Few international teams in modern football history have been able to capture the imagination like Jack Charlton’s Republic of Ireland side of the early 1990s.
Under the former Leeds United lynchpin, Ireland qualified for their first ever World Cup in 1990, reaching the quarter-finals in Italy, and soon proved that not to be a one-off, as they again reached the last-eight in the USA four years later.
Striker Tony Cascarino was a key member of Charlton’s team, and his memories of these two tournaments are dominated by his former boss’s larger-than-life personality.
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Cascarino on Big Jack
Cascarino looks back at his time at the 1990 and 1994 World Cups with enormous affection and credits the squad’s camaraderie to Charlton.
“The lads were phenomenal and the manager, Big Jack, was hilarious,” the former striker recalls to FourFourTwo.
As a player, Charlton was known for his uncompromising style of play and his infamous ‘little black book’ and his managerial style could be equally as old-school.
“If you were having a Coke at dinner the night before a match he’d say, ‘What are you doing with that s**t? I’d rather you had a beer’,” Cascarino adds.
For Charlton, there was logic in going against the sports scientists and nutritionists.
“He felt it’d help you sleep better,” Cascarino explains.
Even when the stakes were at their highest on the eve of the biggest match in Irish football history, Charlton stuck to his guns.
“He used that tactic with us against Italy in the quarter-finals of Italia 90,” Cascarino continues.
“His line was, 'Look, you’re playing Italy in Rome. The referee won’t give you a thing, and you’ll be going home the next day, you may as well have a drink.' He wanted to take the pressure off us.”
