When Plymouth Argyle face Barnet in their Npower League Two ‘six-pointer’, John Sheridan and Edgar Davids will face each other as managers for the first time.
However, the pair were once opponents as players in a game-which was played at a time when their respective careers were at a crossroad.
The match in question was the Euro 96 qualifying Play-Off at Anfield between the Republic of Ireland and Holland on December 13th 1995.
At the time of the match, Sheridan was midway through the final year of his eight-year association with Sheffield Wednesday.
During this period, he had scored the Owls’ winning goal in their 1-0 1991 Rumbelows Cup final victory over Manchester United before helping Wednesday to reach the Coca-Cola and FA Cup finals in 1993, where they lost to Arsenal to both occasions.
Davids, on the other hand, had just helped Ajax to win the UEFA Champions League against AC Milan and was part of a new generation of Dutch footballers, which included Clarence Seedorf, Marc Overmars and Patrick Kluivert.
Sheridan had been a regular for the Irish during their qualifying campaign, appearing in eight of their ten qualifying matches and scored two goals, whilst Davids only made one sub appearance for Holland-which came in their final qualifier against Norway.
On this occasion Holland ran out as 2-0 winners with Kluivert completed a brace with a goal in each half to seal their return to England for the finals of the tournament in the following summer.
The Dutch reached the Quarter Finals of Euro 96 after losing to France on penalties and they were also beaten 4-1 by England in the group stage.
They would later reach the Semi Finals of the 1998 World Cup in France and Euro 2000.
For the Republic, it proved to be the end of an era as manager Jack Charlton stood down as manager after the play-off defeat, bringing his ten-year reign in charge to an end.
It also proved to be the last of Sheridan’s 34 appearances for Ireland as Mick McCarthy’s appointment as manager heralded a new era for Irish football.
Nevertheless, the Republic did enact a small piece of revenge for the defeat in the qualifying competition for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea by finishing above Holland in the qualifying group before winning a two-legged play-off with Iran.
