In its simplest form, it was a game of football. But it was so much more, in so many ways.

The Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team is on its way to the World Cup Finals for the first time ever. This is every bit as transformational as the men’s team making it for the first time back in the days of Italia ’90.

Vera Pauw is very much her own woman, as we discovered when she headlined our Sport for Business Women in Sport Conference back in May. But we can also draw a comparison to Jack Charlton in terms of what he did in coming to Ireland and turning a sporting team into a collection of living legends.

There are those who would argue that we invest too much in sport, that it is just a game and of little lasting importance. They are wrong. It is a way that we can come together, express emotion and experience the greatest of natural highs in a way like little else.

A saved penalty, a brilliant goal and a backs-to-the-wall defence of a 1-0 lead gave us all the ingredients to make last night one of the best to experience, perhaps in a generation. Girls and Boys, Women and Men, football, Gaelic games, rugby and every other sporting fan can only have been moved by the final steps this team have taken on making it to Australia and New Zealand in July and August on next summer.

And then there was Amber Barrett. The scorer of the winning goal sunk to her knees and kissed the black armband that the teams wore in memory of those lost in the tragedy of Creeslough.

As she said in the post-match interviews with Tony O’Donoghue below “I know Creeslough like the back of my hand. Both my grandparents were Creeslough born and bred and I spent my whole upbringing down there. I know people who died in the tragedy, I know people who were impacted by the tragedy, I know people who were first on the scene.”

“I haven’t really been able to put into words about it. There’s been a kind of sombreness about me these last few days. This is the best day of my life in terms of what we’ve done for football but when you put it into perspective, we don’t scratch the surface of what happened over there on Friday.”

“This result, this game, that goal, this award, I’m dedicating it to those ten beautiful souls who unfortunately perished on Friday. This is for Creeslough, this is for Donegal.”

This was a script you could never have written but which came to glorious life in Glasgow.

The best of times.