Italia '90: Tears, Penalties and a Pope

Billy Galligan - Author

Welcome to the show, everybody! I'm Billy Galligan - Author. Let me take you back to a summer where the air smelled of stale stout, damp carpets, and pure, unadulterated hope. It's June 25th, 1990. I'm squeezed into a pub in Inchicore, Dublin, packed so tight you couldn't put a cigarette paper between the shoulders of the fellas next to you. Everyone's eyes are glued to a wooden-framed telly bracketed to the wall. We're watching eleven men in green tracksuits on the other side of Europe, and the entire nation is suspended in mid-air.

Billy Galligan - Author

You see, Ireland had never made a World Cup before. And under Big Jack Charlton, we weren't exactly playing beautiful, flowing football. It was direct. It was brutal. It was "put the under-inflated ball into the mixer and chase it down like your life depended on it." We limped out of the group stage without winning a single match in ninety minutes -- three draws against England, Egypt, and the Netherlands. But by hook or by crook, we found ourselves in Genoa, facing Romania in the Round of 16. After a grueling, scoreless two hours, it went to penalties.

Billy Galligan - Author

Daniel Timofte steps up for Romania. The pub in Inchicore goes so silent you could hear the condensation dripping off the glass. Timofte strikes it, and our giant goalkeeper Packie Bonner flings himself to the right, blocking it with those massive, raw palms. But the madness wasn't over. Up steps David O'Leary. He places the ball, looking like the loneliest man on the planet. George Hamilton on the RTE broadcast utters the words now etched into Irish folklore: "The nation holds its breath..." O'Leary runs up, slides it home, and the pub absolutely erupts. Grown men are weeping into their pints. We were into the Quarter-Finals.

Billy Galligan - Author

Now, how does an ordinary team prepare for the match of their lives against the host nation, Italy? If you're Jack Charlton's Ireland, you don't lock yourself in a gym. You pack the team bus and go to the Vatican for a personal audience with Pope John Paul II. Picture these sweaty, tracksuited lads standing in the grand, marble halls of Rome. Rumor has it the Pope, who used to be a goalkeeper himself in Poland, had a quiet word with Packie Bonner. Probably thanking him for saving that penalty and preventing half of Dublin from tearing the roofs off the churches in celebration!

Billy Galligan - Author

But every great opera needs a tragedy. When we faced Italy in Rome, we met Salvatore "Toto" Schillaci. The fella wasn't even supposed to start the tournament, but he played with these wild, wide, frantic eyes, like a man possessed. In the 38th minute, a long-range shot was spilled, and there was Schillaci, pouncing like a ghost to slide it home. We lost 1-0. The dream was over, but when the lads landed back in Dublin, the streets were blocked by half a million people. We'd lost the match, but we'd found our place in the world.

Billy Galligan - Author

But we weren't the only ones tearing up the script that summer. If Ireland brought the grit, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon brought the pure, unbridled joy. And they started on day one. Imagine the opening match in Milan. The reigning champions, Argentina, led by the golden boy Diego Maradona, walking out onto the pitch expecting a comfortable stroll. Instead, Cameroon met them with a physical, fearless intensity that left the world gasping.

Billy Galligan - Author

Cameroon had Andre Kana-Biyik sent off in the second half, but they kept fighting. François Omam-Biyik leaped unbelievably high to head home a goal past Nery Pumpido. Even when Benjamin Massing was sent off for a tackle on Claudio Caniggia that literally blew Massing's own boot off his foot, leaving Cameroon with only nine men on the pitch, they held on. A 1-0 victory over Maradona's Argentina. It was a seismic shock that re-wrote what African football meant to the world.

Billy Galligan - Author

And then, of course, there was Roger Milla. At thirty-eight years old, the fella had been playing in semi-retirement on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean before the tournament. He didn't even start games -- he was the ultimate super-sub. He'd come on when defenders were leg-weary, and he'd absolute destroy them. He scored two against Romania, and two against Colombia in the Round of 16. And every single time he scored, he ran to the corner flag, put one hand on his hip, and did that beautiful, shimmying, hip-shaking dance. It became the defining image of the whole tournament.

Billy Galligan - Author

They went on to face England in the Quarter-Finals, and they pushed them right to the edge of the cliff. Cameroon were leading 2-1 with only seven minutes left on the clock, playing some of the most vibrant, expressive football you'll ever see. It took two late Gary Lineker penalties -- one in normal time and one in extra time -- to save England and end the Cameroon fairytale 3-2. But they left the tournament having won the hearts of every neutral viewer on earth.

Billy Galligan - Author

That set up an absolute epic of a semi-final in Turin. England against West Germany. Now, if you want drama, this was the peak of the opera. The match was a tense, technical chess game that ended 1-1 after ninety minutes. But the moment everyone remembers happened in extra time. Paul Gascoigne -- "Gazza" -- a twenty-three-year-old genius playing with the heart of a schoolboy, lunges in late on Thomas Berthold. The referee reaches into his pocket and pulls out a yellow card.

Billy Galligan - Author

Gazza knew instantly. It was his second yellow of the tournament. Even if England won, he would miss the World Cup Final. Gary Lineker famously looked over to the bench and mimed "keep an eye on him," as Gazza's lip began to tremble, and the tears started flowing down his face. It was raw, human heartbreak on global television. And to make it crueler, England went on to lose the penalty shootout, with Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle missing from the spot. The Germans, clinical as ever, marched on.

Billy Galligan - Author

The final in Rome, though, was a far grimmer affair. West Germany against Argentina. It was a hostile, ugly, defensive battle, completely different from the joy of the earlier rounds. Maradona was kicked black and blue, Argentina had two players sent off -- Pedro Monzon and Gustavo Dezotti -- and the football was dry as a bone. It was finally settled in the 85th minute by a highly controversial penalty, slotted home by Andreas Brehme to give West Germany a 1-0 victory.

Billy Galligan - Author

When the final whistle blew, the stadium didn't erupt with joy; it felt more like a sigh of relief. And there, in the center of the pitch, was Diego Maradona, sobbing openly as the silver medal was placed around his neck, while the Italian crowd booed him. It was a dark, tragic end to what had been a summer of high theater. But when I look back at Italia '90, I don't think about that cynical final in Rome. I think about Pavarotti's voice soaring over the stadiums, the tears of Gazza, the hips of Roger Milla, and that quiet pub in Inchicore holding its breath. It was a tournament that showed us football isn't just a game -- it's the grandest drama we have. Until the next kickoff... keep your eyes on the ball.