Revenge is a dish best served cold, but yesterday afternoon Irish soccer fans in Berlin dished up a steaming slice of schadenfreude - delight at others' misery - to their German friends in the scorching afternoon sun.
Over 2,000 fans gathered in a city centre plaza to watch the match on a big screen.
The mood was festive and the fans were vocal. But in the last minute, a premature street party that had broken out among some fans was stopped in its tracks by Robbie Keane's goal. Painted faces fell and flags fluttered a little less enthusiastically as the last seconds ticked away.
"The referee blew the final whistle too late, that's the problem," laughed Heiko Preussler from Berlin, a German fan and "self-professed bad loser".
The sunny weather meant many Berliners preferred to stay outdoors rather than watch the match.
At the Emerald Irish Pub in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, the jubilant Irish and honorary Irish fans were in buoyant form and the beer flowed late into the night. The Germans that braved the pub slinked away quietly after the match was over, said waitress Lisa Moran.
"There were some here earlier on in the corner," she said, waving an inflatable mallet reading "Hammered by the Irish". "Believe me, this will come to great use yet," she predicted.
"The Germans were so sure they were going to win and after the first goal they just let too much go by," said Michael MacMahon from Dublin.
"I'm relatively happy that Ireland drew," said Dirk Rosenov from Berlin. "It's not for nothing that I'm sitting in an Irish pub."
Most German pundits had predicted a 2-1 win for Germany, a result guaranteed by a newspaper astrologist: "The moon is in Aries, which is [Germany coach] Rudi Voller's star-sign."
Voller was philosophical in a post-match interview on German television: "We'll have a bad night, that's clear, but there's no reason for us to hang our heads," he said.
Berlin tabloid B.Z. had lead a campaign against the Irish side. On Monday, with the German team fresh from its 8-0 win over Saudi Arabia, the newspaper's front page screamed: "Achtung Irish! You're Next!"
Yesterday the newspaper played up the stereotype of Ireland as the land of cows and dairy produce. The paper's front-page appeal to the German side proclaimed: "Boys - beat the Irish soft as butter".
In its afternoon edition, the paper hollered: "Keane steals our victory from us!"
"Since when is a draw celebrated like a win? Only in Ireland. Still, the Irish should be congratulated," said B.Z. journalist Markus Waitsches.
Bild, Germany's equivalent of the Sun, printed a history of Ireland in 50 words to put its readers in the picture.
Centuries of English occupation had turned the Irish into a "wild and angry people", the newspaper said. They also printed a list of "famous Irish lynchings" such as 500 years ago when an Irish judge called David Lynch pronounced the death sentence on his own son, Walter, for killing a sailor.
The newspaper asked: "Will the match be another Irish lynching?"
