Robbie Keane's Ferencvaros lose Hungarian cup final on penalties
The former Ireland skipper saw his Ferencvaros side lose the Hungarian cup final on 4-3 penalties on Wednesday night to Paks.
Paks took the lead through Barna Toth before the break in the Magyar Kupa decider.
Third-placed in the league, the underdogs led until the dying moments when Lenny Joseph equalised and brought the game to extra time.
After a scoreless extra 30 minutes, the game went to a shoot-out, with Keane's side ultimately losing out.
"They didn't have any serious chances apart from the goal," Keane said. "Before the break, you should not concede a goal from such a mistake. In the second half, we played with the upper hand, because we made good use of the open areas on the wings, but the last quality pass was missing from our game, which is the most important thing in football."
"I would never blame anyone for a missed penalty," he continued. "It can be a terrible feeling, but I told my players to remember this feeling so they never have to go through it again."
Keane added that from Thursday they will focus on the remaining two league matches to win the Hungarian championship. It would be the seventh title in a row for the Hungarian heavyweights.
The Dubliner's side currently hold a three-point lead over second-place Puskás Akadémia with two games remaining.
A victory this weekend against Fehervar would seal the championship.
Keane previously led Maccabi Tel Aviv to the 2023–24 Israeli Premier League title.
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Irish Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Eamon Dunphy's most savage punditry putdowns as legendary RTE analyst turns 80
Irish football institution Eamon Dunphy turns 80 on Sunday, August 3. The one time Manchester United apprentice had a great career in England and Ireland as a player but he is best known for his contribution to the analysis of the game in recent decades. As an RTE pundit alongside Johnny Giles and Liam Brady, the group became unmissable viewing under the stewardship of presenter Bill O'Herlihy on the national broadcaster and often provided more entertainment than the game itself. While Giles and Brady produced their finest moments on the field as two of the greatest Irish footballers of all time, Dunphy really shone under the spotlight of the TV cameras. In 2018, he stepped back from his RTE TV duties and he has been sorely missed by football fans on the box. His acid tongue and brutally honest opinions were often the highlight of any live TV game on RTE. As a long-time pundit, Dunphy watched some of the finest players in the history of the game and has been suitable unimpressed by quite a lot of them. The following are players Dunphy has described as 'not great on TV: Steven Gerrard (a nothing player) Zinedine Zidane (not a great player) Michel Platini (not a great player, no bottle) Diego Maradona (not a great player) Dunphy could wax lyrical about a player when he wanted to but it's the cutting comments that will live longest in the memory. As the legendary Dubliner turns 80, we look back at his 10 best one-liners and putdowns. 1. On Harry Kewell: "He's fat and a clown, a fat clown for all to see" 2. On Niall Quinn: "Niall Quinn is a creep. The man's an idiot, a Mother Teresa" 3. On Cristiano Ronaldo: " Ronaldo is a disgrace to the game. His petulance, temperament, throwing himself on the ground. It was a disgrace to professional football. This fella Ronaldo is a cod." 4. On Mick McCarthy: "He's one of the biggest whingers in world football… he's a bloody eejit." Bill O'Herlihy, Johnny Giles, Liam Brady and Eamon Dunphy in the RTE studio 5. On Steve Staunton: "Would you let him drive the train to Cork?" 6. On John Giles: "Usually it takes a bottle of Bacardi and a gallon of Coke to get John out of his seat." 7. On Garth Crooks interviewing Sven Goran Eriksson on BBC: "That's the first time I've seen sex between two men on the BBC." 8. On the very hostile boardroom at Real Madrid: "Bill, Bill... those directors over there are on another planet. They're on mushrooms or on acid, Bill." 9. On John Hartson: "I have a clip here of why Hartson is NOT a £7million it there Bill! (1 second in to the clip) Ok, hold it there Bill. (Draws a circle around Hartson's arse) Bill, that is NOT the arse of a £7million player!'' 10. On the Alex Ferguson-Gordon Strachan feud: 'Scots they're either nice or they're horrid and these two are horrid. Bill: 'The Scots wont like that Eamon, that's bordering on racism'. Eamon: 'It's not racism, it's ethnic criticism, Bill'.
Irish Daily Mirror
12 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Eamon Dunphy recalls his most embarrassing moments as he turns 80
On the week the United States dropped the atomic bomb, Eamon Dunphy dropped into planet earth. It is hard to know which of the two was more explosive. The man who turns 80 tomorrow has had his fair share of controversies over the years. And he isn't afraid to admit to his mistakes. Like there was the time he described Cristiano Ronaldo as a 'cod' live on air prior to a Champions League match. By full-time, Ronaldo had scored a hat-trick; he has since won five Ballon D'Ors, four Golden Shoes, five Champions Leagues, seven league titles, scoring 800 goals in 1,062 matches. Fair to say then, it wasn't one of The Dunph's better predictions. 'No,' he agrees, laughing. 'In fact that was one of the greatest mistakes of all time and there is a mural up in Phibsboro that shows me delivering those silly words. 'When my criticism was at its most savage, he was 21. 'He had just gone to (Manchester) United. He was a diver. He threw his hands up in the air. He feigned injury. Those behaviours were not the hallmark of a great player. 'But he became a phenomenon, the likes of which we had never seen. Read more: Eamon Dunphy column: Our League's future is bright, Ian Harte can f*** off! Read more: Eamon Dunphy column: 'How have we put ourselves in a situation where an Icelandic dentist is deciding who can play for the Ireland team?' 'Back then, you were sitting in a television studio; you had your doubts about this guy; you don't go along with the crowd. So what are you to do? 'I think you should express yourself so that everyone knows where you stand. 'If you are wrong, and in this case, I was grotesquely wrong, then you accept the stick. 'But that is the way the job should be done. Punditry is about expressing yourself. Roy Keane is a good rather than great pundit.' THE MAN 'WHO RAN OFF WITH A YOUNG ONE' Yet there was a time when Dunphy was a staunch defender of Keane's, especially in the aftermath of Saipan, when the nation split into Keane and McCarthy camps. Three years later came another split, Keane leaving Manchester United following a fall-out with Alex Ferguson. Cue debate on RTE, with Bill O'Herlihy, the anchor, referring to an article written for The Sunday Times by a journalist called Rod Liddle. Frustrated by O'Herlihy's line of questioning, and by a perception that Keane was being patronised, Dunphy leapt to his defence, describing Keane as 'a family man'. Yet he didn't stop there. 'I will tell you who wrote that article about Roy. It was a man called Rod Liddle. He is the guy that left his wife and ran off with a young one.' Twenty years on, it remains Dunphy's most popular quote when Googled. Yet he deeply regrets saying it. Dunphy says: 'It was a horrendous thing to say (live on air). That was insane. 'And we wondered what it would cost us in libel.' Which was? 'Nothing.' 'But even so, it was still a desperate thing to say. 'I apologised to Rod on Liveline. He accepted my apology. 'I was mortified at myself. 'I spoke to him in the not too distant past. He said 'by the way that young one I ran off with, I married her and we are still together'. 'That was a sacking offence but I wasn't sacked.' It isn't his only regret. (Image: PA) NOT BEING PART OF JACKIE'S ARMY A more personal one came during Italia 90 when Dunphy went against the grain and criticised the Irish team following a poor display against Egypt, dropping his pen at the end of a statement he made. All hell broke loose. An opinion poll in the following day's Evening Herald revealed that 98 per cent of those polled believed he should be sacked. He wasn't. But the kickback hurt those closest to him, his children and parents. Dunphy says: 'That particular game was very poor. 'I had a right go at him and the team. I had a pen in my hand. I just dropped it. 'It was a big fuss over very little. 'In hindsight the people I feel sorriest for were my children and parents. They didn't like the attention. 'Growing up, we were an ordinary family and here was this loudmouth going around Ireland writing incendiary stuff about Jack Charlton, John Hume and Mary Robinson; God's gifts to the nation. 'My family did not want their son to be propelled into that kind of limelight. That would be a big regret.' GOING TO WAR WITH THE FAI Another came when he cosied up to John Delaney, the disgraced former chief executive of the FAI whose appalling leadership of the football association was exposed by The Sunday Times in 2019. Dunphy had even attended Delaney's 50th birthday party. 'I do regret getting sucked into that. He was getting me tickets for matches. It was regrettable, it was wrong, it was lazy. And I deserved no respect for that. 'But I wasn't trying to hide it. I declared myself to be the recipient of tickets from him and took a sympathetic view of him. 'That was part of his con. And he got me for a while. 'Definitely Delaney fooled me. I was foolish. And I got sucked into a relationship where I could ring him up and say, 'could I have two tickets for a Manchester United match?' 'When the story broke about what he was doing, I was appalled. I did out myself. No one said 'we have caught you!' 'I said, 'this is wrong, I have got to out myself because if someone else was doing it, I would have been after them. Attending his 50th birthday party is a source of embarrassment. I did go. It was embarrassing, deeply embarrassing.' Ever since he has been a stringent critic of the FAI, although he was much softer on Stephen Kenny than on previous Ireland managers, even though Ireland's results were poor. 'The game has a lot more to it than the manager,' he says. 'You also need the players.' Eamon Dunphy and John Delaney Kenny's replacement, Heimir Hallgrimsson, has been more roundly criticised. But Dunphy says: 'My opinion of him has changed for the better. 'It does not mean I have been convinced by him. 'The whole process of hiring Heimir was flawed. The FAI didn't do their homework. They produced him out of a hat and told the Irish public, 'here you go, you have a new man from Iceland'. 'It was not the right way to do it. 'And his start was not very good - however in the last couple of games, the Irish team has played with a shape, a consistency and is looking a bit better. He has to be credited for that change. I would not replace him (right now) but at the same time, I would not recommend the method used to appoint him. 'It remains to be seen if he will work out. The jury is out … as it is with every manager. "As it is, indeed, with every pundit!' Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts.
The 42
20 hours ago
- The 42
Meet the League One trio leading the sudden rise of Irish managers in England
A YEAR AGO, Mark Kennedy of Swindon Town was the sole Irish manager across England's 92 clubs, stretching from the Premier League down to League Two. Twelve months on and the picture has changed. Though Kennedy's currently out of work, there are six Irish managers in English league club positions as their respective 25/26 seasons begin. Keith Andrews has been the shock hire at Premier League Brentford, of course, while Athlone native Alan Sheehan is in permanent charge of Championship side Swansea having steadied the club during his caretaker term last season. Elsewhere, Dubliner Dean Brennan has led Barnet to League Two, while there are a trio of Irish managers in League One, whose childhood homes are all fall within a hundred-mile radius. There are similarities in the journeys of Brian Barry-Murphy (Cardiff City), Noel Hunt (Reading), and Conor Hourihane (Barnsley), but each have trod a different path to this point of mutual convergence. Brian Barry-Murphy. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Barry-Murphy is the only one of the trio not to be capped at senior international level – his most elevated cap was at U21 level – but it is he who arrives into League One from the highest-profile environment, buttressing his coaching reputation as head coach of Manchester City's elite development squad (their U23s in more plainspeak.) Barry-Murphy is, of course, the son of Jimmy, a fact he could not escape in Ireland, especially when playing hurling. Speaking a couple of years ago to an in-house Man City podcast, he explained he drifted to playing soccer almost sub-consciously, as there he felt less pressure at being his father's son. He didn't have the traditional career experience of the time, playing first-team LOI football with Cork City before getting a break in the UK, initially with Preston under David Moyes. He went on to find more regular football with Sheffield Wednesday, Bury, and finally League One Rochdale, where he evolved from player to player/coach to caretaker manager to outright manager, succeeding Keith Hill. Determined to do something different with a comparatively meagre budget at Rochdale, Barry-Murphy evolved the style of play to that which would catch Manchester City's eye, under the persuasive principle that 'if we have the ball, the opposition can't score.' He twice kept Rochdale in England's third tier before succumbing to gravity in his third season, resigning after relegation before being hired by City. This was a chance for Barry-Murphy to see the game's cutting edge, for he had spent his career in England to that point at the sport's more jagged edges. Life as Rochdale manager was about avoiding relegation, and that was experience for much of his playing days: while he went up to League One with Rochdale in 2014, there were more relegation battles than promotion pushes and his average league finish across 15 seasons with Wednesday, Bury and Rochdale was 13th. Advertisement This bred in him a certain anxiety that he might be forced to go back to Ireland for work, then widely seen as an admission of failure. It wasn't until his playing days were drawing to a close that he learned to stop worrying about these kinds of consequences, and he took this lesson into his work with young players at City. 'I no longer had a sense of fear or anxiety of failing anymore, or going back home, and it was liberating', Barry-Murphy told City's in-house podcast. 'I thought if I had this when I was younger. . . if I can show young players the value of being confident and expressive and almost enjoy making mistakes, it would give them better careers. What held me back wouldn't hold them back.' He won back-to-back PL2 titles with City's academy, where he worked with Cole Palmer, Liam Delap, Morgan Rogers, and Romeo Lavia. He bridles at the notion that stepping away from men's first-team football for City's academy meant stepping away from pressure, telling that City podcast that he had never been under such pressure, given he had to give Pep Guardiola players on a daily basis, and they had to be ready to fulfil Guardiola's exacting demands. Fail to do so, and Guardiola would train upon Barry-Murphy his icy stare during which, in Barry-Murphy's own words, 'time stood still.' He also benefitted from studying Guardiola first-hand, and says today that he always knew what he wanted to do as a first-team manager, but Guardiola showed him how to do it. Barry-Murphy's belief in possession-based football has not wavered, but he speaks now of a desire to be more aggressive in getting the ball forward more quickly, to deny opponents a chance to flood their defence. Barry-Murphy left City's academy last year, feeling his own education complete, but retains close relationships at the club. He did some Premier League radio commentaries for Off the Ball last season, and rarely have so many City players and staff stopped in a post-game mixed zone as when Barry-Murphy made an appearance after City's loss at Anfield last season. City are far from Barry-Murphy's only admirers: Stephen Kenny once sounded him out for a then-vacant role on his Irish coaching staff. He spent the latter half of last season as a coach at Leicester City – brought in after Ruud Van Nistelrooy's appointment as manager – but failed to salvage a sinking ship. He has now been handed the keys to Cardiff City, who meet the description of a fallen giant. The capital club are suddenly the poor relation of Welsh football: relegation last season saw them drop out of England's top two tiers for the first time in more than 20 years, while they were passed out by Wrexham on the way up. A club drifting for some time has turned to Barry-Murphy not just for success but also to instil a sense of identity. He will be expected to deliver promotion, however, though he has not exactly been dealt a strong hand. The club has sold Callum O'Dowda to Ferencvaros and are thus far yet to make a significant signing. Still, it could be worse. Even by the EFL's regular standards of dysfunction, Reading have stood out in the last couple of years. Things looked promising when they were bought by Chinese investor Dai Yongge in 2017, with the club agonisingly close to a Premier League return later that year, beaten on penalties in the play-off final. It was to be the acme of Yongge's ownership. His interest dwindled and the club slid, dropping into League One in 2023. The late filing of accounts and missed payments led to points deductions totalling 18 points, along with frequent transfer embargoes. The women's team withdrew from the league when Yongge cut funding, and a men's league game against Port Vale was abandoned when protesting fans stormed the pitch. Yongge was disqualified as a director by the EFL in April and forced to sell up, and a failure to do so would have risked the club's expulsion from the EFL. A deal has mercifully been done, and American Rob Couhig has taken over, and it is into this light at the end of the tunnel that Noel Hunt is now stepping. Noel Hunt. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Hunt's rugged, tenacious style of play as a player belied his more forward-thinking qualities, and he worked with a sports psychologist throughout his career. He is bringing some of that perspective to management, explaining he has a philosophy of 'no disappointments.' Pain is merely information on what must be improved. This is perhaps what kept him sane at Reading. Having first joined the club as a development coach in 2022, he briefly served as interim coach in 2023 before taking charge permanently last December, after Ruben Selles packed it in for a job at Hull. Given his constraints – the club couldn't sign anyone in January – Hunt did a remarkable job, steering Reading to a seventh-place finish, finishing just three points outside the play-off places. A recent interview with The Sunday Times offered some insight into how Hunt dealt with the turbulence: when staff were spun into a panic having heard Yongge had put the training ground up for sale, Hunt expressed unity by organising a staff football match, pulling in a couple of players as referees. The build-up to this season has been one of comparative normality, even if it began with only six senior players remaining under contract. Hunt has a very young squad – only two outfield players are over 28 – so he has added some experience with the free transfer of Paudie O'Connor. New owner Couhig has made it clear his preference is for Hunt to shop for loan players or free agents. Goalscoring looks to be Reading's main challenge this season, as they have lost Harvey Knibbs and Sam Smith, who scored 25 goals between them last year. Hunt has signed Irish underage striker Mark O'Mahony on loan from Brighton, whose performances will likely dictate Reading's ceiling this season. Conor Hourihane. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Perhaps most intriguing of all is how Conor Hourihane performs at Barnsley. Hourihane is just 34, and has quickly ascended to his first managerial gig. He joined Barnsley in a player-coach role at the start of last season, but retired during Christmas week to replace Dean Whitehead on the coaching staff, and was in temporary charge of the whole ship by March. He signed a two-year contract a month later. While it's a speedy ascent, those who knew Hourihane even from international camps are unsurprised at his career change. He undertook his B-licence badges with the FAI during 2020, and then coached part-time Stourbridge for a year while he was doing his A-licence. Then, when playing at Derby County, he took charge of Aston Villa's U16s. He has given a lengthy run-down of his coaching style and attitude to the terrific Coach's Voice website, during which he gave an insight into the modernity of his ideas. Less relevant than formations, he says, are principles of play, specifically on how his team will build from the back and how they will press from the front. He also revealed he is following in Unai Emery's steps by insisting he does all his video analysis himself, which includes the technical jobs of cutting and stitching together clips. He has sought similar levels of control at Barnsley, insisting on greater input to transfers. He's also added an Irish splash. Along with retaining Irish midfielder Luca Connell as captain, he has signed his veteran former team-mate David McGoldrick, and recruited Richard Keogh as his assistant. He also has former Shamrock Rovers attacker Neil Farrugia among his squad. The club may have ambitions of returning to the Championship but they haven't given Hourihane a budget to match it, and a fairer measure of success would be a return to the play-offs and some on-field stability to a side that leaked goals last year. This is English football, however, which has no truck with good, common-sense patience and continuity. Hourihane is Barnsley's 10th permanent manager in seven years, while Barry-Murphy is Cardiff's ninth in that same time-frame. Reading somehow pass for relative stability here: Hunt is their seventh permanent boss since 2018. Such is English football's regrettable churn, success for Barry-Murphy, Hunt, and Hourihane will be if they remain the trio of Irish coaches in League One come the season's end.
