Case For The Defence

The K.G.B. had nothing on Hot Press. Realising 17 years ago that he was destined to become one of the pre-eminent Irish footballers of his generation, we placed a mole in John O’Shea’s class at De La Salle College in Waterford. The intelligence gleaned by Agent Duffy, who now in from the cold is working in the HP Art Department, includes information that will be of particular interest to Manchester United supporters. To wit, their star right-back was a Liverpool fan.

“It’s true!” O’Shea shame-facedly admits. “I was young, immature and didn’t know any better! I wanted to rebel against me dad and me brother who are big United fans. It worked – the atmosphere in our house was always really tense when Liverpool were playing Man U!”
Was Alex Ferguson aware of John’s errant teenage behaviour in 1998 when he brought him to Old Trafford?
“I don’t think he was, thankfully! I told him I was a Celtic fan, which was probably just as bad with him being a former Rangers player!”
Talking of Celtic, had United not come in for him, the then 17-year-old O’Shea would probably have started his professional career at Parkhead.
“It was strange ‘cause when I did the Leaving Cert I didn’t know for certain where I was going. I had a couple of options including Celtic, and then United came in at the last minute and blew me away with their facilities. I didn’t have to go on trial or anything – they just offered me a deal based on what they’d seen of me at the European Under-16 Championships in Scotland, which we beat Italy 2-1 to win.”
All very interesting, but how did he get on in his Leaving Cert?
“I got me honours and just below 400 points, which wasn’t too bad given all the distractions. The European Championships actually happened half-way through, so me head was all over the place!”
De La Salle’s arch-rivals were Mount Sion who had a curly-haired cherub by the name of Stephen Hunt playing for them. Was he as mad then as he is now?
“Madder, believe it or not! We had some great battles. He still rattles on about the time his team beat us in a cup or league play-off final, but mainly it was us who came out on top. You could tell he was going to do everything he could to make it and, sure enough, Crystal Palace snapped him up.”
Strapping lad that he is, I imagine John also played a bit of GAA.
“Yeah, I played football to a reasonably high level with me school. We won a couple of county tournaments, but I’m not sure I’d have gone on to play for the Waterford seniors or anything like that. There were a couple of lads at De La Salle who became Waterford hurlers, John Mullane perhaps being the best-known of them. Me Dad’s from Kilkenny, so he’s always showing off!
“It’s funny,” he continues, “whenever the Irish lads who weren’t brought up with Gaelic see football or hurling on the TV they go, ‘Bloody hell, that’s violent!’ They wouldn’t be up for the physical side of it at all.”
Bleedin’ softies! John’s love of GAA came in handy when trying to settle in at Old Trafford. What’s it like being the United new boy?
“You get the absolute piss ripped out of you! That’s how they make you feel at home. A football dressing room isn’t the place to be if you’re shy and sensitive. There were obviously a couple of other Irish lads there at the time – Denis (Irwin) and Keano who I wouldn’t have said a whole lot to until one day we started talking about Cork v Waterford in the hurling. That was the icebreaker. Other times we watched the Munster rugby team together, hoping they’d do well. Roy and me had some really good crack together at United.”
Is he surprised that his old teammate’s having such a tough time of things at Ipswich Town?
“I think Roy realises at this stage that being a manager is a bit of a high-risk profession!” he proffers. “You have to take the rough with the smooth, and given what happened at Sunderland it wouldn’t surprise me if Ipswich went on a huge run. Getting them promoted this season may be too big of an ask, but they definitely won’t be relegated.”
So whatever about the Ipswich chairman, Roy’s got the John O’Shea vote of confidence?
“Absolutely! I could see myself being a manager more than a coach, though obviously the two are intertwined. You only have to look at Stan and Brian Kerr – who both wanted the very best for Ireland – to see what an unforgiving job it is. Brian was special for me having been the manager of the Under-16s when we won the European Championship. Things might have worked out very differently for him at senior level if we hadn’t drawn those two games against Israel, which we should’ve won, and failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. That’s something which definitely still hurts.”
The manager who’s had the greatest impact on John O’Shea’s career, of course, is Alex Ferguson. What are the footballing faux pas that are most likely to have him switching on the hairdryer?
“There are lots!” his number 22 winces. “The top three are probably giving away possession; getting booked for a silly thing like kicking the ball away; and not clearing the ball properly. He’d rather you kick it out for a throw-in or a corner than let them have it in open play. You have to be able to find Row Z to play for United!”
Short of mowing the grass, O’Shea has done just about every job on the pitch that Alex Ferguson could have asked him. Is being a utility man a bit of a pain sometimes?
“It can be, but I wouldn’t have played as many games otherwise. That’s the way I look at it, and it’s been fortunate for me. You’re right though – the manager used to think, ‘If there’s a hole in the side, I can get him to plug it.’”
There’s a cheap joke in there somewhere, but we’re far too highbrow a publication to crack it. Is he relieved this season to have finally nailed down the right-back position at United?
“I’d happily be the ball boy just to be involved but, yeah, I’m enjoying the continuity of playing in the same position every week and feel it’s upped the level of my performances.”
Never mind ‘upped’, all the Man U supporters I know reckon O’Shea’s playing the best football of his career.
“Yeah, possibly,” he says coming over all bashful. “You get to an age where you’re confident enough, and experience-wise you’ve dealt with a lot of things. I definitely don’t get as worried about stuff as I did in my younger days. A lot of that comes from having such brilliant lads around you who never throw in the towel.”
Ah yes, the proverbial 95th minute winner!
“The reason we’ve scored so many late goals this season is that we know teams who’ve played defensively against us will tire. They’ll maybe not track somebody for the final minute, and leave a gap for us to play through. A little bit of extra Fergietime helps, but really it’s down to us probing at teams and eventually breaking them down.”
I’m not saying that John O’Shea doesn’t set female hearts aflutter, but he’s never been the overt sex symbol that Cristiano Ronaldo was when he was at Old Trafford. Was it Beatlemania with the Portuguese around?
“Yeah, you could say that! I played as well with Becks – who probably had even more women chasing after him! – and they’d either have their every touch cheered if we were at home or be booed for 90 minutes if we were away. Cristiano thrived on it, to be fair. He knew they were booing him because he was doing his stuff on the pitch.”
Did the booing secretly extend to some of his team-mates, who didn’t appreciate those fancy flicks and lack of tracking back?
“Absolutely not,” O’Shea insists. “What a bubbly character. He was great in the dressing room and an all-round top lad.”
Who will no doubt be mercilessly scythed down if Man U go on to draw Real Madrid in the Champions League. Assuming violence isn’t an option, how do you nullify the threat of Cristiano Ronaldo?
“You just get tight to him as quick as you can. Definitely the odd kick here and there helps, but he’s such a big, strong lad. Believe me, when he was in the Premiership he took his fair share of knocks. He went over fairly easily, yeah, but he was avoiding huge tackles a lot of the time. You’d have to double up on him, I think. If I was playing right-back, I’d be looking for quite a bit of help from my wide-man.”
Personally, we’d stick with the kicking lumps out of him option. Was Cristiano aware of the fun Mario Rosenstock and the Special 1 TV gang used to have at his expense?
“I don’t think so, which is probably just as well! All the lads started watching when Wayne joined the cast, and would quote bits back at him on Monday morning. I brought over the Gift Grub CDs, so everybody at United has heard them doing Roy and Bertie! I was very jealous when Duffer said the main guy had gone over to them at Chelsea.”
Who’s the best player John O’Shea’s ever come up against?
“Overall, Zidane. I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to play against him a few times, and his control of the ball and the time he made for himself was unbelievable. Like Cristiano, he’s also super, super strong.
“If you’re talking best teams, we’ve played a couple of friendlies with Brazil who were simply awesome. There was nothing riding on it, but they were still doing all their fancy flicks and trying to nutmeg you. I hate to think what they’d be like in a competitive game!”
Sam Allardyce admits that ProZone stats have a major bearing on his Blackburn team selection, while Rafael Benitez supposedly dropped Steven Gerrard to the bench last season because he didn’t like the look of his blood sugar test results. How much faith does Fergie put in sports science?
“We’ve dieticians telling us what to eat – and when we’ve not been sticking to it! You might get away with the odd Chicken Tikka Masala, but if you were eating curry every night they’d soon know about it. They treat us like adults though, and everybody responds accordingly ‘cause we know what’s at stake. Most of the sports science stuff happens when we go back for pre-season, and have our weight and body fat percentage checked. You’re advised whether you have to do core trunk strengthening or whatever. A few of the lads at our place use a dietary supplement called Creatine, but I’ve never taken anything like that. You get medical screening for the first day-and-a-half of pre-season, so they can tell whether you’ve had a good summer or not!
“Some clubs are more into ProZone than others,” he continues. “I’ve never got a bollocking off the manager because the stats said I ran five miles instead of six miles on Saturday. He knows just by looking at the game whether you’ve done the business or not.”
Has Sir Alex saying that he wants all his players to be married prompted John to bring forward his wedding?
“It all depends. It’s going to be next summer sometime, but hopefully there will be a World Cup in the way! It’s a girl from Waterford who I’ve been engaged to for a year-and-a-bit – I best get that right – a while anyway! We knew each other as teenagers when we were in different relationships, and started going out together when I was 21. The fact that we have so much shared history is brilliant.”
Our interview is taking place 48 hours before Ireland’s 2-2 thriller with Italy, which means that emotions are still running high over FIFA’s open draw U-turn. Does John agree with Shay Given that the FAI should have done more to fight the Republic’s corner?
“I think once FIFA have made their minds up, that’s it,” he reasons. “If we’d got a top team like France or Portugal in the open draw, fair enough, but you can’t be changing things a couple of days before the group deciders. To help the big lads out like that… yeah, it’s unfair.”
How did the Ireland players react to the news?
“There was a lot of muttering, and a bit of swearing, and then we got our heads down and trained as hard as we could. As a footballer you try and focus on the things you can affect, and block out the ones you can’t.”
While there was no heavy-handed media minding, it was suggested before our interview that we didn’t ask John “for the thousandth time” about Andy Reid and Stephen Ireland’s absence from the squad.
“They’ll give you the answer they’ve been giving all week,” advised our man on the inside, “which is: ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’ I’m sure a few of them have privately had a word in Stephen’s ear, but they can’t force him onto a plane.’”
Which is fair enough by us. To go through a World Cup qualifying campaign unbeaten is something Ireland supporters could only have dreamed of 18 months ago. How has Giovanni Trapattoni so radically managed to transform things?
“I think it’s mainly down to him being so experienced. He’s been involved in every footballing situation there is, so he never gets rattled and has an eye for the little details, which can be the difference between winning or drawing a game. One of the cardinal sins with Trap, for instance, would be someone when they give a foul away not turning back quickly enough and us losing our defensive shape. We knew after one or two get-togethers that he was the man for the job and, like you say, he’s made us very hard to beat.”
With that has come the criticism that Ireland haven’t shown enough ambition going forward, and when they do score, sit on a lead. Fair comment?
“Yeah, it is,” he concedes. “I think the games we’ve been involved in this campaign would back that up. It’s something we definitely have to work on ‘cause it just encourages other teams. We’ve been 1-0 up and dominating games and gone into our shells a bit, which generally means you have more to do defensively.”
Is Trap a safety-first merchant, or does he encourage John and the rest of the defence to bring the midfield into the game?
“Obviously if you’re a bit under the cosh you clear your lines, but if one of the lads in midfield wants the ball I’ll give it to him, no problem. There’s perhaps more creativity in the side than we’ve shown, so again that’s something to work on. On our day though, I really think that we can beat anyone – Portugal, France, whoever.”
O’Shea has been effusive in his praise of late for Robbie Keane and the way he’s been “carrying” Ireland. The quality of his World Cup qualifying performances makes it even more mystifying that Liverpool were so quick to dispense with Robbie’s services.
“As a United player, I was delighted he left ‘cause I could only see Robbie being a huge asset to Liverpool. I imagine a few Anfield heads would have looked at him playing for Tottenham this season and gone, ‘We messed up there!’ The goals he scores, the chances he creates for other players… he’s a great lad to have on your side and a bloody pest to play against.”
Is it true to say that despite all the advances at Man City, Liverpool are still the team United players look for first in the fixture-list?
“There was definitely more of an edge to the City game the other week because of the money they’ve spent and the squad they have, but Liverpool is still the main game – both for us and Sir Alex who delights in beating them.”
How bad a loser is John O’Shea?
“Put it this way, if I had a cat I’d go home and kick it! People don’t ring me for a few days, but all the lads are the same. The competitiveness in our five-a-sides, you’d swear it was a World Cup final!”
Which brings us to a question that’s always being asked by supporters. What’s the ultimate prize for a player – winning the Champions League or the World Cup?
“You’d have to think the World Cup. I’ve been fortunate to taste Champions League glory and it was brilliant, but representing your country at the World Cup takes you into a whole different realm. That’s the one you dream about at night.”
Richard Dunne told Hot Press last year that he’d love to finish his career at the club he grew up supporting, Shamrock Rovers. Does John O’Shea feel similar kinship with Waterford United?
“I’d love to help The Blues out at some point in me career, but who knows whether I’ll get the chance? I wouldn’t want to be an old cripple shuffling round the pitch ‘cause there are some useful players in the League of Ireland. They’re doing okay this season Waterford – one Cup Final appearance already and a semi-final coming up (this weekend) against Sligo. They need to go on a bit of a run to finish top of the league, but they’re still in with a shout. I went to lots of games as a kid in Kilcohen, and still try to catch ‘em in the R.S.C. if I’m home but it’s difficult.”
As usual, we’ve left the most important question to last. Come the play-off games against France, what will be on the Ireland ghetto-blaster?
“It’s still The Wolfe Tones and other rebel songs in the coach, but U2 have been replaced in the dressing room a bit by Dizzee Rascal, David Guetta and Calvin Harris who the younger lads coming through are into.”
A quick blast of ‘Dance Wiv Me’ and Pierre Foreigner will be Ireland’s for the taking!