100,000 (not really) squeezed into Thomond in 1978 to watch Munster dismantle the All Blacks. The game has gone down in history to the extent that Guinness are currently milking it for all it's worth. It's one of those occasions that everyone loves to look back on and there's nothing wrong with that, it makes great Reeling In The Years fodder.
Perhaps the Irish footballer team could have delivered similar ad worthy memories on 16th May 1980 had they managed to turn over World champions Argentina at Lansdowne Road. The match finished 1-0 to Argentina courtesy of a 28th minute goal from Talleres de Córdoba's José Daniel Valencia. However, there's only one man who we're interested in.
A 19 year old Diego Maradona was in Dublin that day and thanks to youtube user sp1873, we now have video evidence. This was Maradona still in his Argentinos Juniors days so how much the 30100 strong crowd would have known about him is debatable, but nonetheless it's great to be able to look back and see him grace the Lansdowne turf. As an aside, the game also happened to be Eoin Hand's first in charge of the national team.
All in all there's not a whole lot of Maradona involvement in the video. By all accounts (online forums), he was quite quiet that day but there is a nice moment of Tony Grealish adopting the soon to be popular Maradona defending tactic of 'kicking him before he can do anything'.
Here's a similar video with spiffy music replacing the Spanish commentary if you'd prefer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eERV7VKT02M
Although Maradona didn't score in that game, he did score against an Irish side just a month earlier. On 30th April 1980, a League of Ireland XI took on the World champions in River Plate's El Monumental stadium. Once again, the scoreline was a very respectable 1-0 and this time it was Maradona to fire home with a brilliant strike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40NEM40F9go
YouTube user killianm2 is the kind individual responsible for the final two videos.
