Here's the goal that earned Ireland star his end-of-season award at Watford
Rocco Vata has brought the curtain down on his first full season in senior football - and the 20-year-old has certainly made his mark.
His electrifying performances for Watford earned him plenty of plaudits and a first senior Ireland cap in the recent international window, when he came off the bench for the final 11 minutes of the 2-1 Nations League play-off away leg win against Bulgaria.
Vata scored four goals in 35 appearances for Watford this season, including 17 starts, and he also popped up with four assists.
But one moment in particular crowned a successful first season away from Celtic, where he spent 12 years between the club's academy and first-team, and played in just six senior games.
Vata was presented with the club's Goal of the Season award on the pitch on Saturday, ahead of Watford's final game of the season, a 1-1 draw against Sheffield Wednesday.
Club legend Luther Blissett presented the Ireland prospect with his trophy in recognition of Vata's sensational FA Cup strike against Fulham in the third round.
He received the ball on the turn, just inside the Fulham half, ran towards goal and sent a sensational 30-yard strike into the top right-hand corner of the net.
With 10 goals up for consideration, Vata's won a whopping 48 percent of the vote.
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Irish Examiner
28 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
Ireland almost leave you wanting more as shadow boxing nears end
What's rare isn't always wonderful but Friday night's friendly stalemate with Senegal in Ballsbridge, the Republic of Ireland men's senior team's first game against African opposition in just over 15 years, almost left you wanting more. The Republic had played Celtic and a Tuscan XI since June of 2010. There had been seven meetings with Georgia, six with Gibraltar and Denmark. Even three games against the mighty Oman in the space of just six years. This kind of challenge was overdue. It was Algeria who provided the opposition back in 2010, at the RDS of all places. Current Ireland assistant manager John O'Shea started at the back. Robbie Keane and Damien Duff have walked the same path to the dugout. Others, Kenny Cunningham and Kevin Doyle, are spending some of their retirement in the TV and radio studios. So, lots of water under the bridge, then, as Heimir Hallgrimsson's lads went about this end-of-season box-ticker down by the banks of the Dodder. Novelty factor wasn't the only attraction to Senegal. This was a side ranked inside the world's top 20 and replete with a rake of players who were plying their trade in the Premier League, or had in the past, and a supporting cadre from leagues around Europe and the Middle East. The pity was that the likes of Idrissa Gueye of Everton, Chelsea's Nicolas Jackson, and Ismaila Sarr, who was so central to Crystal Palace's FA Cup win last month, all started on the bench. Probably with an eye on their game against England in Nottingham next Tuesday. Still, that spelled opportunity. Hallgrimsson had framed the terms of this engagement neatly on Thursday when admitting he would have little issue with losing here and in Luxembourg on Tuesday if it meant two wins from their opening two World Cup games in September. It was hard to argue, but even ghost games like this can, in theory, serve a value in and of themselves and not just because a win here would have made it the first time that the Boys in Green had won three on the trot since 2016. That was a hat-trick of World Cup qualifiers, no less, starting with Georgia in Dublin, continuing on through to a 3-1 against Moldova in Chisenau, and ending with a 1-0 victory over Austria in Vienna courtesy of Harry Arter. Repeat that in the autumn and Ireland will have accounted for Hungary in Dublin and sacked the citadels of Armenia and Portugal. Hey, a nation can dream, and Hallgrimsson hasn't been in town long enough to pick up the Irish art of self-effacement. 'Our broader ambition is to not only qualify for the World Cup next summer, but also to be fully prepared to compete against diverse styles of play from teams around the globe when we get there. 'Facing a talented Senegalese side provides us with an excellent opportunity to test ourselves against a different type of opposition and to continue developing,' the Ireland boss wrote in his match programme notes. The game itself? Surprisingly good. Hallgrimsson has Ireland playing to a type. His type. They were aggressive without the ball and disciplined and regimented as a collective at the back. And they can be good to watch at times, too. Maybe we can dare to have our cake and eat it. Take out a red pen to the starting teamsheet here and you were left with maybe five players – Caoimhin Kelleher, Nathan Collins, Dara O'Shea, Matt Doherty and Robbie Brady – who would likely start come the serious stuff in the autumn. With Finn Azaz, Josh Cullen and Mikey Johnston given the week off, it was Kasey McAteer, goal and all, who made the most of the doors this opened. And Caoimhin Kelleher showed why the £12.5, rising to £18m, Brentford paid for him this week is a steal. Senegal were better after the break, more direct, and that created problems for Ireland. Even Kelleher couldn't deny them forever, Ismail Sarr squeezing in a rebound after Cork's finest kept another one out with an outstretched foot. We even had the sight of two teams losing the rag in the dying moments in a more or less meaningless summer friendly. And the good news is that all this shadow boxing is almost over. Finally. It's two years since Stephen Kenny's Ireland lost 2-1 to Greece in the Agia Sophia Stadium – despite a nine-day acclimatization camp in Turkey – and the team's Euro 2024 qualifying hopes went south with six group games still to play. This was Ireland's 20th game since then. That's a whole lot of filler: academic qualifiers, Nations League placeholders and friendly make-dos. Only one more to go, against Luxembourg on Tuesday, before Hungary come to Dublin in September. Win or lose in four days' time, we're coming to the end of this two-year cruise.
The Irish Sun
36 minutes ago
- The Irish Sun
Jordan Pickford's England No.1 spot under greater threat than ever before as Thomas Tuchel issues warning
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Irish Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Ireland's winning run comes to an end as Senegal cancel out McAteer's opener
FA Cup winner Ismaila Sarr came off the bench on Friday night to earn Senegal a draw in Dublin - and ruin Heimir Hallgrímsson's hopes of claiming a little piece of Irish footballing history. The Boys in Green were on course for their third straight win of the calendar year - for the first time since 2007 - thanks to Kasey McAteer's early opener. Never before has an Irish team kicked off their year with four consecutive wins, so this would have added a bit of spice to next Tuesday's game in Luxembourg. But Crystal Palace winger Sarr put an end to that when he smashed home the rebound after Caoimhin Kelleher stuck out a leg to deny fellow substitute Cherif Ndiaye's shot. Visiting manager Pape Bouna Thiaw put out an inexperienced starting-11, five of whom had fewer than 10 appearances going into this game, including previously uncapped goalkeeper Yehvann Diouf. Monaco midfielder Krepin Diatta, winning his 44th cap, was their most experienced starter as they were overrun by their hosts for much of the game, until Thiaw threw on several of his more seasoned stars. On the Irish side, eyebrows were raised when the host lined out somewhere between a 4-4-2 and 4-4-1-1 formation, with Ipswich Town midfielder Jack Taylor the closest man to Celtic striker Adam Idah. Taylor had one relatively prolific season in League One with Peterborough, when he scored 10 goals in 52 appearances. But the seven he has scored in 75 games for the Tractor Boys meant few would have expected to see the 26-year-old in such an advanced position in just his fourth senior cap. When Will Smallbone was named in the starting-11, in his first display in a green jersey since last September's Nations League double-header against England and Greece, it was expected that he would be the advanced midfielder, perhaps playing just behind Idah. Hallgrímsson's comments earlier in the week pointed to as much, when he said: 'He's technical. I would see him more as a forward thinking midfielder than a defensive one. 'Where do I see him? More attacking minded than defensively minded, I think that's his profile.' Yet he started the night lying deep, alongside Jason Knight, while Ryan Manning and McAteer, on his first start for Ireland, provided the width going forward. McAteer showed strength and pace in the third minute to squeeze between two defenders, but lacked composure when, in a great crossing position, he managed only to clip the ball into the hands of Diouf. But he got the better of the debut-making Stade Reims netminder on 21 minutes as Ireland raced into a deserved lead. Just weeks after his first Premier League goal, in a 2-0 win against Ipswich, he scored at the second attempt after a wonderful piece of goalkeeping looked to have thwarted him. It started from a Smallbone corner that had Matt Doherty and O'Shea arguing at the back post over who should have got their head to it. They were still deep in conversation as the ball dropped to Manning just outside the area, and his clever ball back in with the outside of his left boot was nodded on by Nathan Collins. McAteer sprung the offside trap to head the ball towards goal, Diouf showed great agility to claw it out from under his crossbar, but as it fell to McAteer again with his back to goal, he controlled it on the spin and drilled the ball home from six yards. Cue the celebrations - and an end at last to the bickering between Doherty and O'Shea as they were spotted shaking hands while McAteer wheeled away to take the acclaim of his teammates and the crowd. O'Shea, earlier in the night, had a let-off when he almost sent a Senegal corner into his own net. The ball sailed over Collins' head, bounced off his shin and ricocheted just wide of the post. That was the closest that the inexperienced visitors came to scoring in the first-half, but O'Shea went even closer to beating Caoimhin Kelleher in the second-half when he deflected Sarr's shot onto the upright. A spectator in the first-half, Kelleher gave Brentford fans a glimpse of what they can expect with a wonder-save early in the second, when he denied Diatta with a stunning fingertip stop. His touch was so slight that only a replay from behind the goal - which drew gasps from the crowd when it played on the giant screens - picked it up, but it was enough to push Diatta's header onto the underside of the bar. Minutes earlier, space opened up for Smallbone on the edge of the area, but he directed his effort too close to Diouf, whose parry fell to Manning. With the angle against him, though, the Galwayman fired wide of the near post. FA Cup winner Sarr broke Irish hearts with a late equaliser, when he finished at the back post after Kelleher saved well again, this time to deny Cherif Ndiaye. And another sub, Cheikh Sabaly, was inches from heading Senegal to an undeserved victory in the 86th minute, but his effort flew just wide of the right-hand post.
