Emmet Malone talks to one of Ireland's outstanding defenders about the rollercoaster ride and a future that seems rich in promise

Over the next few days life might just start getting back to normal for Gary Breen but it won't be for long.

After a brief stop off in Dublin the 28-year-old will get back to his home in London and take a rest. But almost immediately work will start on sorting out the next stage of his career.

A new club will mean new challenges and some recognition surely for all that he's achieved here on the world stage.

But no matter what is lying around the corner for the big central defender it can't have as many twists and turns to it as the adventure that ended for him here yesterday in the Korean city of Suwon.

When asked about his thoughts on the night, though, Breen first reflected on others within the team and how they might be affected.

No matter what is said to them during the days to come, some of those who played a part in this game will be left with painful memories for some time to come.

But as they wandered out of the stadium and out of this World Cup Breen was just one of many players to emphasise that they know the disappointment will subside and that after that there will be pride in what they have achieved here and in Japan during the past couple of weeks.

"I know I'm immensely proud to have played for Ireland here," said the former Coventry defender, "and to be out there representing my country with the lads we have was just a dream come through for me. In the end it's just heartbreaking to go out tonight because I honestly believed that whoever won that game tonight had a very good chance of going all the way.

"I think we did well and really we should have beaten them but now that they're through I think they'll take some stopping to be honest."

All of which makes the eventual outcome of this game all the more painful for the men who took part in it. Breen knows that the Irish could have ended Spain's World Cup dreams and somehow the victory eluded them.

Quite, how, he says, will remain a mystery. "I thought after about half an hour we'd weathered the storm. Once we'd stopped them getting a second goal while they were still in charge, the momentum was ours. And after we went in at half-time and regrouped I felt that we'd definitely get a goal back.

"If we'd done that earlier then I think we'd have gone on to win it but even as it was we were so completely in control of things through extra-time, I felt sure that we had the beating of them."

During that extra-time neither Breen nor his team-mates were aware that they were playing with an extra man due to Albelda's injury.

But Breen wasn't so surprised to hear of their advantage either: "The way it was going I felt there was something, it was like we had 12 men out there through the closing stages."

Had things turned out differently and the win been secured then it would, he said, have felt like a marvellous culmination of all the hard work this squad has put in together over their time together.

"It's been tough over the six years," he sighs, "I think we had to mature together but I think you saw that it blossomed over this campaign. The pity is that it didn't quite come off for us tonight. Obviously it's left us desperately disappointed and yet we're excited too about what's going to happen in the European Championships coming up.

"We're going into that campaign with a very good team, and a feared team I'm sure, so it bodes well for the future."

The worry, he says, is that as the team now starts its preparations for that next qualifying campaign these finals will be remembered for the wrong reasons: "I think we've done fantastically well here against teams that most people would have expected to beat us.

"But most importantly I hope tonight doesn't just come to be associated with missed penalties. It should be about the account we've given of ourselves."

To the team-mates who had missed those penalties last night, though, Breen still added his own words of consolation. There's not much can be said in the circumstances, he admits, except to reassure them that by standing up and taking that long march to the penalty box at the end, they had shown a courage that few men in their profession ever get the chance to discover they even possess.

"I thought they were all immense out there tonight and I told them to keep their heads high and walk out there proud. And even if you look beyond what happened here this evening all of them had contributed a huge amount over the campaign as a whole. That's what matters, the part they've played in this team and the character they've shown, not the fact that they happen to be the ones who missed the penalties this evening."

As for his own future, the talking will probably begin in earnest this Wednesday when he arrives back in England. "We'll just see what's on the table then, to be honest, because up until now I'd told my advisers that I didn't want to be bothered with it and so I really don't know myself who might have been expressing an interest."

After his four games at these finals it's hard to imagine that there isn't an orderly queue forming for a man who has taken on and got the better of some of the very best strikers at these finals.

"It's the World Cup so you're going to play against good players, that's what it's all about. At some stage I might think back on it all and take some consolation from that, from the fact that we did do well against some very good strikers but it's for another day.

"Tonight I'm just going to sit down and lick my wounds."