The next couple of weeks will be full of 25th anniversaries from Italia 1990 and today happens to be a day that was crucial in sweeping Jack Charlton's green army to the quarter-finals.
Facing the Dutch and with both sides in need of a result, the two sides met in Palermo, the scene of Ireland's disappointment against Egypt which was the cause of Eamon Dunphy's pen 'slipping from his fingers' and crashing onto a desk.
As Big Jack's reaction in the clip below illustrates, he was not impressed by our start as a classy Dutch goal finished off by Ruud Gullit put a star-studded Netherlands 1-0 up.
But as typical of that Ireland side, there was plenty of resilience on show. One hoof up field, an ill-advised backpass, followed by butter fingers from Dutch keeper Hans van Breukelen and opportunism from Niall Quinn did the business:
In the end it was a 1-1 draw that suited both sides - sort of - as they both advanced to the second round with an identical record. But it was Ireland's luck that held with what happened next as the drawing of lots was used to decide which nation both sides would face next.
Although, current FIFA president Sepp Blatter would laugh at Ireland when the FAI demanded to be Team 33 at the 2010 World Cup, a much younger version of the embattled leader of world football played the Boys in Green a kinder hand in 1990 when he drew Romania out of the hat, while giving a Dutch side who were reigning European champions, the task of challenging eventual World Champions West Germany.
While Ireland went on to dispatch Romania on penalties, the Dutch succumbed to a 2-0 defeat to the Germans in a match marred by a spitting incident involving Frank Rijkaard's saliva and Rudi Voller's famous perm.
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