Jason McAteer 'would love' to relive his iconic goal v Holland in 2001

Jason McAteer is fondly remembered by Irish fans for his famous goal against Holland in 2001.

McAteer's scored the only goal of the game as Ireland downed the Dutch at Lansdowne Road and moved one step closer to securing qualification for the 2002 World Cup.

While the 2002 World Cup didn't pan out as anyone wanted, with McAteer struggling for fitness after picking up an injury a week before the tournament, the former Liverpool star still has fond memories of that day in Dublin 22 years ago.

"You go through your career and you look back on it and some players unfortunately don't have that one moment," McAteer said while speaking to Boylesports about Premier League betting.

"I was blessed to have had a couple of moments in my career that I look back very fondly on. People say if you go back in time and you can do one again, which one would it be, and for me it would be that goal against Holland."

Like the current campaign for Euro 2024, the task of qualifying for the 2002 World Cup was a daunting one. Drawn into a group with the Dutch and Portugal, Irish backs were up against the wall before a ball was even kicked,

"Going back to the start of the campaign, we were drawn against Portugal and Holland. So we were right up against it. But like today's team, their first game of the group was against France. It couldn't have been a harder start for them. Ours was against Holland, in Amsterdam. So we were right up against it.

"The difference with us was obviously the quality of players in our squad against what today's team has, but also we were kind of in the right moment.

"We’d been through a transitional stage where Jack Charlton had retired and Mick McCarthy had taken over the squad and introduced younger players like Robbie Kean, Damien Duff, Gary Breen, Richard Dunne. So we had a few years leading into this campaign. We were kind of ready."

Speaking about the famous goal, McAteer has some vivid memories of perhaps his most memorable moment.

"I sort of lingered around as we won the ball back, and it got recycled out to Steve Finnan and the referee played a good advantage when Roy Keane was brought down. Then Finn manages to dig one out and I just found myself open at the back stick.

"Players will tell you ‘oh yeah, I watched the ball come, I’d positioned myself and I knew exactly what I was going to do and I connected really well’. That's a load of rubbish. It comes to you in a second and it's instinct that takes over, all your training just kicks in. I had no idea what I was going to do apart from let instinct take over, which was hitting it first time. It sat up lovely.

"Obviously the technique was to try and get a bit of topspin on the ball and just whip it into the top corner. That was one of them where probably if I had another 20 goes at it, 18 would have gone over the bar.

"It was my perfect moment, it was my moment and we held out, we won one nil which took us to a play-off and we qualified."