Eamon Dunphy, a man who has spent his life in football, prefers rugby over football.
Apparently.
Dunphy has never been one to mince his words and, in recent weeks, he has stayed true to form.
After claiming to not rate Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba before lumping Jose Mourinho into the same category as Martin O’Neill, his latest scathing attack sees him attacking football as a whole.
Speaking on RTE 2FM’s Game On show, the 72-year-old former Republic of Ireland international said that football is ‘a dying game.’ He also praised rugby’s ‘wonderful golden age’ while claiming that football does not have any players worthy of succeeding Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the height of the sport.
So the narrative has shifted from "he's winning in weak leagues, he should try doing it in the mighty Premier League" to "actually the Premier League is weak and that's why he's winning". Cool, cool. https://t.co/gX0tkYoexz
— Diana Kristinne (@DianaKristinne) December 16, 2017
Roll the rant.
“Good footballers are not appearing any more. (Lionel) Messi and (Cristiano) Ronaldo set the bar and there is no one approaching them.
“The game is dying because it is a street game and kids don’t play on the streets any more. The only place you can learn it is on the streets, but you have guys coaching six and seven years olds who are just confusing them.
“You look rugby and it’s in a wonderful golden age because kids are inspired by guys like (Brian) O’Driscoll, Joey Carbery, Johnny Sexton. If I want to watch some sport at 5.30 on a Saturday, I’d watch rugby every time over football.
“Look at what Joe Schmidt is doing with the Ireland rugby team and compare him to Martin O’Neill for God’s sake. Football is a dying game.
“It’s dying because there are not any good players coming through. I mean, Ibrahimovic should be working in a car wash and they still talk about him as if he is one of the great players of all time. Even Pep Guardiola couldn’t make him a player when he had him for a year at Barcelona.”
Eamon Dunphy “City have struggled in the last few weeks to beat ordinary teams. They keep a lot of possession but they’re million miles away from the team Keane played in at United, the team Vieira led at Arsenal and even some of the Chelsea teams with Drogba, Lampard and Terry”
— The Pep (@GuardiolaTweets) December 16, 2017
It’s certainly a withering assessment of football. Although, it’s simply not fair comparing Joe Schmidt to Martin O’Neill. Ireland, as a rugby squad, are one of the finest in the world. The talent and experience Schmidt has to work with does not equate to what O’Neill has at his disposal. That’s not to say Schmidt hasn’t done a stellar job as Ireland head coach. He obviously has.
But it’s still strange that Dunphy would completely denounce football, a sport which has given him a livelihood. Also, do we take it with a pinch of salt? Probably. I would be surprised if Dunphy tunes in to watch Bath v Toulon in the European Champions Cup, which is on at the same time as Manchester City v Tottenham.
His criticism of Ibrahimovic is completely out of left field too. Fair enough, the striker is now 36 and approaching the end of his career, but this is a player who scored 28 goals for Manchester United last season. How many car wash employees can do that?
It’s perhaps the single most bizarre thing anyone has ever said about Ibrahimovic, a footballer who has won 11 league titles in five different countries.
