Are you watching, Martin O’Neill?
Robbie Keane hogs most of the attention when it comes to Irish players in the MLS, but there’s a man who was born in Cork playing for the Colorado Rapids and he’s not doing too bad at all.
20-year old Shane O’Neill has been making his mark for the Rapids’ first team for the last two years and on Saturday night, he scored the first goal of his MLS career with a cracking effort from the edge of the box in Colorado’s 4-1 victory over Montreal Impact. Great as the goal is, there’s an added bonus in the clip as O’Neill’s team-mate Edson Buddle struggles manfully to untangle himself from the net having got stuck there immediately before O’Neill’s strike.
The goal will certainly help boost O’Neill’s profile Stateside and also around these parts.
Born in Midleton (he’s the nephew of Maurice Fitzgerald and the son of All-Ireland winning Cork footballer Colm O’Neill… not the Colm O’Neill currently playing for the Rebels, of course), he has lived in Colorado most of his life but has dual citizenship and remains eligible to play for Ireland despite having played at under-age level for the United States and having participated in a training camp with Jurgen Klinsmann’s senior side earlier this year.
Who knows, Martin O’Neill might give him a call-up when Ireland visit the States to take on Portugal and Costa Rica next month. He’d be better than Joe Lapira anyway.
Hat-tip to Rob Quin for sending this one our way
