Sporting Advent Calendar #5: John O’Shea the unlikely hero in Gelsenkirchen

There were echoes of Ibaraki, 2002, about Ireland's draw in Gelsenkirchen but just about everything about October's late equaliser seemed somehow more unlikely.

The Germans are a better team these days, they were playing on home soil and Ireland are not quite what they were. Most surprising of all, though, was the sight of John O'Shea stealing in ahead of one of the home side's more polished defenders, Mats Hummels, to finish with the outside of his right foot.

Compared to a Quinn flick on for Robbie, it was an implausible way for Ireland to walk away with a point.

Martin O’Neill’s side had done well enough over the course of the game but they had still been second best to World Champions who created enough half chances to make the game safe a couple of times over.

Their finishing was poor, though, and David Forde had only a couple of really decent saves to make.

After Toni Kroos had finally given the hosts the lead, the Germans withdrew much as they had in Japan 12 years earlier and Ireland pushed out in search of the solitary goal that would bring with it a point.

Wes Hoolahan missed one outstanding opportunity to score it but the Dubliner then made amends by having a major hand in O'Shea's. Jeff Hendrick did brilliantly, though, not to let his team-mate's cross fly beyond him and a lot of us in the stand had to do something of a double take when it was the veteran central defender, on his 100th appearance, who popped up in the centre to turn the ball home.

The scale of O’Shea’s celebration was matched on the Irish bench and in the corner of the ground that the players ran to.

On the other bench, Joachim Löw looked understandably subdued. There might have been a hint of shock too.

The university professor and all those students who prepare his reports on prospective opponents only let them run to a couple of hundred pages. That may well not have been enough to have allowed for the possibility of a finish like this.