The correlation drawn between David O'Leary and Buzz Aldrin is the product of a 23-year-old Simpsons episode.
As Homer begins an intensive period of training to become an astronaut, he is introduced to the second man who walked on the moon.
To the obvious embarrassment of all gathered, Aldrin reminds us "that second comes right after first".
One can't help but wonder if O'Leary maintains similar feelings of resentment about Italia '90? Only after Bonner's save and George Hamilton's commentary do thoughts generally turn to the actual scorer of Ireland's most memorable penalty.
Speaking this week at the premiere of 89, a documentary treatment of Arsenal's incredible title triumph almost 30 years ago, O'Leary seemed intent on using the platform to address some unfinished business he has with the Irish team:
Anybody who has been an international player, if they were asked [to manage the national team] they would always do it.
You have got to be asked and I never have been asked.
Almost 60 years of age, O'Leary has been out of management now for six years - his last job of any apparent relevance coming five years before that again at Aston Villa.
Having hit his managerial stride with a young, exciting Leeds United side at the turn of the millennium, O'Leary has admitted that he would disrupt his "lovely life... if the right opportunity came along".
For O'Leary, the potentially vacant Ireland position is that opportunity.
A regular golfing partner of Denis O'Brien, the man who bankrolls a significant portion of the Irish manager's pay packet, Paul Rowan has described in today's Sunday Times how O'Leary was O'Brien's preferred choice when Steve Staunton was sacked in 2007.
With Martin O'Neill's name being mooted for various Premier League jobs as the managerial casualties start to stack up, O'Leary hinted toward his suitability to replace him:
I know the way I like to play and I know what I like to watch, but I am never going to give opinions on the way people play.
It's their time and they do it their way. I know if I got my time we all do it different ways.
Content to admit that he is not exactly universally liked within football, O'Leary's friends in high places will unquestionably put him in a discussion - however remote, unlikely and unsuited he would be - that his status as a football manager alone scarcely entitle him to.
