Andy Reid & Stephen Ireland

"Football is a beautiful game, and it should be played beautifully" - Brian Clough, The Damned United

If you love football, it can be really depressing coming from a small country.
You don't qualify for most tournaments. When you do, you don't go very far. Because of this you get horrible seeding, which means you get awful draws in qualification groups, so ensuring that, yet again, you don't qualify. Each generation has a maximum of two top-class players, if you're lucky, and none if you aren't. This lack of quality encourages coaches to opt for percentage football - style is sacrificed. Results are paramount. The football is dire. Your club sides are terrible, the play unexciting, the best players swept off to bigger, more lucrative markets at a young age. You, like most lovers of football in this small country, look abroad for entertainment, for a team to care about. But you still love your national team. How could you not? Even though its an ugly beast. Its your ugly beast, dammit.

Ireland haven't qualified for a major tournament since the 2002 World Cup. Under Manager Brian Kerr we came very close. In a tough group with France and Israel, the team played nice, attractive football, but choked in the big games and narrowly missed out on qualification. Under his successor Steve Staunton Ireland hit a nadir - the worst results since the Charlton era, bad football, a lack of any tactical nous, and awful results. So Giovanni Trappatoni, legendary and incredibly experienced septegenarian Italian coach, was given a Big Money contract. Results immediately improved. Trappatoni knew exactly what he wanted and he knew how to get it. He placed two holding midfielders at the centre of his team, leaving the flair to the wingers and the forwards, knowing that his two midfielders provided security to the defence above all else.

In theory this is not an entirely bad idea. But it depends on the calibre of the playing staff for its success. A key player for Ireland in this system would be Blackburn midfielder Steven Reid. He is a good example of the modern central midfielder; strong, fast and incredibly fit, he has the stamina to run all game, to cover the entire pitch, to go ceaselessly from box to box. He is good at almost everything - he can tackle, run the ball, shoot from distance, his awareness is good, his passing varied, and he is fine in the air - but exceptional at nothing. He would work beside a journeyman destroyer in such a midfield, because his energy and pace would allow him to join the attack when required, and he can be a danger in the opposition half, but he would also so his share of defensive work. The destroyer could hold back all game, making Trappatoni happy.

But Reid is injury-prone, and he is suffering from a long-term injury at present. So Trappatoni has been forced to use lesser players in the midfield roles. Players like journeymen Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews. Or Darren Gibson, a Youth team player on the fringes of Manchester United's first team, who had played for Ireland at senior level before he ever played in a serious competitive match for his club. Or Liam Miller, who has consistently had to drop down a level to the Championship to find first-team football. None of these men is really fit to play in a midfield that has, over the years, been filled with the likes of Johnny Giles, Liam Brady, Ronnie Whelan and Roy Keane. Meanwhile, Ireland's two most creative Midfielders are absent from Trappatoni's Squads. Andy Reid and Stephen Ireland.

Lets start with Reid. Arguably the most creative Irish player of his generation, he is perhaps better known for suffering from recurrent weight problems than for having one of the best left feet in the Premier League. Not only that, but Reid knows how to use it, deploying a range of passing that seems more Latin in its variety than Northern European. Indeed, when he signed for Charlton Athletic a few years ago, a profile in a club match programme claimed that early in his career he was called the "Irish Maradona". I don't remember anybody ever being called anything so silly, but Reid's sheer talent has never really been questioned (and during his stint as Irish Assistant coach/Advisor, Bobby Robson echoed the sentiment by claiming that if Reid was Argentine, the media would rave about the purity of his technique). His first coach at Charlton, Les Reed, compared him to Ferenc Puskas. On a good day he has the kind of gift that inspires these sort of comparisons. He can pass accurately over distance or can play a rapid short game as well as anybody from these islands since Paul Scholes. He also takes a mean free kick, his control and touch is lovely, he has a few close control tricks in his arsenal, and his shooting is ferocious. That all makes him sound like a luxury player, a lightweight technician of the type the modern pragmatic Coach has little time for. But no, Irish football culture prizes effort as much as (if not more than) skill, and so Reid closes down, clatters into tackles and generally runs himself into the ground for his team.

The problem is his build. He is typically Irish - short and squat, barrel-chested and broad-shouldered. He would need to be super-fit to even look like he was moderately fit, and Reid generally looks a little out of shape. Paunchy. Carrying a half stone too much weight. Sometimes he obviously is out of shape, but the point is with his sort of build, he always looks tubby, no matter how hard he works or how much ground he covers. For Nottingham Forest and Spurs he usually played on the left-wing, and people expect wingers to look a certain way: whippet-thin, rangy, all angles and bones. They also expect wingers to operate using pace above all else. Reid was never about pace. As a winger his game resembled (to a certain extent) David Beckham's - he could send in a brilliant delivery with the minimum space. He could lose a full back with a trick and shoot from outside the box. The main comparison he endured was to Forest legend John Robertson. At Spurs, the crowd got on his back early, he struggled with his fitness, and despite securing a regular place in a team with far too many midfielders in its squad he never seemed to settle, and he was moved along relatively quickly. Charlton embraced his talent more enthusiastically, and he thrived once more in the Championship. Partly this was he was given more freedom in his role. He drifted infield in possession, his passing able to damage teams, his confidence increased by the trust placed in his creative ability. His form earned him a move to Sunderland, where he was a key player in keeping the club in the Premiership, as manager Roy Keane acknowledged. Reid had the ability to put his foot on the ball and use it intelligently, something missing in all too many struggling teams, who descend into panicked kick-and-rush. Take this Daryl Murphy goal against Wigan. Reid had just come on as substitute, and this is effectively his first touch:



Steve Staunton, for all of the horror and ineptitude of his stint as Ireland coach, placed similar faith in Reid's ability. He played Reid as playmaker - surely the position he was born to play - in a European championship Qualifier against Germany at Croke Park. Reid virtually ran the game, pinging first-time passes across the pitch throughout, fighting a strong German midfield for possession and holding his own, and setting up numerous chances for the strikers with his astute through-balls. But his development in the position was not enough and Staunton's replacement by Trappatoni sealed Reid's fate. Included in the first few squads selected by Trappatoni (presumably at the behest of Assistant coach Liam Brady, a confirmed fan of Reid) he went unused and had a screaming match with the Coach after a late-night singalong went on past curfew. He has not been selected since, altough Trappatoni says that this is because Reid does not fit in with the system he uses. He doesn't work hard enough, in other words, he is too creative, too much of a passenger. Setting aside the fact that this is not the case, games like the recent 1-1 draw with a 10-man Italy in Bari were crying out for a bit of creativity, for somebody - anybody - to put their foot on the ball, look up, and find the right pass. Instead, Ireland's 80th minute equalizer came from a long ball lumped upfield. without the injured Damien Duff, all of the other creative players were either stifled (Robbie Keane) or not creative enough (Stephen Hunt). Where was Reid?
At home, thats where.

As was Stephen Ireland. His case is more complex. Primarily, he is obviously a young man with some issues. In brief - he fell out with Irish Youth team Coach Brian Kerr over an incident with the Under-18 team after being dropped from two successive games. Kerr told him he would never again play for Ireland while Kerr was Coach. Kerr then became Coach of the Senior National team, and Ireland has claimed that at that point he considered declaring for England or Italy, for both of whom he has eligibility. However, Steve Staunton's appointment brought Ireland into the team, and he scored a couple of important goals and delivered some impressive performances in his first few games in an Irish shirt. Then, on an away trip to play the Czech Republic in a crucial european Championship Qualifier, Ireland spun a ridiculous web of lies in order to leave the team camp on compassionate leave. His girlfriend rang and informed the squad officials that Ireland's Grandmother had died. Ireland backed this claim and a private jet was chartered for him. However the Irish media soon discovered that this story was untrue. Confronted, Ireland claimed it was his other Grandmother. Again, the media disproved this story. Ireland now claimed it was a Step-Grandmother by Marriage before finally admitting that his girlfriend had suffered a miscarriage, and that he had hastily lied out of a stress-induced panic, believing that the Grandmother story would more easily provide the compassionate leave he sought. The Irish public and the rest of the squad was baffled, the team lost the game, Staunton was sacked, and Ireland has not played for his country since.

There have been rumours of bullying in the camp - Ireland is plainly a highly sensitive individual, and mockery of his hair (or lack of it) are alleged to have disturbed him enough that he is reluctant to return. But he is desperately needed. For, despite his stupidity in the Granny-Gate affair and his silly goal celebrations, he is an outstanding young footballer, an outside candidate for player of the season this year, and he seems already twice as effective as he was when last he played for Ireland. In my dream Irish line-up, he plays in a three-man midfield alongside the two Reids, with a front three of Keane in the centre with Duff and McGeady on the wings. Ireland is talented enough to make such a formation work. He is almost as gifted as Andy Reid in his passing, has a pleasing directness in possession, and is increasingly adept at nicking the ball from opposing players with quick challenges and hard running. His football brain is excellent, and the way he has linked up with the likes of Robinho and Elano at Manchester City in the last two seasons displays his true level.

Added to that is his habit for scoring insanely spectacular goals. Last minute volleys of balls crossing his body? No problem. He has a cavalier flair to his game that is balanced by his work ethic. Trappatoni has admitted he would love to have Ireland back in the team. He and Liam Brady have met the player, and were informed that he would come to them at such a time as he was ready. That has not happened yet, despite the comments from his fellow Irishmen in the Man CIty team.

To an Irish football fan, none of this is news. The absence of these two players has been the biggest story of the early portion of Trappatoni's stint as Ireland Manager. Irish football journalists want to see both of them in the team. Reid is highly rated at home, and Ireland's form is impossible to ignore. Pressed on the issue at a recent Press Conference, Liam Brady lost his temper and said "Have some pride in your country" in apparent reference to Stephen Ireland. Trappatoni, meanwhile, is unrepentant about the exclusion of Reid, and justifies his tactics with his results. He also claims that he doesn't believe Ireland will soon return to the national team, based on the players body language and attitude when they met.

Which means we will continue to play a plodding sort of low-risk football without any real beauty or imagination. We may qualify for the World Cup - we are big on fighting spirit, and sometimes that is enough, if a team is properly organised. But if we do get there, we will go out at the group stage. Or maybe in the first knockout round. We won't score many goals. We won't concede too many either. Ho hum.
If you love football, it can be really depressing coming from a small country.


The two gentlemen in question:

Roy Keane

"Going to work was like going to War."

21st April 1999, Stadio Delle Alpi, Turin - 11 minutes into the Second leg of the semi-final of their Champions League tie with Juventus, Manchester United were 2-0 down and seemingly out of the competition. Two weeks earlier, Juventus had dominated Utd at Old Trafford in the first leg and been unfortunate to concede a last minute Ryan Giggs goal which kept the English team in the tie. And this was a seasoned Juventus side, with the experience and power of Conte, Davids and Deschamps alongside the skill of Zidane and Pessotto. The notion of getting a result against them at home was an unlikely one, made even moreso by the 2 goal deficit. Inzaghi had scored both of the goals, the first a piece of classic poaching from Zidane's cross, the second taking a wicked deflection off Jaap Stam. There was the suspicion that this Juve team had the measure of Utd. They had crossed paths a few times over the previous five years and Juve had generally emerged on top, a rollicking 3-2 defeat at Old Trafford in 1997 apart. But in this game, Roy Keane seemed to will his team to win. Provided with the aggressive, terrier-like Nicky Butt as his midfield partner, Keane never gave the Juventus midfielders an inch or a second on the ball, hustling and cracking into tackles. Zidane lost some of his composure, Davids seemed to lose some of his bottle. In his autobiography, Keane talks about knowing that Juventus weren't really up for the battle the way his Utd were and about going into a 50-50 with Davids, the Hard man of the Turin side. No contest, he says. Juventus were beaten, they just didn't know it yet. With Butt doing more of the dirty work than the more artistic Scholes usually did, Keane was the chief playmaker on that night, and his passing, when he was on his game, was almost hypnotically consistent. He played simple balls, but in all directions, of all types, long and short, lofted and rolling. He never stopped moving, open for the returned pass. He shouted and cajoled ferociously, driving his team on. He would not lose, you felt. He rose to nod in the first Utd goal and his determined celebration said it all - he knew there was more to come. Even when a late tackle on Zidane meant that he was booked and knew he would miss out on the final, should Utd reach it, he remained focused and driven. A goal from Yorke in the 34th minute meant that Utd were winning on away goals, and Andy Cole sealed the win in the 84th. The team were applauded off the pitch by Juventus fans. Alex Ferguson spoke of his Captain's performance in his autobiography : "It was the most emphatic display of selflessness I have seen on a football field. Pounding over every blade of grass, competing as if he would rather die of exhaustion than lose he inspired all around him. I felt it was an honour to be associated with such a player."



Performances like that one are the reason many Utd fans of a certain age love Keane more than any other player, more even than Eric Cantona. He gave the sense of truly caring in a way so many players manifestly do not - he seemed to care to an almost insane extent. Hence the outbursts, the snarling, the fighting. He was a supreme competitor, or as he himself put it: "the robot, the madman, the winner". Nowhere near as gifted as many of his peers in the battleground of midfield in World Football in the 1990s, Keane was a greater player than most of them because of his intelligence, but also because of his desire, his spirit and that aura.

He was a small boy, which made his breakthrough into professional football more difficult. His aggressive, competitive nature must have helped, and after a few failed trials, he eventually played in the Football League of Ireland for Cobh Ramblers, a smalltown club from Cork. There a scout from Nottingham Forest spotted him, and Keane signed for £47,000 in 1990. He quickly broke into the first team, making his debut and excelling against Liverpool at Anfield. He established himself as a starter at the expense of England International Steve Hodge and received his first call up to the Irish Squad. Back then, his style was very different. He was a goalscoring midfielder, with the happy knack of bursting late into the box to smack in a cut-back or a rebound. His game changed considerably after a few years at Man Utd, where he had moved for a then-record £3.75million in 1993. He became a more rounded midfielder, his prodigious energy and workrate making him a truly box-to-box player, both destroyer and creator. Initially he played alongside two players he superficially resembled - Bryan Robson and Paul Ince. But he would come to replace both at the heart of the team. Robson advised him to work on his defending and Keane did so, altering his game and allowing that fantastic engine to carry him into a ceaseless stream of tackles, blocks and interceptions. His reputation, both as a troublemaker and a player, grew. There were high profile red cards for late tackles, and for stamping on Gareth Southgate. His charisma and the fact that he was already becoming the team's new leader meant that he was a great story for the media. He badly injured himself stretching to tackle - to foul - Alf-Inge Haland in a game against Leeds, and missed most of a Season in which his importance to Utd was underlined by the team's lack of success. His return coincided with that Treble Season. But he attracted controversy, in his interviews, in his actions upon the pitch. He swung a punch at Alan Shearer. He led a pack of baying players after a referee to protest a decision. He criticised fans at Old Trafford. He refused to sign a new contract until he was given what he felt he was worth. He brutally, deliberatly fouled Haland in an act of vengeance he was then open about in his autobiography. He spent a night in a cell after a tabloid sting when the team were out celebrating in Manchester led to him becoming involved in an altercation with two women. He criticised the lifestyles and motivation of several teammates. He elbowed Jason McAteer in the face. The media, obviously, loved him.

His record at Man Utd only needs recounting. He played 326 games for the club, scoring 33 goals. He won more or less every available major trophy with the club, including a European Cup, 7 League titles, 4 FA Cups and 1 Intercontinental Cup. He played in 7 FA Cup finals, a record. In 2000, he won both Players and Football Writers Player of the Year awards. He was the only Irish player in Pele's 100 Greatest Living Players list. He was, quite easily, the dominant player of his era in the Premiership.



Perhaps his chief rival for that accolade is Patrick Vieira, his direct opponent at Arsenal. In Keane's time at Man Utd, Arsenal were almost always the closest threat, and his contests with Vieira were invariably central to the success or failure of the teams. Vieira was a better player in purely technical terms, with a great touch and those long telescopic legs enabling him to make some unbelievable tackles, plus a good range of passing and the ability to dribble skillfully. He could dominate an opposition midfield as well as anyone in the game...except Keane. He did not have quite as big an aura, quite as intimidating a presence. When he first emerged as a young player at Arsenal in tandem in midfield with Emmanuel Petit, Keane seemed unprepared for the challenge. But that didn't last long. Keane, as usual, compensated for his technical shortcomings with his will, his intelligence, his charisma, his ability to work harder than anybody else. He seemed to take Vieira's measure over his first few Seasons in England, and after that, Keane generally emerged the victor in their personal duels, just as he did with the emergence of Stephen Gerrard a few years later. Alex Ferguson once commented that Keane needed it to be a personal battle to thrive. He loved the personal combat, you vs. me, it was what brought the best out in him, and as such, he must have relished every meeting with Vieira. Keane probably peaked either in Utd's 6-1 demolition of Arsenal at Old Trafford in 2000 or when he scored both goals in a 2-0 win at Highbury. In the "Battle of Old Trafford" in 2004 when Arsenal players were confronting and baiting Utd players all over the pitch, none dared to approach Keane, not even Vieira, who Keane had shepherded off the pitch after his red card in that match, sparing the Frenchman further trouble. However, the climax of their rivalry came in the tunnel at Highbury in 2005, when Vieira threatened to "break Gary Neville's legs". Keane rushed to defend his teammate by haranguing Vieira about his own lack of qualities, asking him why he wasn't playing for Real Madrid and a few other comments (which Graham Poll, in his autobiography, says were amusingly witty and left Vieira threatening to break Keane's legs too) and ending the exchange with "I'll see you out there" as he pointed to the pitch. If that was some sort of attempted psyche-out by the Frenchman, it backfired, as Keane kept the ball, dominated the game and led Utd to a 2-4 win.



"It disappoints me that I didn't win the World Cup. People say 'but Roy, you played for Ireland, you were never going to win the World Cup'. I never saw it like that."



August 2001, Lansdowne Road, Dublin - Ireland need a result against Holland to qualify for the play-offs for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea. They have, as usual, been drawn in a horrible group with a couple of Europe's modern heavyweights - the Dutch and the Portugal of the golden generation of Figo, Rui Costa and Couto. With Keane near the peak of his powers, the Irish have fought their way to some impressive results - drawing 2-2 with Holland in Amsterdam and drawing twice with the Portugeuse. Portugal will qualify automatically as group winners, and the winner of Ireland-Holland will take second place. Holland's squad is absolutely star-studded with an especially impressive array of strikers including Ruud van Nistelrooy, Pierre van Hoojdonk, Patrick Kluivert, Roy Makaay and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. Most of them will be on the pitch by the end of the match as the Dutch desperately search for a goal. By contrast and with the exception of Shay Given in goal and Robbie Keane and Damian Duff up front, the Irish team is full of journeymen, average players who add to the collective. In such company, Keane's qualities become almost exaggerated in their importance. He is forced to prove his stature, to stamp his greatness on the game. He does it, seemingly, through sheer force of will. In perhaps the first minute of the match, Marc Overmars takes possession of the ball. Overmars is one of Holland's flair players, a dagger along the wing, with lovely touch, great pace and an eye for goal. He takes a touch with the assurance and confidence typical of a cultured Dutch player, in no hurry, aware of his space and his options. But one of Keane's best qualities has always been his hunger for the ball and his speed in making up ground in pursuit of it, and he is upon Overmars in an instant. His tackle is typically shattering, from behind, and though he gets the ball, he also takes plenty of the man. Overmars gets up looking shaken with Keane telling him not to make such a meal of it, and from then on, none of the Dutch midfield ever looks confident on the ball again. Mark Van Bommel tries to fight Keane's fire with his own, but finds that in such a war of attrition, few can match the Irish Captain (dutch Coach Louis van Gaal would vote for Keane as his European player of the Year in that Season, so impressed was he). Despite having Gary Kelly sent off in the 58th minute, Ireland win 1-0 courtesy of a Jason McAteer goal, with Keane dominant in the centre of the pitch. Indeed, his tackle and run began the move leading to that goal:



To truly understand just how good a player Keane was, his performances with Ireland have to be considered. For most of his International career, he found himself surrounded by players far inferior to his clubmates. Yet this appeared to inspire him. He drove them on just as remorselessly as he did the Utd team, if not moreso. One Dublin Newspaper regularly ran an alternative set of player ratings after every Irish match based around how many times Keane had shouted at the players. Hence the player shouted at the least had been Ireland's best player, Keane apart. And he was invariably Ireland's best player. This explains the impact his departure from the Squad at the World Cup in 2002 had in Ireland, where it was a socially divisive issue, mentioned in Parliament and omniprescient in the media for weeks. As David Walsh has written, Keane suffered from the burden of being the greatest player produced by a small nation. This meant that he became something of a champion in the Greek Warrior sense of the word. Ireland regularly played teams from bigger, stronger countries. These teams were often manifestly superior to the Irish team. But the Irish could ask any team in the World: who is your best player? This chap? Ok. Well, here is our best player. Now our best player will play your best player off the pitch. Just watch.
And Keane did it, time and again. Faced with Luis Figo, one of the most skillful players of his generation, Keane matched Figo's goal with one of his own and stymied the Portugeuse over and over. In a qualifier for the 2006 World Cup against France at Lansdowne Road, Keane dominated a French midfield made up of Zidane, Vieira, Makelele and Dhorasoo. It is inconceivable that Ireland would have limped out of that World cup in 2002 against Spain if Keane had been on the pitch. He would not have allowed it, not in such a manner, at any rate. But he was not on the pitch. His departure from the Squad was farcical, but just adds to his legend, in its way. It deprived him of his best chance to win that elusive World Cup, but has provided the raw material for two seperate plays and a couple of books: "Roy Keane's 10-minute oration ... was clinical, fierce, earth-shattering to the person on the end of it and it ultimately caused a huge controversy in Irish society." - Niall Quinn

That "oration" is part of what made Keane such a great player. There is a sense that he was almost waiting for the opportunity, that these complaints and criticisms he had harboured were a burden for him and he was almost glad to be rid of them. His wit and sharp tongue flashed occasionally in his interviews, but the snatches of that attack of Mick McCarthy revealed by other members of the Irish squad were both funny and cutting. Keane gave McCarthy no option but to send him home. The entire episode recalls the story told by Tony Cascarino in his book, of the entire Irish team kept waiting on a coach in Florida for Keane, young and relatively new to the squad, who has spent the night and morning in a local bar. Keane eventually arrived wearing a "Kiss me Quick" hat and was confronted by a furious Jack Charlton. "I didn't ask you to wait for me, did I?" Keane replied, stunning the older players, each of whom was petrified of their coach. When McCarthy, then Squad Captain and Senior pro, stepped in, his comment : "Call yourself a professional?" was met by Keane's "Call what you have a first touch?" What happened in 2002 really began on that day, according to Keane. His refusal to accept Ireland's second best status was the real sticking point, however. Ireland is a nation that celebrates reaching the Quarter Finals of a major competition, or at least it used to. Keane's attitude has changed that somehow, his reluctance to celebrate a draw with a great team when he knew Ireland could have won has spread through the culture alongside the great and unprecedented prosperity brought by the EU.

He always seemed to burn with some sort of fury - you could see it in his eyes in certain games, you could feel it in the way he terrified not just the opposition but his own teammates, too. He was a warrior. He laid it all on the line, left everything on the pitch, and he expected no less from those he played with. Thus his book and interviews are full of respect for those he considers proper professionals - the likes of Paul Scholes and Eric Cantona. But plenty of others he is less kind about. He might acknowledge somebody's talen while burying them in terms of personality. Peter Schmeicel played up to the crowd too much. Teddy Sheringham was a typical cocky, flash London wide-boy. He once claimed to have lost track of who he was not speaking to in the Utd dressing room. There are tales of him knocking out the big Danish goalkeeper in a training ground row, a sort of turf war, soon after Keane arrived at the club. Also the story that the famous Beckham "boot-gate" scar was in fact caused by the fist of Keane rather than a boot kicked by Fergie. Tellingly though, few who played with him at United have anything negative to say about him. Sheringham called him the best player he ever played with, as did Ruud van Nistelrooy. Few players share his warrior mentality, and it makes an impression on more sensitive teammates. It has carried him through his first year in Club Management at Sunderland, where he has also displayed his dark wit and acute intelligence in his interviews.

Footballers, whether they know it or not, are ambassadors. For clubs, for countries and for themselves. For decades, Mancunians knew that when they told foreigners where they were from, they would receive "Ahhh - Best, Law, Charlton" in return. Mention Brazil to so many people and they will instantly think of football. Argentina means Maradona. Liverpool might instantly summon the Beatles to mind, but after that its football. Roy Keane is possibly the only footballer from the Republic of Ireland with any kind of similar recognition factor worldwide. I've had personal experience of this which I found strangely touching, when I was in a little shop in the Argentine Andes a few years ago. The proprietor, a little old man, asked where I was from. "Ireland", I replied.
"Ah." he said. "Roy Keane. Very good player."

Paul McGrath

On 11 June, in the first game of the Italy 1990 World Cup Finals for either country, England played the Republic of Ireland in Cagliari. The game was terrible, like an English Second division match. The players all knew one another too well, their systems and styles cancelled each other out, and both teams were petrified of losing in what looked like being a very tight group. England took the lead with a Gary Lineker goal - the usual tap-in - before Kevin Sheedy equalised with a drive from the edge of the box. Both teams looked like they were content with a draw. The Italian press hated the match and described it as the worst they had seen so far at the finals, with the standard of football shamefully unimaginitive and primitive (Ireland would go on to play a worse game against Egypt a few days later). Both teams would qualify for the last 16, but neither played well in that group stage. Indeed, only two players really stood out at all from either team :Paul Gascoine for England and Paul McGrath for Ireland.

Paul McGrath is a legend in Ireland. As Footballers go, only Roy Keane really compares in terms of public affection. The Irish crowd chant of "Ooh-Ah Paul McGrath" (which Man Utd fans converted to Ooh-Ah Cantona) was best used when Nelson Mandela visited Dublin in the 1990s, only to be greeted with chants of "Ooh-Ah Paul McGrath's Da". The Irish chat show "The Late Late Show", the worlds longest running chat show, devoted one of its weekly programmes entirely to a review of McGrath's career, with appearances by most of the major figures in Irish football history. He has featured on an Irish stamp. I feel like even all these facts don't adequately convey just how worshipped he is. Given the meagre accomplishments in his club career, especially in comparison to other Ireland legends like Keane, Liam Brady, Johnny Giles or even Damien Duff, this may seem strange. But McGrath is probably the greatest defender ever to wear an Ireland shirt, and one of the handful of best players the country has ever had. The Irish football public knew class when it saw it, especially in the 1990s, when much of our football was effective but not especially classy. The way Paul McGrath played football was always classy.

Especially considering the way he lived his life. A functioning alcoholic for much of his career, in his autobiography he describes suicide attempts, black-outs, going AWOL while on Pre-season tours and playing many games drunk. He went missing a couple of times when he should have been playing for Ireland in impotant qualifiers, turning up in small hotels then fleeing from the media. All this only made him more popular in Ireland, where people love a flawed hero. McGrath is obviously a troubled man, and his vulnerability makes it easier to like him. Not only his evident self-destructive streak, but his chronic shyness and the way that he played the last decade of his career plagued with a succession of serious knee injuries only made him seem more heroic. As does his background - the child of an Irishwoman and Nigerian, he was given up for adoption as an infant and spent much of his childhood in a series of Dublin orphanages. Ireland was not remotely multi-cultural until this century, and it must have been difficult to grow up in the 1960s and 70s, mixed-race in working class Dublin. Football would have been a good escape, especially to somebody so naturally athletic and gifted. His first professional club were St Patricks Athletic, where he drew the attention of several English clubs and earned the nickname "The Black Pearl of Inchicore". Manchester United signed him in 1982, and he joined a side with a few Irish players already established, notably Frank Stapleton and Kevin Moran. This eased the shy McGrath's social acceptance, and he gradually eased himself into the first team of a talented United squad.

But it was a United squad destined never to win the biggest prizes. Many blame that fact on the incredible drinking culture at the club at the time. The team was the best in England on its day - routinely beating the dominant Liverpool team of the era - but inconsistent and often appallingly sloppy. Players like McGrath, Moran, Norman Whiteside, Brian Robson and Gordon McQueen would go on marathon midweek benders involving lock-ins and endless pub-crawling. Manager Ron Atkinson turned a blind eye, in the main. And there was some success - that United side won the FA Cup in 1983 and 1985. The Cup Final in 1985 was possibly McGrath's finest hour in a United shirt. Playing an Everton team that was probably the best in Europe at the time, winners of the League and the Cup Winners Cup, United went down to 10 men when McGrath's partner in central defence, Moran, was sent off for a lunging tackle on Peter Reid in the second half. McGrath later said that he partly blamed himself for that, since it was his poor pass that had presented Reid with the ball. He more than redeemed himself in the game, utterly dominating Everton's forward pairing of Andy Gray and Graham Sharp for the rest of the match. McGrath's principal gift was his great ability to read a game. On his good days he seemed to glide around the pitch, never rushed or stressed, always ahead of his opponents, nipping in to steal the ball off a toe, timing his leaps perfectly, always playing simple balls out of defence. He was strong and fast and agile, too, meaning that he could dominate any kind of centre-forward, from a nippy ball technician to a monstrous bruiser. That day he dominated two of them, always first to the ball, never caught out, ever alert and sharp.

Alex Ferguson was less forgiving of that United teams drinking culture, and he quickly broke it up, getting rid of Whiteside and selling McGrath to Aston Villa in 1989. He later said that McGrath was perhaps the most naturally gifted player he had ever managed, which is obviously the highest of praise. After a shaky start, Mcgrath went on to become Villa's bedrock player under first manager Graham Taylor, then Josef Venglos, until he was finally reunited with Atkinson. That Villa team came close to winning the League on a couple of occasions, finishing second behind United in 1993. McGrath was the Fan-favourite, nicknamed "God", and impressed his fellow professionals so much that he was voted Players Player of the Year in the same year. He would go on playing club football at the likes of Derby and Sheffield United until he was 37 years old and had undergone eight separate knee operations. From his first year at Villa he didn't train with the rest of the team because his fragile knees couldn't take the strain. Instead, he did an hour a week on an exercise bike. And yet his performance levels never really seemed to suffer. He got better with age and experience as his understanding of the game developed.



Part of his high standing in Ireland comes from having been a major player during the years of the National Teams greatest success. He played in the 1988 European Championships and the 1990 and 1994 World Cup finals. He excelled in each tournament, in fact. Coach Jack Charlton took his lead from previous manager Eoin Hand by playing McGrath in midfield at first. Ireland had a surfeit of quality centre backs during that era with Moran, David O'Leary, Mark Lawrenson and Mick McCarthy all in contention alongside McGrath. But McGrath had a combination of physical presence and ease upon the ball none of them could really match and so he found himself deployed as a holding player. He excelled there, too, neutralising the threat offered by Ruud Guillit in 1988. By 1994 he had established a new partnership at centre back with Phil Babb, while Roy Keane and Andy Townsend bossed midfield. In the first game of that tournament, Ireland faced Italy in Giants Stadium in New York. Italy, with players like Roberto Baggio, Beppe Signori, Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi in their squad, were one of the tournament favourites. The game at Giants Stadium was expected to be like a home match for the Italians, with the great Italian community of New Jersey coming out to support them. Instead the stadium was filled with Irish supporters and Ireland fought out a 1-0 victory.

McGrath, whose left arm was paralysed by a virus throughout the match, was as poised and indominatable as ever. In his book he describes the way a match builds up a rhythm of its own, the way a forward and defender can both feel it. In that match, he says, Baggio, probably the best player in the world at the time, knew McGrath had the better of him, and he kept his distance. In that tournament, Ireland peaked in that, their very first match. All that remained were mediocre performances in the sweltering heat of midday games in Orlando in high summer and a desultory exit to Holland. McGrath was ushered out of the squad by new manager Mick McCarthy a few years later, nearing his late 30s, his knees in worse condition than ever. By then Ireland had a new talisman in Roy Keane, the heir to McGrath's crown as the teams only indisputably World-Class player. Keane gave Irish fans that feeling of safety that McGrath had done. With one of them in the team, there was always a strange feeling of security,as if they wouldn't alow us to lose, as if we knew that they would improve the standards of their frequently average colleagues. Generally they did. And never moreso than McGrath against Italy that day in New York.

Its just a pity that his catalogue of injuries and alcoholism conspired to deny him a fitting historical status outside Ireland. In 1987 he played at Wembley in a Centenary Game for a Football League XI against a Rest of the World XI that was like something from Pro-Evo* and looked totally at home. He was reckoned by many to be man of the match and comfortably subdued that terrifying attacking line-up.

There aren't any videos of him playing on the internet - I suppose great tackles, defensive headers and interceptions aren't as popular as goals and stepovers - but this is an excerpt from an Irish documentary about the 1994 World cup that gives you an idea :





* Football League XI : 1-Peter Shilton, 2-Richard Gough,3-Kenny Sansom, 4-John McClelland, 5-Paul McGrath, 6-Liam Brady, 7-Bryan Robson, 8-Neil Webb, 9-Clive Allen, 10-Peter Beardsley, 11-Chris Waddle.
Subs: Steve Ogrizovic, Steve Clarke, Pat Nevin, Osvaldo Ardiles, Norman Whiteside, Alan Smith, Selector: Bobby Robson,

Rest of World XI : 1-Rinat Dasaev, U.S.S.R.; 2-Josimar, Brazil; 3-Celso, Portugal; 4-Julio Alberto, Spain; 5-Glenn Hysen, Sweden; 6-Salvatori Bagni, Italy; 7-Thomas Berthold, West Germany; 8-Gary Lineker, England; 9-Michel Platini, France; 10-Maradona, Argentina; 11-Paulo Futre, Portugal.
Subs: 18-Andoni Zubizarreta, Spain, 12-Lajos Detari, Hungary, 17-Dragan Stojkovic, Yugoslavia, 13-Igor Belanov, U.S.S.R., 15-Preben Elkjær Larsen, Denmark, 14-Lars Larsson, Sweden, 16-Alexandre Zavarov, U.S.S.R. Selector: Terry Venables, England.

The Football League XI won 3-0 with two goals by Robson and one by Whiteside.

Liam Brady

Liam Brady may well be the greatest Irish footballer ever. There is a small pool of contenders for that title, perhaps four once we exclude George Best on the grounds that he was from Northern Ireland, and not the Republic.
There is Liam Brady, and there are Roy Keane, Paul McGrath and Johnny Giles. Brady was probably the most skilled of the four, perhaps the only true magician to ever play in the Ireland team. Gifted with a sublime left foot, Brady was a creative midfielder, a Number 10 who actually played wearing Number 7, and the talisman for Ireland, Arsenal and Juventus in the late 70s and early 80s.

He went to the same school as me (as did the current Irish Prime Minister) but when I attended, the rumour always was that Brady, easily the pupil's favourite past-pupil, had been expelled. It was a Christian Brothers School, very seriously G.A.A (meaning it enthusiastically promoted Gaelic games and tried to dissuade pupils from playing "English" games like soccer), and back in the 60s and 70s, that may even have resulted in disciplinary measures being taken against anyone who preferred to play football over Gaelic Football or hurling. But Dublin is a city in love with football, and in the 60s and 70s it produced a stream of players who thrived once they had moved to England. Brady came from a strong football family - his brothers played for QPR and Millwall, and his uncle had played - and was spotted by an Arsenal scout playing for St. Kevins Boys, a Dublin schoolboy institution. He signed for Arsenal in 1970, aged 15, and made his first-team debut at 17.

His game was built on his passing. He had a lovely first touch, and he was one of those midfielders who never seemed rushed, who always seemed to find himself in space, and who rarely gave the ball away. His long passing was as good as his short, and altough he obviously favoured his left foot, he did not really have a weak foot - he could pass and shoot with his right too. His skill demanded that every move passed through him and so he dominated games. Irish players generally possess a combatativeness and hunger in the challenge that helps them settle quickly in the British game, and Brady was no different. Though he had a slight build, he was sharp in the tackle, nipping the ball off opponents and covering a lot of ground for a ball-playing midfielder. He was the best player in an otherwise mediocre Arsenal side between 1974 and 1980, and was voted PFA player of the year in 1979, the same year in which Arsenal won the FA Cup, beating Man Utd 3-2 in a famously thrilling final. Brady, or "Chippy" to his teammates, started the move that led to the winning goal, of course.

He is also fondly remembered by Arsenal fans for this goal, scored against Spurs in a 5-0 win, typical of his class and mastery, but also illustrating his nice tackling :



But he grew tired of what he perceived as Arsenal's lack of ambition. In 1980, Arsenal played Juventus in the semi-finals of the Cup Winners Cup, and Brady enjoyed what he later called his greatest ever game in Turin, where the Italians were defeated 1-0. In the first leg at Highbury, Marco Tardelli had been sent off for repeatedly fouling Brady. Arsenal lost on penalties to Valencia in the final, but Juve had been impressed enough to buy him for £600,000 and make him one of their first foreign signings after the Italian game was opened up to imports. Brady had almost joined Man Utd for £1.5 million, in what would have been a British record transfer, but he felt he needed a new challenge beyond the English game.

At the time it was unusual for British or Irish players to go abroad, but it is indicative of Brady's class that a club of Juventus' stature was interested in him and of his intelligence that he was so eager to go. The only recent English player to succeed on the continent had been Kevin Keegan, who had led Hamburg to a Bundesliga title and European Cup Final. But the German game resembled the English game in its pace and physicality, whereas the Italian game was slower and more tactical. Brady may have suspected that given the technical quality of his style, he would fit in perfectly.

He quickly became Juventus' key player and pivotal to them winning the Serie A title for two consecutive seasons, scoring 13 goals in his 57 games. Near the end of the 1982 season, there were rumours that Michel Platini was to be the clubs big Summer signing, and given that he played in the same position as Brady - and even had a similar style - and that his presence would mean there were more than the Italian limit of 2 foreigners at the club, Brady feared for his future. He was informed that he would be sold in the close-season, but even with this knowledge, Brady took the crucial penalty in the final game of that season away to Cantanzaro and Juventus won 1-0, pipping Fiorentina to the title by a single point.
Brady moved on, first to newly-promoted Sampdoria (82-84), then to Inter Milan (84-86) and Ascoli (86-87). He finally returned to London to play for West Ham until injury forced him to retire in 1990. In Italy, he is remembered as one of the best foreign imports ever to play in the country, and one of the few players from the British Isles to succeed in the Italian game.

He was unlucky to play for Ireland during a long poor spell for the teams international fortunes. Despite the quality of players Ireland exported to the English game, the Irish team was forever narrowly missing out on qualification to the Major tournaments, generally at the hands of a bigger Football Nation. Twice in the 1970s, once with Brady in the side, Ireland were closely eliminated by the USSR. For the 1982 World Cup Qualifiers, Irelands group included Platini's France, a Holland in the process of rebuilding, a young and dangerous Belgian team and Cyprus. But this was possibly the greatest ever Irish team in terms of sheer talent, with players from most of England's major clubs represented, including the likes of David O'Leary, Frank Stapleton, Ronnie Whelan, Kevin Moran, Paul McGrath, Mark Lawrenson and Tony Galvin, all of whom played for either Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool or Spurs. Ireland lost two matches in that group, one of those a 1-0 defeat in Brussels when a goal was controversially disallowed, the other in Paris. The final match was against France at Lansdowne Road and Ireland won an amazing game 3-2, only to miss out on qualification to the French on goal difference. That French side would reach the semi-finals in Spain and two years later became European Champions.

When success finally did come to the Irish team, Brady was reaching the end of his career. He played in the qualifiers for the 1988 European championships, but his relationship with new manager Jack Charlton was strained. Charlton liked his Ireland side to play a pressure game, pumping long balls directly towards tall strikers and constantly harrassing the opposition when they had the ball. It was ugly, but it worked against continental teams who were used to being given time and space to play their football. But it wasted Brady's talent for moving the ball fluidly and imaginitively and for bringing his teammates into the play. Nonetheless, Brady was too great a talent for Charlton to ignore, and he played in the qualifiers until his way with a sharp tackle got him sent off in the final game against Bulgaria, earning him a suspension for the first two games of the tournament. As it happened, Brady was injured playing for West Ham shortly afterwards, and his injury would have ruled him out anyway. He played his last game for Ireland in a friendly against West Germany in 1989, before qualification for the 1990 World Cup had been secured. There was always the sense that Charlton was glad to see the back of him, and indeed he substituted him early in that match, for which Brady bitterly resented him. Its a horrible irony - and not unlike that of George Best with Northern Ireland - that Ireland's greatest ever talent never got to play for his country in the greatest tournament.

But he was the country's most successful footballer before Roy Keane, and the first to succeed on the Continent, where so many others from the British game would fail. He also scored this winning goal, his ninth in his 72 internationals, against Brazil in Dublin in 1987. I was at that match, and even then there was a sense that he was the best we had ever had, and maybe would ever have, and the crowd celebrated this goal accordingly :