Being nominated for the Puskas Award in 2014 was a truly surreal experience, Stephanie Roche revealed at OTB's Aviva Roadshow in association with Pepsi Max.
While the Republic of Ireland women’s international knew that the goal she had scored was quite spectacular, she never expected to receive so much recognition for it.
“I was in my apartment just watching Netflix and I was looking at my phone and Twitter notifications would obviously come up now and again - you’d have maybe one, two or three.
“All of a sudden I just saw 54 notifications and I was like, ‘Jesus, what’s going on?’ So I went onto my Twitter and that’s when I found out I’d been nominated.
“I had to look at it like five times until I realised it wasn’t a pisstake. It was real. Then obviously my dad and my boyfriend and everyone else was ringing me asking if I had seen it and it just took on from there,” Roche explained.
Stephanie Roche during her Peamount United days.World football stars such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo attended the awards ceremony and the former Peamount United striker was admittedly star-struck in such esteemed company.
“We had a delegate looking after us and as soon as we got there she said to me, ‘Look, Ronaldo’s over there with his entourage if you want to go over to him.’
“Myself and Dean (Roche's boyfriend) were mingling in the room and Diego Simeone was standing there, just random people.
“When we got the chance to go over and have a quick chat with Ronaldo and get a picture taken that was special for me.
“It was just a surreal kind of thing. As I said, I’m a normal person, relatively unknown to anybody else in the world before this goal happened.
“Then to be able to rub shoulders with people like that was something special,” Roche said.
Brian Kerr and Damien Delaney were speaking at our latest roadshow from the Aviva Stadium in association with Pepsi Max. The full chat with Brian Kerr, Stephanie Roche, David Meyler and Damien Delaney will be released on Sunday night at 6pm on our Facebook and Youtube channels #OTBAviva #ForTheLoveOfIt
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