Liverpool face Chelsea on January 31st. Four of the sides' last five meetings have finished 0-0 in regular time, and Carlsberg 0.0 are celebrating the fixture with club legends Bruce Grobelaar and Gus Poyet. We've decided to look back on some of the greatest 0-0s in history - and what better place to start than Ireland's iconic last 16 game against Romania at Italia '90?
For people of my generation, Italia '90 is a cultural phenomenon that is, in all honesty, hard to wrap the head around.
What do you mean the country stopped functioning for the best part of a month? How on Earth did the capital city's big businesses survive with their workforces spending the vast majority of June 1990 partying?
And all because of a 0-0 draw with Romania?
Okay, I'm not that thick. It's obvious just how transcendental an event the 1990 World Cup was for this country.
After the doom and gloom of the 1980s, perhaps the most depressing decade in Irish history, the fact that Ireland could compete with the very best in the world's most popular sport was a pretty astonishing way to kick off the final decade of the millennium.
And, at its centre, the greatest 0-0 draw of all time: Ireland v Romania on June 25th 1990, in Genoa's Stadio Luigi Ferraris.
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Remembering the greatest 0-0 of all-time: Ireland v Romania at Italia 90
Ireland became one of the only teams in World Cup history to progress to the knockout stages without winning a single group stage game at Italia '90 - their first-ever appearance at the tournament (Italy famously went on to win the World Cup having failed to win any of their group games in 1982).
Because every game in Ireland's group finished in a draw bar England's 1-0 win over Egypt, Jack Charlton's Irish side finished with an identical record to the Netherlands, and the two teams had to be split by the drawing of lots (yes, that is a younger Sepp Blatter carrying out the draw).
Luckily for Charlton and Ireland, the Dutch drew the short straw (almost literally) and were pitted against their arch-rivals West Germany, while Ireland got off lighter and would face Romania.
The FIFA World Rankings were not yet established at the 1990 World Cup, but both Ireland and Romania were among the second European seeds when the initial draw for the tournament was carried out. 1986 finalists Germany, on the other hand, were top seeds. A lucky break for the Irish.
Genoa was the venue, on a sunny Monday in June. The game kicked off at 4 pm Irish time, and someone of my age can only imagine the scenes of businesses up and down the country shutting up shop at around 3 pm to ensure everyone had a chance to witness Ireland's shot at history.
Now, here's the thing. We need to clarify what we mean by the "greatest 0-0 draw of all time." Because, let's be frank - the action on the pitch was by no means a classic.
It wasn't as dire as the group stage stalemate against Egypt, but even a cursory glance at the below highlights video shows that the majority of moments of note came with blazing shots flying over the bar, or late challenges and yellow cards in the middle of the pitch.
And, of course, Jack Charlton's smile.
Penalties it was.
Ireland had reached the finals of EURO '88 - their first-ever major tournament appearance - but this was their first taste of knockout football. Now, they had a shot at reaching the last eight of the World Cup finals.
This is a height that I can scarcely imagine Ireland reaching. My lifetime of following Ireland has brought a World Cup I was too young to remember, a heartbreaking playoff defeat when we didn't deserve to lose, a record-breakingly poor EURO finals, and - finally - the last 16 and a memorable victory over Italy in 2016.
We all know it happened, we all know how special it was, we all treasure it as a memory we wish we had. But, for people raised in the 21st century, one of the great tragedies is that we will never be able to fully comprehend just how crazy the country went at around 6:30 pm on June 25th 1990, when David O'Leary followed up Packie Bonner's penalty save by converting his own spot-kick and sending Ireland to the quarter-finals.
I, like many of my peers, choose to regularly attempt to relive this moment I never lived through by sitting back and enjoying the greatest Reeling in the Years segment of all time.
Judging by the footage above, and the countless stories told down through the years, it's hard to imagine a point at which the island of Ireland ever saw a bigger party than it did that fine June evening.
The fact the match happened on a Monday, and the quarter-final against Italy was scheduled for the following Saturday night leads me to assume that very little - if any - work was done in Ireland that week. No need for us to deep dive into how that quarter-final meeting went.
I've never craved so much the ability to witness a 0-0 draw live quite as much as I always have that Romania game in 1990. Of course, it's not necessarily got anything to do with the excitement of the football on show or anything of that ilk - it's more so that I'm not sure there's a single point in Irish history, sporting or otherwise, that I'd rather have the ability to go back and experience in the flesh.
I'll be honest: we're all a bit sick of watching Ireland play out stalemates at this stage. The lingering impact of the goalless drought in the early months of the Stephen Kenny era has us feeling a vague sense of PTSD towards the scoreline.
But, if we could ever get back to a stage where a 0-0 draw could mean as much to Ireland as it did against Romania in June 1990...I think we'd manage.
Carlsberg 0.0 has teamed up with the legendary Gus Poyet and the iconic Bruce Grobbelaar ahead of the upcoming Chelsea vs. Liverpool Premier League fixture on January 31st, to dive into the depths of the Chelsea-Liverpool rivalry, and unravel the untold stories behind the fixture that has produced 0-0 draws in four of their last five meetings.
This event builds on the significant work that Carlsberg and Carlsberg 0.0 have done in football over a period spanning several decades. They boast longstanding partnerships with Liverpool, the FAI, and the Ireland men's and women's teams, including creating a memorable mural on Bondi Beach for the WNT ahead of last year's World Cup.
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