tackles and even blocking a Roberto Baggio shot with his face.
McGRATH:“I had a shoulder problem — it just disappeared on me, a viral thing that was eating away at it. Jack actually said to me he was getting down to picking someone else for the World Cup. It did hamper me.
“I would think that’s one of the jammiest games I’ve ever had, seriously. I was lucky in so many ways.
“The only way I could get back to that ball in particular was to jump in the air.
“If I reached it, it was safety, if I missed it, which I almost did, I’d be the villain.
“When the ball comes over I know for a fact I’m the only one who can head that ball.
“The day just fell my way, that’s as true as God.”
HALF-TIME
LEADING 1-0, the Boys in Green have had a few half-chances though the Italians have begun to hit their stride.
IRWIN:“Our ball retention wasn’t great but we were difficult to break down.”
PACKIE BONNER:“The ref told me not to hold on to the ball for so long because he regarded it as time-wasting.
“It was a friendly enough warning but a warning.”
TOWNSEND:“We wait for a fresh shirt, a dry pair of shorts — but we’ve forgotten the problem with the kit. We take the shirts, wring them out, slip them on.”
SECOND HALF
IRELAND are under the cosh. Babb and Irwin make big tackles to keep Italy out, McAteer comes on and nutmegs Baggio and Sheridan hits the crossbar.
McATEER:“Once I was in there tackling, the Italians looked like normal beings.
“When I nipped by Baggio, that made me feel I was worth £18million, just like him. He fouled me after I did it, I just said, ‘You’ll get over it’.
SHERIDAN:“I should have put that one away. I had all night to do it but I sliced the shot and hit the bar when I should have buried it.”
TOWNSEND:“In the last few minutes, I’m running through but all I can think of is John Barnes. There was a game Liverpool lost and Jack was watching on TV, ‘John Barnes cost them that’.
“He had the ball in the last minute and tried to score rather than play for time. I start to veer my run towards the corner flag.”
AFTERWARDS
HAVING beaten Holland and Germany in warm-up games, Ireland have added the Italians’ scalps when it really matters.
CHARLTON:“People keep writing us off but we’ve got some good players.
“We’ve gotten some results and we’ve shown we can play, but people seem to want to write us off.
“It has to be one of the best results in football.”
BAGGIO:“We couldn’t shoot because we couldn’t beat their trapping and pressing.
“It hurts a lot. On their first chance, they scored.
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“And that made things easier for them.”
IRELAND: Bonner; Irwin, McGrath, Babb, Phelan; Houghton (McAteer 68), Sheridan, Keane, Townsend, Staunton; Coyne (Aldridge 90).
ITALY: Pagliuca; Tassotti, Costacurta, Baresi, Maldini; Donadoni, D Baggio, Albertini, Evani (Massaro ht); R Baggio, Signori (Berti 84).
