LIAM BRADY IS set to retire as a soccer pundit for RTÉ tonight after 25 years analysing games.
Ireland’s Euro qualifier against Gibraltar this evening will be Brady’s last outing as an analyst for the broadcaster.
In a statement this afternoon, Brady said: “In 1990 I retired as a player at the age of 34. In 2016 I retired from my position in the Arsenal Academy and now I’m announcing my retirement from tv punditry with RTÉ Sport.”
“I have had the most amazing time working on RTE’s football coverage over the last 25 years and it is now fitting that I draw it to a close,” he said.
Brady’s punditry career started with the 1998 World Cup, alongside Eamon Dunphy and John Giles.
“We had treat fun together in between the arguments,” Brady said of his time with Dunphy and Giles.
Looking back at the highlights of his broadcasting career, he picked out “Zidane and France in 1998, Manchester United in 1999 and Liverpool’s miracle in 2005″.
“At half time my tip AC Milan looked comfortable but that is the beauty of sporting comebacks,” he recalled.
“I fondly remember the commentary box in Paris with George Hamilton when my beloved Arsenal were one-nil up against Barcelona. Henrik Larson came on and changed the game. I also remember fondly the emergence of a brilliant Barcelona led by this new coach Pep Guardiola with some young kids called Messi, Xavi and Iniesta.
“I’m going to miss the guys I played with and then worked with, Ronnie Whelan, Ray Houghton and Jim Beglin. Didi Hamann has become a great friend and the new guys Richard Sadlier, Kevin Doyle, Damien Duff and Shay Given. I will also miss all the presenters who asked the questions and the people behind the scenes. It was a pleasure to work with them and RTÉ.”
Brady didn’t hold back after Ireland’s 2-1 loss to Greece last week, describing the current side as “the worst group of players that any manager has had in my lifetime”.
Speaking on the News at One on RTÉ Radio on Monday he said he was “sorry if it sounded disrespectful to the players” but “talent in this squad just doesn’t compare” to teams he has seen in the past, both when he was a player himself and in the eras of former Ireland managers Giovanni Trapattoni and Martin O’Neill.
Asked whether RTÉ’s sports analysis had “dulled down” in recent years, as Dunphy and GAA pundit Joe Brolly have claimed, Brady said: “It has to be a little bit more dull without Eamon and Joe Brolly, I suppose, you know, because they were very controversial figures and they did speak their mind.”
“I don’t think you can speak like that anymore on the TV to be quite honest. Times have changed.
“That’s not the reason I’m leaving. I’m leaving because I’m 67 years of age and I’ve done 25 years of it and that’s and it’s a good number and it’s why I’m going. But you know, I think punditry that we used to have with Eamon and Johnny Giles and Bill O’Herlihy, you probably just can’t do that anymore,” he said.
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