Jake O'Brien at an Everton in the Community event. Everton FC
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'Not everyone wants to be looking at footballers doing all the flashy things. A lot of it is false'
Ahead of his 50th Premier League appearance, Everton’s Jake O’Brien says it’s time Irish football fulfilled its potential by qualifying for the World Cup.
The indoor AstroTurf dome at Everton’s Finch Farm training ground has been commandeered by the club’s community hub to bring together some of those involved in programmes that are embedded throughout Merseyside.
In one corner is a table of adults – all over the age of 50 – who are part of a group that helps combat social isolation and loneliness.
Ukraine international Vitaliy Mykolenko is one of the first to head in that direction so he can begin to play some chess.
A few feet away, there are children in their early teens who are deemed to be vulnerable and at risk. Jack Grealish has his leg in a brace and slowly makes his way around on crutches, where their smiles are there to greet him.
At the other side of the pitch, there is a large Velcro target draped over the crossbar of a goal. Kids line up to chip golf balls at it, and when Mark Travers catches a glimpse, he’s one of the first to queue up for his turn.
The Republic of Ireland international just misses the small bullseye from about 12 yards away. Children are racing and laughing and starting impromptu cartwheel competitions. England’s number one goalkeeper Jordan Pickford has to stop himself joining in but is in the thick of the day’s action.
One boy is almost still in mid-air and upside down when he spots the club captain.
“There’s Seamus Coleman right there,” he screeches in the most excitable Scouse accent you could imagine. “I can’t focus.”
Coleman is side by side with O’Brien, the other two Ireland internationals who just a couple of hours earlier were named in Heimir Hallgrímsson’s squad for Thursday’s World Cup play-off with Czechia.
For now, that can wait.
Coleman and O’Brien must listen for instructions before attempting to snatch the tag-rugby band from the children they have been paired with.
Head!
Shoulders!
Knees!
Toes!
Go!
They both race around in zigzags before swapping roles.
“You won’t catch me, Jake,” one boy teases.
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Jake O'Brien with Seamus Coleman.
O’Brien is a natural. His first child, Greyson, is seven months old. For as long as he can remember growing up in Youghal he was surrounded by a tight circle of family and friends.
He has known Sophie, his partner, since he was the same age as these kids. They got together in secondary school, but their families were close long before that as his mother and her father also went to school together.
“I think it’s important to communicate with the fans and the people that follow me,” O’Brien says, after leading the way down to a quieter coffee shop within the training ground.
“I’m the same as them, just a normal person. I just try my best to relate to everyone and to share my experiences because not everyone wants to be looking at footballers doing all the flashy things, and it’s not relatable. A lot of it is false as well, so I just try to push out a good message and a positive message.”
That partly explains why he has struck up a friendship with Grealish, a charismatic presence who has clicked with O’Brien off the pitch. “He’s a top lad, bubbly, positive, you need those characters.
“Just in the way I live, you get to do good things here and there, but a lot of it’s just the same thing every day. Training and come back to my family, you know. It’s the same as everyone going out working and then coming back home to your family.
“A lot [in football] is false. And I was, I suppose, vulnerable to it when I was younger as well. And you see all these players and they’re doing mad stuff. When I’m in the situation [I am] now, just looking back you’re like yeah, a lot of it is false and it’s not what you think it is.”
We speak on a Thursday afternoon, the end of a working day which is always a little bit different for O’Brien and the other Everton defenders.
This is when David Moyes will spend one-to-one time with each player, as well as focusing on the defensive unit as a whole. When the Scot took charge of Everton for his first spell in 2002, he became the youngest manager in the Premier League at 39.
O’Brien was just a couple of months shy of his first birthday then, while now, in his second stint, Moyes is the oldest in the division at 62.
“Wherever I’ve been I’ve always backed myself and from the moment I stepped foot in the door I had a sense that I belong here, but you’ve got to earn that as well. It’s not something that’s given,” O’Brien says, having joined from Lyon for €20m in 2024 after initially leaving Cork City for Crystal Palace.
“The manager puts demands on you. He’s not messing about. [He wants me] just to grow, to learn, to grow into the game because I’m not a really experienced player either. I still have a lot of it ahead of me.”
That is true, of course, but O’Brien, who turns 25 in May, has also quietly emerged as a new standard-bearer for Irish players in the Premier League. Today’s game with Chelsea at the Hill Dickinson Stadium will be his 50th appearance in England’s top flight. It could well be more by now had former boss Sean Dyche utilised him in those earlier days.
With 32 games under his belt for Lyon, and a starter in each of Ireland’s six World Cup qualifiers, his credentials are increasing. This season O’Brien has played 29 of Everton’s 30 games – missing one through suspension after being sent off against Bournemouth last month.
Only Caoimhin Kelleher has played more minutes (2,610) for an Ireland international than O’Brien’s 2,459 this season. Nathan Collins is next on the list with 2,252 while Josh Cullen, who has been out of action since late December because of an ACL injury, is still fourth on 1,519 minutes. After that, it’s 706 for Matt Doherty, with Coleman’s tally of 12 enough to have him fifth.
Jake O'Brien at an Everton community event. Everton FC
Everton FC
“I mean, there’s literally no better person to learn from,” O’Brien says of Coleman. “And not just football, just as a person as well. On and off the pitch, he’s just someone to look up to, to learn from.
“And none of it’s forced. He’s not trying to look good. It’s all natural in the way he is. He always drives the standards. You can just see it’s who he is and how he’s been brought up. He’s probably the best to learn from.”
O’Brien is the definition of a gentle giant. He’s 6ft 6in – we can say for sure because after the interview one of the elderly supporters rushed over to wish him a belated Happy St Patrick’s Day before asking exactly how tall he was – but speaks with softness that shouldn’t be misinterpreted as shyness or insecurity.
That becomes crystal clear as he looks ahead to the biggest week for a decade in the history of the men’s international team.
O’Brien will link up with the rest of the squad by Sunday evening as focus turns to qualifying for the World Cup.
Four months after Budapest, he admits that it feels as though this play-off has been “forever coming”.
O’Brien has seen and heard stories of those fans who will travel to Prague in their thousands, with and without tickets. “It’s a big occasion for football in Ireland and for the people of Ireland as well,” he says.
David Moyes with Jake O'Brien. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
O’Brien has always wanted to embrace these possibilities for his country, and revels in the demand from within himself to be part of bigger and better days.
“It’s huge for the country and not just for football. It will bring a lot to Ireland if we can get to the World Cup.
“I think it’s time for football to push on because we’ve never been, I suppose, a country that kind of pushed on. I think, years ago, we were at that level. It’s dropped off, but I think we’re getting back to a stage now where there’s a lot of excitement.
“This is one of the important games where if you want to push on, then the players have got to show themselves and prove it.”
There will be no hiding, and while he fits the bill as The Quiet Man perfectly O’Brien’s message comes through loud and clear.
“You’ve got to set demands. What has to be the standard now is Ireland have to try their best to qualify for every tournament. It’s not good enough to just haggle and just try here and get a few games there.
“The ambition of Ireland is that we want to be in every tournament. We’re doing everything we can and as players [and] it’s down to us.”
Between his time playing in Belgium on loan at Molenbeek, dragging Lyon out of a relegation scrap in France, and becoming a Premier League regular as well as continuing to establish himself as an international, O’Brien can begin to speak from a position of experience and authority rather than blind optimism.
“There’s been no question of our character and mentality,” he says. “I think it’s a time where we’re evolving, and there’s a lot of players coming up, and there’s a lot of young players, exciting players, that will kind of come into the fold in the next few years.
“It’s just about setting demands, and as a player, these are the games you want to play, and you want to prove to everyone watching and put yourselves in the top bracket as players because when you grow up, you dream of playing big tournaments, and these are the games that get you into it.”
Jake O'Brien in action against Hungary's Dominik Szoboszlai. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
O’Brien’s own sporting story speaks to that. His grandfather and father were boxers, and he followed suit by the age of 10. He grew up watching Rocky films. At 14, he was a national boxing champion, training with the likes of Callum Walsh and Stephen Cairns.
He recalls travelling around the country sparring with older kids, “getting battered” and fighting in “containers”. O’Brien is now surrounded by the best of everything, with every need catered for to achieve his potential, but some of the most important work of all has already helped to forge him as a man,
“The mentality, the discipline boxing gives. That brings confidence [...] it’s good to learn how to punch but more importantly to learn how to take one.”
That line was delivered with perfect timing. It felt like a sharp jab yet somehow lingered to consider it more, too. His explanation for opting to focus on football rather than boxing, or even hurling, is revealing.
“I wanted to play for Ireland because you can see the joy that it brings to people. I love the feeling of having my family in the stands watching, to be proud that I’m representing my country.
“[I’ve] lived through moments and they can [also] help you along the way as a person.”
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Just like he does on the pitch, O’Brien backs up such statements with matters of fact. These are no empty throwaway lines regurgitated from a LinkedIn influencer or vacuous podcast.
At 16, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. He had started to lose weight and was drinking up to nine litres of water a day. Essentially, O’Brien’s pancreas does not produce insulin.
“So I manually inject it,” he says, pointing to the small device on his left arm that helps to establish glucose levels, while constant counting of carbohydrates each day is a necessity.
For much of the last decade, he has been on a journey to understand the mechanics of his own body, coming to terms with a condition that is life changing but by no means defining.
At first, he would hide in toilets or wherever possible when he needed to inject his insulin. “Now I just let it be,” he says.
“But there’s no point in me saying that it’s easy because it’s not. There’s times where it’s tough, and then it’s just through experience and having a few years now that I know how my body reacts and how I deal with it.
“Since I’ve been diagnosed, I’ve never said, ‘Oh, I can’t do this’. I know a lot of people with it would struggle mentally more so than physically, and it’s important for them as well [to speak about it] because a lot of it is just a mental battle in terms of the stigma.”
Jake O'Brien at Everton's training ground.
One player has already reached out to O’Brien to speak of his own diagnosis but he prefers not to speak publicly about it.
“If I can help one person, then that’s what I’m going to do, and I suppose there’s a few players that might have it, and I suppose they’re not open to sharing it yet and they might down the line.
“Just for fans, the biggest thing that they like is normality and that they can kind of relate to footballers as well. They’re not different to what they are and you kind of relate to the everyday person and that’s what I am basically, just a normal person.
“If I can just share my experiences and help kids, or anyone, not even just kids, just anyone with it, it’s important because I have a platform.
“It is tough having it but if you just keep on top of things then it won’t hold you back. That’s the clear message.”
O’Brien’s clarity of focus extends to football matters that seem trivial in comparison but, as he’s already outlined, have the capacity to inspire.
“I definitely visualise [qualifying for the World Cup],” he says, insisting that European qualification is also the aim for Everton.
“Yeah, you’d visualise [qualifying] and I suppose you look towards it and how exciting it will be, but I think the main thing is focusing on the first game and getting that out of the way and then, yeah, two huge games. Once we win them, then we can focus on the summer.”
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'Not everyone wants to be looking at footballers doing all the flashy things. A lot of it is false'
JAKE O’BRIEN IS in his absolute element.
The indoor AstroTurf dome at Everton’s Finch Farm training ground has been commandeered by the club’s community hub to bring together some of those involved in programmes that are embedded throughout Merseyside.
In one corner is a table of adults – all over the age of 50 – who are part of a group that helps combat social isolation and loneliness.
Ukraine international Vitaliy Mykolenko is one of the first to head in that direction so he can begin to play some chess.
A few feet away, there are children in their early teens who are deemed to be vulnerable and at risk. Jack Grealish has his leg in a brace and slowly makes his way around on crutches, where their smiles are there to greet him.
At the other side of the pitch, there is a large Velcro target draped over the crossbar of a goal. Kids line up to chip golf balls at it, and when Mark Travers catches a glimpse, he’s one of the first to queue up for his turn.
The Republic of Ireland international just misses the small bullseye from about 12 yards away. Children are racing and laughing and starting impromptu cartwheel competitions. England’s number one goalkeeper Jordan Pickford has to stop himself joining in but is in the thick of the day’s action.
One boy is almost still in mid-air and upside down when he spots the club captain.
“There’s Seamus Coleman right there,” he screeches in the most excitable Scouse accent you could imagine. “I can’t focus.”
Coleman is side by side with O’Brien, the other two Ireland internationals who just a couple of hours earlier were named in Heimir Hallgrímsson’s squad for Thursday’s World Cup play-off with Czechia.
For now, that can wait.
Coleman and O’Brien must listen for instructions before attempting to snatch the tag-rugby band from the children they have been paired with.
Head!
Shoulders!
Knees!
Toes!
Go!
They both race around in zigzags before swapping roles.
“You won’t catch me, Jake,” one boy teases.
O’Brien is a natural. His first child, Greyson, is seven months old. For as long as he can remember growing up in Youghal he was surrounded by a tight circle of family and friends.
He has known Sophie, his partner, since he was the same age as these kids. They got together in secondary school, but their families were close long before that as his mother and her father also went to school together.
“I think it’s important to communicate with the fans and the people that follow me,” O’Brien says, after leading the way down to a quieter coffee shop within the training ground.
“I’m the same as them, just a normal person. I just try my best to relate to everyone and to share my experiences because not everyone wants to be looking at footballers doing all the flashy things, and it’s not relatable. A lot of it is false as well, so I just try to push out a good message and a positive message.”
That partly explains why he has struck up a friendship with Grealish, a charismatic presence who has clicked with O’Brien off the pitch. “He’s a top lad, bubbly, positive, you need those characters.
“Just in the way I live, you get to do good things here and there, but a lot of it’s just the same thing every day. Training and come back to my family, you know. It’s the same as everyone going out working and then coming back home to your family.
“A lot [in football] is false. And I was, I suppose, vulnerable to it when I was younger as well. And you see all these players and they’re doing mad stuff. When I’m in the situation [I am] now, just looking back you’re like yeah, a lot of it is false and it’s not what you think it is.”
We speak on a Thursday afternoon, the end of a working day which is always a little bit different for O’Brien and the other Everton defenders.
This is when David Moyes will spend one-to-one time with each player, as well as focusing on the defensive unit as a whole. When the Scot took charge of Everton for his first spell in 2002, he became the youngest manager in the Premier League at 39.
O’Brien was just a couple of months shy of his first birthday then, while now, in his second stint, Moyes is the oldest in the division at 62.
“Wherever I’ve been I’ve always backed myself and from the moment I stepped foot in the door I had a sense that I belong here, but you’ve got to earn that as well. It’s not something that’s given,” O’Brien says, having joined from Lyon for €20m in 2024 after initially leaving Cork City for Crystal Palace.
“The manager puts demands on you. He’s not messing about. [He wants me] just to grow, to learn, to grow into the game because I’m not a really experienced player either. I still have a lot of it ahead of me.”
That is true, of course, but O’Brien, who turns 25 in May, has also quietly emerged as a new standard-bearer for Irish players in the Premier League. Today’s game with Chelsea at the Hill Dickinson Stadium will be his 50th appearance in England’s top flight. It could well be more by now had former boss Sean Dyche utilised him in those earlier days.
With 32 games under his belt for Lyon, and a starter in each of Ireland’s six World Cup qualifiers, his credentials are increasing. This season O’Brien has played 29 of Everton’s 30 games – missing one through suspension after being sent off against Bournemouth last month.
Only Caoimhin Kelleher has played more minutes (2,610) for an Ireland international than O’Brien’s 2,459 this season. Nathan Collins is next on the list with 2,252 while Josh Cullen, who has been out of action since late December because of an ACL injury, is still fourth on 1,519 minutes. After that, it’s 706 for Matt Doherty, with Coleman’s tally of 12 enough to have him fifth.
“I mean, there’s literally no better person to learn from,” O’Brien says of Coleman. “And not just football, just as a person as well. On and off the pitch, he’s just someone to look up to, to learn from.
“And none of it’s forced. He’s not trying to look good. It’s all natural in the way he is. He always drives the standards. You can just see it’s who he is and how he’s been brought up. He’s probably the best to learn from.”
O’Brien is the definition of a gentle giant. He’s 6ft 6in – we can say for sure because after the interview one of the elderly supporters rushed over to wish him a belated Happy St Patrick’s Day before asking exactly how tall he was – but speaks with softness that shouldn’t be misinterpreted as shyness or insecurity.
That becomes crystal clear as he looks ahead to the biggest week for a decade in the history of the men’s international team.
O’Brien will link up with the rest of the squad by Sunday evening as focus turns to qualifying for the World Cup.
Four months after Budapest, he admits that it feels as though this play-off has been “forever coming”.
O’Brien has seen and heard stories of those fans who will travel to Prague in their thousands, with and without tickets. “It’s a big occasion for football in Ireland and for the people of Ireland as well,” he says.
O’Brien has always wanted to embrace these possibilities for his country, and revels in the demand from within himself to be part of bigger and better days.
“It’s huge for the country and not just for football. It will bring a lot to Ireland if we can get to the World Cup.
“I think it’s time for football to push on because we’ve never been, I suppose, a country that kind of pushed on. I think, years ago, we were at that level. It’s dropped off, but I think we’re getting back to a stage now where there’s a lot of excitement.
“This is one of the important games where if you want to push on, then the players have got to show themselves and prove it.”
There will be no hiding, and while he fits the bill as The Quiet Man perfectly O’Brien’s message comes through loud and clear.
“You’ve got to set demands. What has to be the standard now is Ireland have to try their best to qualify for every tournament. It’s not good enough to just haggle and just try here and get a few games there.
“The ambition of Ireland is that we want to be in every tournament. We’re doing everything we can and as players [and] it’s down to us.”
Between his time playing in Belgium on loan at Molenbeek, dragging Lyon out of a relegation scrap in France, and becoming a Premier League regular as well as continuing to establish himself as an international, O’Brien can begin to speak from a position of experience and authority rather than blind optimism.
“There’s been no question of our character and mentality,” he says. “I think it’s a time where we’re evolving, and there’s a lot of players coming up, and there’s a lot of young players, exciting players, that will kind of come into the fold in the next few years.
“It’s just about setting demands, and as a player, these are the games you want to play, and you want to prove to everyone watching and put yourselves in the top bracket as players because when you grow up, you dream of playing big tournaments, and these are the games that get you into it.”
O’Brien’s own sporting story speaks to that. His grandfather and father were boxers, and he followed suit by the age of 10. He grew up watching Rocky films. At 14, he was a national boxing champion, training with the likes of Callum Walsh and Stephen Cairns.
He recalls travelling around the country sparring with older kids, “getting battered” and fighting in “containers”. O’Brien is now surrounded by the best of everything, with every need catered for to achieve his potential, but some of the most important work of all has already helped to forge him as a man,
“The mentality, the discipline boxing gives. That brings confidence [...] it’s good to learn how to punch but more importantly to learn how to take one.”
That line was delivered with perfect timing. It felt like a sharp jab yet somehow lingered to consider it more, too. His explanation for opting to focus on football rather than boxing, or even hurling, is revealing.
“I wanted to play for Ireland because you can see the joy that it brings to people. I love the feeling of having my family in the stands watching, to be proud that I’m representing my country.
“[I’ve] lived through moments and they can [also] help you along the way as a person.”
Just like he does on the pitch, O’Brien backs up such statements with matters of fact. These are no empty throwaway lines regurgitated from a LinkedIn influencer or vacuous podcast.
At 16, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. He had started to lose weight and was drinking up to nine litres of water a day. Essentially, O’Brien’s pancreas does not produce insulin.
“So I manually inject it,” he says, pointing to the small device on his left arm that helps to establish glucose levels, while constant counting of carbohydrates each day is a necessity.
For much of the last decade, he has been on a journey to understand the mechanics of his own body, coming to terms with a condition that is life changing but by no means defining.
At first, he would hide in toilets or wherever possible when he needed to inject his insulin. “Now I just let it be,” he says.
“But there’s no point in me saying that it’s easy because it’s not. There’s times where it’s tough, and then it’s just through experience and having a few years now that I know how my body reacts and how I deal with it.
“Since I’ve been diagnosed, I’ve never said, ‘Oh, I can’t do this’. I know a lot of people with it would struggle mentally more so than physically, and it’s important for them as well [to speak about it] because a lot of it is just a mental battle in terms of the stigma.”
One player has already reached out to O’Brien to speak of his own diagnosis but he prefers not to speak publicly about it.
“If I can help one person, then that’s what I’m going to do, and I suppose there’s a few players that might have it, and I suppose they’re not open to sharing it yet and they might down the line.
“Just for fans, the biggest thing that they like is normality and that they can kind of relate to footballers as well. They’re not different to what they are and you kind of relate to the everyday person and that’s what I am basically, just a normal person.
“If I can just share my experiences and help kids, or anyone, not even just kids, just anyone with it, it’s important because I have a platform.
“It is tough having it but if you just keep on top of things then it won’t hold you back. That’s the clear message.”
O’Brien’s clarity of focus extends to football matters that seem trivial in comparison but, as he’s already outlined, have the capacity to inspire.
“I definitely visualise [qualifying for the World Cup],” he says, insisting that European qualification is also the aim for Everton.
“Yeah, you’d visualise [qualifying] and I suppose you look towards it and how exciting it will be, but I think the main thing is focusing on the first game and getting that out of the way and then, yeah, two huge games. Once we win them, then we can focus on the summer.”
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