Ireland's O'Shea stuns wasteful Germany with late equaliser

Ireland stunned World Cup winners Germany with a stoppage time equaliser by John O’Shea on his 100th appearance to draw 1-1 in their Euro 2016 qualifier on Tuesday. The Germans were in complete command, as they had been in their 2-0 defeat to Poland in Warsaw on Saturday, and had a bagful of chances against the Irish, but were again missing the finishing touch. Toni Kroos seemed to have rescued the three points for the injury-hit Germans and settled the nerves of 50,000 fans in Gelsenkirchen with a powerful low drive that went in off the post after 71 minutes. [caption id=“attachment_1757217” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ireland’s players celebrate after scoring during the Euro 2016 group D qualifying soccer match between Germany and Ireland. AP[/caption] But O’Shea silenced the home crowd with his stoppage-time goal to punish lacklustre Germany, who have now failed to keep a clean sheet in their four internationals since winning the World Cup in July and have conceded eight goals in the process. “We are all very disappointed,” said Germany coach Joachim Loew. “To lead until the final minute and then they score with their first chance, it’s disappointing.” “In the final minutes we were naive. We did not hold the ball but kept playing it away. I have no clear explanation for this.” The result left the Germans on four points in Group D with Ireland on seven, the same as leaders Poland. “It was an absolute fairytale ending, it was incredible to get the 100th cap and get the goal to equalise against Germany and hopefully keep the momentum going to qualify for France,” O’Shea told Irish television RTE. “The manager spoke to us before the game that spirit will only get you so far but it was very evident there tonight and a little bit of quality at the end helped us.” STRONG START The world champions were desperate to make amends for Saturday’s shock defeat and did not take long to show their intentions with Erik Durm’s superb 32-metre strike bouncing off the crossbar after five minutes. Germany were missing half a dozen players including Bastian Schweinsteiger, Marco Reus and Mesut Ozil, with Andre Schuerrle and Christoph Kramer also ruled out in the last two days. But they were in charge from the start, pinning the Irish back as Kroos and Antonio Ruediger also went close early on. Despite having more than 65 percent possession, for much of the game they again had trouble finding the back of the net with Irish keeper David Forde in good form. The Germans had to wait until the 71st minute when Kroos was briefly left unmarked outside the box and unleashed an unstoppable shot that flew in off the post. Ireland showed they were not going to surrender when Durm was forced into a last-ditch clearance to prevent Wesley Hoolahan slotting in an equaliser in the 85th minute. Ireland pressed on in stoppage time with Germany content to simply hold on for the win and O’Shea punished them, nudging in at the end. Reuters