Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

Soccer European Championship Group 10:Albania - 0 Republic of Ireland - 0: If you had been judging by the scale of the celebrations in the streets of Tirana's city centre last night it would have been easy to assume Albania had, for the second time in four days, beaten "a former superpower" rather than drawn a game that they might have won in front of a packed house at the Qemel Stafa stadium. Emmet Malone reports from Tirana.

Few nations have been better equipped by history when it comes to perspective, though, and so the people danced through the traffic to the sound of fireworks and car horns in Skanderbeg Square long after the final whistle had brought to an end a tense and hard-fought game between sides that had come in search of win but seemed happy enough to have avoided defeat.