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The 1990 World Cup in Italy, basically because everyone went mad about football when Ireland got to the quarter finals. That's when a lot of us started really getting into it as kids. My family were mostly GAA people, but football definitely won my heart then.
I remember then starting to follow the qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup avidly, because Ireland had Northern Ireland in their group and it was a really big thing, and I remember the night we played them to qualify. They weren't too bad a side back then, and we drew 1-1 at Windsor Park to seal the finals place.
I started following English football around the same time, early 90s, but mostly I watched Champions League matches live on ITV and Serie A on channel 4 (plus Transworld Sport) because we didn't have Sky for ages and got really big into some of the players in Europe because they were fucking class. Gullit, Van Basten, Papin etc. because AC Milan were the best team around then, and the likes of Baggio and Stoichkov. I don't think another set of world class players will ever seem as good to me. None of the players around now will ever beat Romario in my heart.
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