"It would have been a very good team. The two of us were split. We had a decent team but from the Republic's point of view, we would have had Pat Jennings, Derek Dougan, Martin O'Neill ... the combined team would have been very, very strong."
That was John Giles on Off The Ball this week as he pondered the prospect of a united Ireland team in his day.
As he - and we - discovered thanks to The Irish Soccer Split author Cormac Moore who also joined us on Wednesday night, there had been moves to create a unified international team for the whole island of Ireland, rather than the current status quo.
Whether we will ever see a situation similar to the Ireland rugby team in which players from North and South stand shoulder to shoulder on one side is one of the wait-and-see variety.
Best of friends at Man United - Paul McGrath and Norman Whiteside (PA / PA Archive/PA Images)
Nevertheless, we wanted to put together a legends team of Republic and Northern players together (with at least five players from each side) from the last 50 years and here's what it looks like:
Of course, this is not a definitive team, and you can share your own lineup with us on Twitter (@newstalksport) or in the comments section below.
Listen to the full interview with Cormac Moore about the Irish soccer split via the the podcast player:
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