Roy Keane may have flown home a few weeks ago with head bowed but his Irish team-mates will have theirs held high after being knocked out of the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan? by Spain on Sunday. The tournament had begun in fiasco with the sending home of their inspirational captain Keane but it was about pride and glory as well as sweat and tears on a humid evening at the Suwon stadium in Seoul, Korea.

　　The Irish team won over the hearts of a near-capacity crowd with their fight and passion after coming back from a goal down to equalise with a last-gasp Robbie Keane penalty to take the gamesintosextra-time and penalties. Ultimately though the luck did not favour the Irish with three of the five penalties missed.

　　Following Fernando Morientes’eighth-minute header, Ireland dominated the second half playing with an energy that had their opponents on the back foot and strangely unable to escape the green stranglehold. And while it was a team performance, one man stood out head and shoulders above his colleagues.

　　Damien Duff played the game of his life. Whether up front or on the right, the player seemed to have the ball tied to a piece of string around his foot, bamboozling big-reputation defenders. Time and again he went past his man in a performance of skill, strength and courage rarely witnessed in the finals, winning a penalty and creating countless opportunities.

　　“Yeah I enjoyed it. It’s great playing against so many world-class players and on the night I think we bossed it. I just can’t believe we’ve gone out,”he said with pride following the match.

　　In fact so committed and intense was his display that he was unaware that Spain had lost a man [David Albelda] through injury during extra time.

　　“I didn’t even know they had ten players in extra time. It seemed like that in the last half hour of normal time they were just all over the place,”he said.

　　After his heroic performance, the main reason much-fancied Spain appeared punch-drunk, he refused to blame his colleagues who stepped up to take the spot-kicks.

　　“They’ve done brilliantly the whole tournament playing against the world’s best,”he said.“We do well together or we don’t do well together.”

　　It was typical of the team atmosphere that has taken Ireland to the brink of the quarter-finals after many had written off their chances following Keane’s controversial sending home. The decision by Mick McCarthy seemed to unite the side more than ever as on three out of four occasions in the finals they fought back after conceding the first goal.

　　“Typically noone gave us a chance but we just kept going on and on,”said defender Gary Kelly.“We’ve been called a pub side so many times you start to believe it, so it’s hard to take the way we played.”

　　There may be a few drinks drunk in Irish pubs in honour of Duff and Ireland but, after Sunday night’s performance, no one will underestimate the spirit of the Irish again.