As celebrations exploded all around her, Vera Pauw made a point of paying tribute to the generations of Republic of Ireland players who laid the foundations for their historic World Cup qualification.
"I truly mean this from deep down in my heart that we stand on the shoulders of the previous generations," she said at Hampden Park in the wake of Ireland's 1-0 play-off victory over Scotland.
"We will get all the praise but without all the hard work and the fantastic way that everybody has step by step built this game, we can now flourish, and we do it for the next generation.
"I want to pay tribute to all the coaches before me, all the players before us because without them we would not have been here. I truly mean that. I feel it very deep down inside. I really wanted to add that because to me that's very important."
Ireland are a remarkably dogged team but even by their standards the final 15 minutes was something else.
After Amber Barrett had put the Girls in Green ahead, they literally put their bodies on the line to close out a famous win.
"Scotland said, and quite right, that they were the better team," Pauw added. "They have the better players, but we were the better team."
Reflecting further on the turning point for this side, she said: "When we lost in Ukraine [at the tail end of the failed Euros campaign two years ago].
"There we said, 'we are going to the World Cup'. That is why I stayed on and extended my contract. We were so determined.
"This group must go end up at the World Cup. This World Cup was ours because at the next World Cup a few players will be too old. This was our moment and it’s also what we discussed at half-time.
"I’m never swearing - some of us did! I said, ‘this is our chance, this is our moment, we are going to do it’. You could see that on the pitch. The determination to keep that ball out was phenomenal, just phenomenal. Now we need to make steps of course."
Ireland compensated for a lack of real fluidity in their play with bucket-loads of grit. They refused to be breached by a slick Scottish outfit, who ultimately had their spirit broken as their efforts repeatedly ran into a wall of orange.
"I think we won on tactics," said Pauw.
"We didn't win because we were better players, we won because we had a better game plan. You ask about a game plan, and you saw it tonight. We knew we would get more chances. The first half, we could have scored but we didn’t.
"The second half we said to players that you need to throw you whole body in. It’s just amazing, when you decide with each other we said we just must not get any goals against, we will get that moment.
"This is a game of one moment, maybe two, maybe one defensively and one in attack. And Amber said she would do it. She said, if you put me on, I’ll score. She said that yesterday.
"The way it came to her, a first pass from Denise was brilliant and the first touch in front, all the emotions went through her.
"I cannot believe it, it doesn't sink in. The last few minutes, I was, 'ah, ah’, I couldn’t keep up, my heart was 220, any ball could drop wrong. What heroes are those players? What fighters, what tigers. We’re going to the World Cup."
