Niall Quinn: ‘People can talk about the ramshackle Irish team, but we knew what the real story was’

On this month’s 25th anniversary of Italia ‘90, Niall Quinn gives the inside story of a summer he — and we — will never forget.

To understand what Italia ‘90 meant to the country, to Irish football and, in particular, to Niall Quinn, it helps to begin 12 years later at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea, and those chaotic days between the seismic events of Saipan and Ireland’s first game against Cameroon — a period when there was, however briefly, just a flicker of a faint possibility that Roy Keane’s departure might somehow be reversed. As a senior member of the squad by then, Niall Quinn was centrally involved in the drama and not yet ready to abandon all hope, as he would later recall in his autobiography.

“Do I think this can be turned around?”, he wrote. “Do I believe it? Listen, on 14 March 1990, I had started 14 league games in three seasons. On 21 June 1990, I scored the goal that put Ireland into the second round of the World Cup in Italy. I believe it.” As we know, Quinn’s faith turned out to be misplaced in 2002 but I’m sure no-one will object if we wait until its 25th anniversary in 2027 before we opt to tease out the ramifications of Saipan And All That one more time with feeling. In 1990, by contrast, almost all Niall Quinn’s dreams came true. To mark this month’s 25th anniversary of Italia ‘90, Quinn recently took time out to share his memories of a World Cup which saw him leave his native Dublin as a lanky fringe player and return home one month later as ‘The Mighty Quinn’.