DAVID Healy admitted his equaliser against Azerbaijan in the World Cup qualifier at Windsor Park on Wednesday night was a ‘dream come true’.
Michael O’Neill’s team were staring down the barrel of yet another embarrassing home result when the veteran Bury striker was introduced on 80 minutes.
Trailing to a fifth minute Rauf Aliyev strike and, with the clock ticking down, Healy rammed home the 36th goal for his country with a beautifully placed free kick with only seconds remaining to rescue a point.
“Although I haven’t been in the squad a lot in recent games, I always had a dream of scoring at least one more goal in front of the Kop. It happened for me tonight - I can now die a happy man,” beamed Healy.
“I always had it my head that if I can score at least one more goal at my favourite end at Windsor, I’d die a happy man.
“I grabbed the ball right away. Bruntie (Chris Brunt) is technically very good at set pieces – he scores a lot of goals from free kicks. But I wanted it.
“I just concentrated on hitting the target, although I don’t know where the goalkeeper thought the free kick was being taken from!
“I was thrilled to see it hit the net. I took off to celebrate and then I gathered myself because there was still time to win it.”
However, the draw did nothing to help Northern Ireland’s chances of qualifying for the World Cup finals in Brasil in 2014 - th
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