Remember it very well. Eoin Hand was the manager. We had a good team that played some lovely football. So unlucky not to qualify for 78 and 82  world cups. Goal difference recall.

Ireland should have topped that group. They were by far the best team in it. It all came out years later that the refs were paid off and FIFA wanted France in for the bigger TV money.

That 2-1 win against Holland really was one the best Irish performances the football was amazingly good

Ireland were robbed in that group, a disallowed goal in Paris, and an even worse one against Belgium, there was NO reason to disallow the goal in Belgium

Brady gran jugador

The team from that era - roughly 1976 - 1981 was very good. They nearly made it to Argentina in 1978 - Platini's France beat them to it by a whisker - again there was some controversy about officials' decisions, notably in a game against Bulgaria in Sofia. Ireland were beginning to reach a peak by the time this campaign came along. They played a nice brand of flowing football and had, in Liam Brady, a world class player. O'Leary, Stapleton and Moran played for top English teams (Arsenal/Man UTD). Heighway, Ronnie Whelan and Mark Lawrenson played for Liverpool. Incidentally, Lawrenson was a superb defender. Midfielder Grealish didn't have the vision and creativity of Brady, but he was a hard working, no nonsense midfielder - under-rated in my opinion (sadly, he passed away a few years ago). Michael Robinson - not the greatest player ever, but he was a solid striker.

In this campaign, they were up against a fading Dutch side which still had some quality players from the 70s such as Rep and Van der Kerkhof. France would go on to lose the 1982 semi-final in what is probably the greatest World Cup match of all time. Belgium were a decent side who would go on to defeat Argentina and Maradona in Spain, eventually losing to Poland in th e World Cup.

Despite the dodgy referreeing decisions at vital times we came so close.

What might have been?  What would the ramifications have been for the country had we qualified?

What a fine Ireland team. Not the only good team to miss out by a whisker if we think about ‘66.  They were by these performances good enough to be at ‘82 but it’s easy to count the points and say they weren’t - which I cannot agree with.  They’d have been good for the 1/4 finals in ‘82 - one of the greatest and most competitive WCs.

Seriously, the free kick that led to the goal in the Belgium away game - the guy went down as if he’d been fired out of a cannon! The referee wasn’t even going to give it until the Belgians started protesting. And to think that’s what cost us a place at the World Cup.

Buen equipo

Look at how blatant a dive that was to win Belgium the free kick they scored from.

We should have received compensation over the Bent ref's performance against us. Corruption.

Fantastic Channel ❤👋

And here is me thinking that the Republic of Ireland were pretty shit at football until Jack Charlton took over

Some players back then

Liam Brady Eire legend

Where's the Frank Stapleton goal v Belgium?? Basically this disallowed goal stopped this best ever Irish team from going to Spain, from a referee that years later tried to say it was (a) offside (Stapleton clearly wasn't), (b) an indirect free kick that no-one had touched on it's way to the net (Stapleton clearly touched it) and (c) it was disallowed because it hit off himself, the referee (when it clearly hadn't)!!
...and as for that olympic style Eric Gerets dive in the last minute...

Brady