Evan Ferguson's missed penalty denied Ireland a chance to secure a victory over Belgium as their friendly international ended scoreless at the Aviva Stadium.
And within four minutes they worked a chance on goal after a ball into Ferguson allowed the striker to use his strength to win the ball, bringing Josh Cullen into the action.The striker looked to beat the keeper at the near post but blasted a left-foot curling effort into side netting, and received a subsequent blast from Seamus Coleman who had raced up the right but was not spotted.
There was a slight scare in the 18th minute as a clever ball through the defence from deep for Lois Openda to chase left the back line a little bit flatfooted, but Nathan Collins got back to work the striker away from goal. It was a poor strike, in truth, aimed down the middle but curling towards the keeper at a nice height and Matz Sels easily batted it away.
Caoimhin Kelleher pumped a free right up the middle for Ferguson to flick into the path of Szmodics. The Blackburn man ran onto it and made good contact under pressure, but the ball was slammed over the bar. Brady was relishing his role on the left and again found himself forward five minutes later, clipping a delightful ball all the way across the face; Ogbene arrived on his wrong foot and could not help the ball on target.
The debutant looked to place the ball into the far corner but while it worked its way through a host of defenders it was eventually halted en route to goal by a fortuitous foot.
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