Suwon shoot-out still a sore point with Quinn

HE played in two World Cups and experienced what it was like to be part of a third. In Niall Quinn’s words, he went from being an excited youngster for his first World Cup to a grumpy old man for his third.

But if there is one memory he holds from the 1990, 1994 and 2002 finals which still tugs on the heart strings, it is his belief that the Republic of Ireland had every chance to rule the world eight years ago.

Quinn was due to take the first penalty in sudden-death against Spain in the last-16 in Suwon, but it mattered little because Fernando Hierro stroked home the fifth and final penalty to capitalise on Matt Holland’s missed spot-kick.

David Connolly and Kevin Kilbane had also failed to find the net, while Quinn waited in the centre circle, taking in the action as the nervous tension ended with Ireland missing out on a quarter-final tie with South Korea.

It was the Koreans that progressed to the semi-finals before losing to Germany, who Ireland had drawn with earlier in the competition.

Brazil might have gone on to win it, but Quinn looks back on the one that got away.

“We were out of the tournament before I was next up. That’s my regret. I was the elder player of the team and I maybe should have come up, taken the first one and scored,” said Quinn, choosing not to discuss the infamous events pre-World Cup that led to Roy Keane storming out because of poor training facilities.

“Truthfully, do you know how I look back on it? If we’d won the penalty shoot-out and beaten Spain, which I think we deserved to on the performance, we were playing Korea whose biggest player was 5ft 3in. I think we’d have murdered them.

“They played a different type of game, but I think we might have had too much for them and gone to the semifinal.

I really do. That’s the thing that keeps me awake.”

Quinn, a Sunderland player at the time, was 35 – 12 years older than he’d been at Italia ’90.

After biding his time as a substitute in Jack Charlton’s team, he was responsible for scoring the goal against Holland in the final group match that secured a second round place for the Irish at the expense of the Dutch.

“He [Charlton] gave me the opportunity against Holland and I scored. I stayed in the team for ten years. By the time it got to 2002, I was a grumpy old pro,” said Quinn, speaking as he reminisced inside the Sunderland boardroom where he is now chairman.

“There was Frank Stapleton, Tony Cascarino in front of me, John Aldridge, David Kelly, quite a few – a lot of forwards who’d been around before I had so I had to bide my time.

“I was training well, catching his eye, fetching the balls after every shot I had, running as fast as I could after every shot I hit to get the ball back when everyone else was struggling and complaining. I just itched for that chance.”

After helping to defeat Romania, Quinn’s first World Cup came to a close with a defeat to hosts Italy. Injury prevented him from playing in the World Cup four years later, but he was still there for the American experience.

“In ’94 there were amazing crowds at the games, but you’d get off the bus half-amile from the ground and the locals would come up and ask, ‘What’s going on buddy?’ It meant nothing, absolutely zero legacy,” said Quinn, a major player in England’s bid to host the World Cup in 2018.

“In 2002 I went to Japan and Korea and the people realised it was a chance for them to showcase everything that was good about their country. The passion and the pride in their country made us all stop in our tracks and we thought, ‘Wow, these people have really grasped what it’s all about’.”

Having experienced every emotion during three World Cups, Quinn is looking ahead to South Africa’s turn.

He is, however, still annoyed by the way the Irish missed out, when Thierry Henry’s hand helped William Gallas to secure France’s place in the final instead.

He said: “We’re gutted we’re not there. We’re still sore, not so much at the way France got through but the smugness of their manager at the time and in the interview afterwards and the World Cup draw.

“I take my hat off to Richard Dunne. When Thierry Henry sat next to him laughing and joking in the centre circle for being civil and accepting. I don’t think Cascarino would have accepted it, or Paul McGrath or Kevin Moran. Maybe the game’s changed.

“Imagine Kevin Moran if Thierry was coming over saying, ‘Unlucky there my friend’?”

Only time will tell if France’s World Cup luck has ran out.