Ireland’s Marissa Sheva celebrates scoring. Ryan Byrne/INPHO

'It felt like it was one of the prettier goals I've scored'

Marissa Sheva’s stunning effort helped Ireland overcome Belgium in Friday’s Nations League play-off first leg.

MARISSA SHEVA’S third goal at international level was one to remember.

As Belgium struggled to clear their lines, the ball fell to the Sunderland player.

Sheva’s first-time thunderbolt from the edge of the area left goalkeeper Nicky Evrard with no chance.

It felt like a fitting conclusion to a frenetic spell in which Ireland scored three goals in the space of 12 second-half minutes.

So does Sheva, who won her 19th cap last night, feel she has ever scored a more spectacular goal?

“Honestly, I haven’t seen it back yet,” she says. “So the only thing I have is just tucked away in my memory right now, but it felt like it was probably one of the prettier goals I’ve scored.

“I’m not one of the strongest headers on the team, obviously, so I usually just sit outside the box on set pieces and look for the second balls. And it just happened to fall right to my feet.”

The goal was the icing on the cake of a superb Irish display, as Carla Ward’s side overcame a team seven places above them in the latest Fifa rankings and who they had only defeated once in six previous attempts.

However, the tie remains in the balance ahead of Tuesday’s second leg in Leuven as Marie Detruyer’s 82nd-minute effort gave the Red Flames hope.

“It might as well be 0-0, going into that next game,” Sheva adds. “We need to put in the same performance that we did tonight away.

“It would have been nice to go in with a three-goal cushion. But overall, happy with the performance, happy with how we implemented what we wanted to from training. So we’re going to take the positives as well.

“I mean, we’ll see what the staff has to say, but I’m sure we’ll be just as aggressive as we were tonight [on Tuesday]. It’s worked well for us.”

And does Sheva agree with the general perception that Friday’s emphatic win was the best performance of the Carla Ward era so far?

“Yeah, I think so. I mean, honestly, just the energy in training, I think the cohesion that we feel as a group right now is really strong. And sometimes you don’t always know exactly what flipped the switch there. But yeah, we’re feeling good right now.”

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