Ireland goal-scorer Robbie Brady joked that even he couldn’t see what happened when he sent the ball to the net in Zenica on Friday night.
The Norwich midfielder put Ireland one-up after 82 minutes on a foggy night in the play-off first leg against Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The visibility was so bad it looked as though referee Felix Brych would have to abandon the game, though he played the full 90 miinutes.
“I barely saw it myself!” laughed Brady. “One of the centre-backs missed it, I got on the end of it and then I pulled it inside and caught the goalie on the near post. I was happy with the goal.
“It’s a shame we didn’t hold out, but it’s a good result away from home and we’ll take it back on Monday and put in a better performance and hopefully push ourselves through.”
Brady admits he was frustrated that Ireland couldn’t see out the game in the final eight minutes, though he knows that a draw remains a good result.
Ireland have an away goal, meaning Bosnia must score in Monday night’s return leg at the Aviva Stadium if they are to have any hope of qualifying for France 2016.
“Not a bad result, but there are little things could have prevented the goal and held out the last ten minutes,” he said, speaking to RTE Sport.
“Like I said though, not a bad result and we’ll take it home now and give it our all.
“We know they have some good players who can hurt us, but if we can keep a few of them quiet on Monday night and if we up our game, we need to play a bit better (Ireland can qualify).
“Good away performance, decent result away from home and we have a good enough squad to push us through. 90 minutes, one leg down and we go again on Monday.”
Brady also said that he had never played in conditions like Ireland found in Zenica. “Never this bad with the fog or smoke or whatever it is,” he said.
