THIS SATURDAY, JOHN O’Shea brings the curtain down on his 17-year senior international career.
Ireland’s summer friendly with the US will be an occasion to celebrate one of the nation’s most-decorated footballers, and the 37-year-old is set to earn his 118th cap in front of home fans at the Aviva Stadium.
Keith Andrews shared a pitch with O’Shea numerous times and, speaking at the SPAR FAI Primary School 5s national finals today, the former Ireland midfielder spoke about how professional and down-to-earth the Waterford native always was.
“I moved to Blackburn and John was established at Manchester United,” Andrews recalls, “God knows how many caps he had, probably 50-plus for Ireland at that stage.
“I just always remember his dedication and his humility for playing at that level. Coming into an environment where he would be playing with Championship players and lower Premier League players after playing the previous week with Paul Scholes, Roy Keane or David Beckham or whoever it was around that time, there was just nothing big-time about him whatsoever.
“The dedication and the humility are what strike me more than anything — him as a person and the way he is when people come into the group. That has probably got even more so over the last four or five years, since I haven’t been involved, because he’s been one of the more senior players in the group.
But what a servant and what a player he’s been over such a long, long period – and he’s not finished yet. I don’t know whether he’s come out and said it, but he’s certainly going to play on.”
On O’Shea’s influence on the squad, Andrews adds: “You have got different types of characters in dressing rooms – I would have been louder, it was just in my nature, especially in a competitive environment.
“John would have been one of those players who wouldn’t speak a lot, quite softly-spoken, but it’s one of those, you hold him in such high regard. When he speaks, you listen. I think that would have been the case across the board.”
O’Shea’s departure is the final one from a generation that produced several top-class Irish players such as Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Richard Dunne and Shay Given.
“It has been a golden period and it was important that those type of players played on in that transitional period,” Andrews said. “They were such a huge part of the starting line-up, those four, five, six players for such a long time — pivotal players.
“Even John, the fact that he hasn’t played as much as he probably would have liked in the last two to three years, he’s still part of it. Still turning up. I would imagine if you asked the likes of Shane Duffy or Kevin Long, people playing in his position about what a help he has been to them in terms of integrating them and getting them used to playing international football.
“He’s been a key figure in our history over the last, whatever it has been, 12 years.”
O’Shea, who has suffered two consecutive relegations with Sunderland, intends to play on at club level for at least one more year, but management could yet be a possibility in the not-so-distant future.
“You never quite know in terms of what players are going to plan,” Andrews said. “We did our combined [Uefa] B and A Licences together a few years ago. I think he has got aspirations, but, knowing John, he’ll make the right step at the right time.
“He’ll play for as long as he absolutely feels he can at as high a level. In terms of his temperament, his experience, if he wants to go into that line of work, what’s he’s gone through at Sunderland will hold him in such good stead.
“The experiences he’s had there… the managers, the ups, the downs and the downs and downs, he will have got so much from that, from going from a top-two [club], Champions League, one manager, to the contrast of Sunderland.
“That will be his biggest learning curve in terms of what he will potentially bring into management.”
The SPAR FAI Primary School 5s National Finals took place in Aviva Stadium today, where former Republic of Ireland International Keith Andrews and current Republic of Ireland women’s footballer Megan Campbell were in attendance supporting as girls and boys from 13 counties battled it out for national honours
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