{"id":71087,"date":"2025-10-10T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T06:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/71087\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T06:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T06:00:10","slug":"the-night-matt-holland-earned-ireland-a-vital-point-away-to-portugal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/71087\/","title":{"rendered":"The night Matt Holland earned Ireland a vital point away to Portugal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republic of Ireland<\/a> have played away in Portugal seven times in their history, and their record is not pretty viewing \u2013 zero wins, one draw and six defeats. But that one draw 25 years ago was a view into a different time of optimism for Irish football, and a crucial game towards what is Ireland\u2019s only qualification for the World Cup<\/a> this century.<\/p>\n

Ireland were drawn in a 2002 World Cup qualification group with Euro 2000 semi-finalists Netherlands and Portugal, with one qualifying automatically and one making the playoffs. To make matters worse, their first two games were away from home. Two defeats would have left their campaign in tatters.<\/p>\n

After a terrific but slightly disappointing draw in Amsterdam, when they gave up a two-goal lead, Ireland were up against it again in Lisbon in October 7th, 2000, not only because of rumours of a \u201cfeud\u201d between manager Mick McCarthy<\/a> and Roy Keane<\/a> in the build-up after the Manchester United midfielder arrived late to the camp.<\/p>\n

In a sense of foreboding, the Sunday Tribune had warned in a headline that \u201cRoy is on a collision course with McCarthy\u201d, with Mark McGuinness writing it was \u201chigh time that Keane showed more respect to his manager and his team-mates\u201d. Luckily, nothing ever came of that in the future, right?<\/p>\n

\"RoyRoy Keane ahead of the World Cup qualifier against Portugal in Lisbon in October 2000. Photograph: Nuno Correia\/Allsport <\/p>\n

Portugal had the soon-to-be Ballon d\u2019Or winner in Luis Figo and one of Serie A\u2019s great playmakers in Rui Costa, but Ireland had the reigning PFA Footballer of the Year in Keane. The Portuguese expected to win at the Stadium of Light, and it looked like they would, dominating possession and having plenty of shots, although not many testing goalkeeper Alan Kelly.<\/p>\n

Sergio Conceicao finally broke the deadlock after 57 minutes with a low shot and they looked like adding to their tally, with Ireland looking short of ideas, especially after bringing on midfielder Matt Holland for striker Niall Quinn, which the Tribune called \u201cthe biggest gamble of McCarthy\u2019s managerial career\u201d, which \u201cdrew groans from Irish fans and journalists alike\u201d.<\/p>\n

So, of course, up stepped Holland with a spectacular long-distance strike to equalise. \u201cIt was an outstanding strike,\u201d Keane said, \u201cbut to be perfectly honest I fancied him to score.\u201d Keane\u2019s optimism perhaps defied logic as it was Holland\u2019s first goal at any international level. Liam Brady said that it \u201cmade no sense to even suggest that Holland was brought on to score a goal\u201d and that luck played a part. But he would repeat the trick at a World Cup almost two years later against Cameroon, with Keane watching at home.<\/p>\n

The goal stunned the Portuguese, and Conceicao admitted: \u201cAfter we scored I didn\u2019t think Ireland could come back into the match,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Portuguese media reacted in kind. \u201cBitter\u201d was sports newspaper A Bola\u2019s headline, \u201cunfair\u201d was tabloid Joga\u2019s verdict on the result. Portugal\u2019s manager Antonio Oliveira added to the sense of disbelief \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have believed you if you had told me before the match that Ireland would come to Portugal and gain a draw,\u201d he said. And Ireland were quite good then, too. Imagine how present boss Roberto Martinez would react on Saturday if Ireland did the same.<\/p>\n

Figo, then the world\u2019s most expensive footballer, had commended Ireland in the build-up, pointing to the success of the underage sides under Brian Kerr as a sign of Ireland\u2019s growing prestige under McCarthy. Robbie Keane (20) and Richard Dunne (21) started the game, while Damien Duff (21) came off the bench. Robbie would have been keeping an eye on events in Inter Milan, with his club manager Marcelo Lippi sacked and replaced by Marco Tardelli either side of the game. Dunne was singled out for special praise by Mark Lawrenson in his column in The Irish Times in securing a \u201cprecious\u201d point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal was certainly against the run of play, but as the Republic showed against the Dutch, they are a match for any of the big boys of world football,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

Ireland would beat Netherlands a year later in Dublin, finish second in the group and beat Iran in a playoff to qualify for Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republic of Ireland have played away in Portugal seven times in their history, and their record is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[23531,61,60,272,1842,47632,271,112],"class_list":["post-71087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-damien-duff","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mick-mccarthy","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-robbie-keane","tag-roy-keane","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}