Juventus's visit this Thursday shows how far Shamrock Rovers have come as well as giving the League of Ireland a boost after poor results.
The clock had ticked into the fifth minute of injury time and the Bloomfield Stadium appeared to be getting smaller as Aidan Price tried to clear a path in front of him.
With French referee Antony Gautier giving the home team every opportunity to snatch a late goal, there was hardly any room to breathe let alone move in the crowded penalty area as a final long ball was launched forward.
Price, struggling to wriggle free, tried to keep his eye on the ball as it spun in the air and he began to prepare himself to make a headed clearance. But it never reached him and he looked slightly confused as the ball was hooked away.
In front of him, the players dispersed quicker than the Red Sea, yet the Shamrock Rovers defender was caught in a daze. Everyone around him knew what had happened, but he was momentalirly still unsure if the danger had indeed been cleared.
Then he saw the bulging eyes of keeper Alan Mannus and it suddenly hit him... We've won!
Rovers had just dumped Israeli side Bnei Yehuda out of the Europa League, but the sense of jubilation that rushed through Price's body was fuelled more by what was to come rather than what they had just accompolished as they were through to face Juventus.
"What a feeling. We were confident in our own ability going into the game and not many will believe us, but we had this belief we just weren't going to concede," Price told the Sunday Tribune.
"You could see how much it meant to everyone after the game with the closeness of the players and the fans that travelled over were crying. The win meant so much to everyone connected to the club.
"It was tough out there as it was a dead heat in the stadium with no breeze whatsoever, so we could hardly breathe. But nobody slacked in their efforts and it was frightening just how well all of the lads played in those conditions.
"We feel that it is the culmination of all the hard work that has been done down through the years to get us to the position where we are now."
Having drawn the first leg 1-1 – conceding that crucial away goal in the process – the odds were stacked high against Rovers escaping with a victory, but the chance to test themselves against a club with such a rich history in European competition proved to be a huge motivating factor for Michael O'Neill's side.
Of course, there was more to winning the second leg than that. Alan Mannus had to make numerous top-class saves, Thomas Stewart had to be accurate with his close-range strike on 70 minutes and O'Neill's tactics had to be spot on. Each of those elements were executed perfectly though and they made all the difference.
So the dream of taking on Juventus was made a reality and the hype machine has been cranking up ahead of Thursday's first leg in Tallaght Stadium, which club chairman Jonathan Roche still can't believe is the next game on their schedule.
"This will be one of the biggest games in the club's history," said Roche. "We played Manchester United and the Busby Babes in the past, we played Bayern Munich and played Celtic in the 1980s but Juventus in Tallaght will be something else. A year ago we had Real Madrid for a friendly, now it's Juve in a competitive game. It doesn't get much better."
After the disappointment of Bohemians surrendering without much of a fight in Oswestry to TNS, Dundalk losing 8-0 on aggregate to Levski Sofia and Sporting Fingal being outclassed by CS Maritimo, the epitaphs for Irish clubs in Europe were being prepared last week. But then Rovers secured their surprise result to reignite some hope that the League of Ireland is not dead yet when it comes to Europe, it just needs a bit more luck thrown its way.
There have been some hugely positive results down through the years but they have been all too infrequent and are scattered in amongst some embarrassing outcomes.
In his excellent We Are Rovers: An Oral History Of Shamrock Rovers FC, Eoghan Rice states that European success has been so fleeting for the most successful club in Ireland that when it does come around nobody is quite sure how to act.
"Defeat is a regular occurrence [in Europe]; victory, when it does come, is greeted with euphoria," wrote Rice. That pretty much sums up how the Rovers supporters felt at full-time in Tel Aviv, so it is only natural that they will ride the wave of optimism all the way to the end.
It has been a long journey for the Hoops to reach this stage. They might have been the first Irish club to enter European competition when they competed in the 1957-58 season, but a lot has happened since that 6-0 defeat to Matt Busby's Manchester United at Dalymount Park.
It took six attempts before they tasted victory in Europe when they beat AC Spora of Luxembourg 8-2 over two legs in 1966, although the flirtation with extinction, the sale of Milltown and the years without a place to call home meant the club's recent history has been pockmarked with more lows than highs.
And that is why this showdown with Juventus is so important. Price, who is a Tallaght native and the club's current longest-serving player, feels it is a giant leap away from the difficult times as a new era for the club has been born.
"I joined the club when they were in the First Division and it looked to be about to fold. I've seen the club grow and prosper and re-establish itself as one of the best teams in the country," said Price.
"There is still work to do, but we are definitely on the right track and playing a club like Juventus in Tallaght says it all about how far we've come."