The Football News Thread 2024/25
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jlo
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Wonder what the 16 people working for him are being paid...
John Giles retired from football punditry yesterday at the ripe old age of 84 . He had spent years as a pundit with RTE , as well as writing weekly columns on the print media .
He then left RTE and joined up with a new Football show called ' Off the Ball ' on Newstalk and had a weekly slot on that .
All of the above of course was preceded by a long and lengthy career as a Footballer and Manager . Giles squeezed a lot into his life .
I always loved listening to him . He cut through all the nonsense and would get straight to the heart of the matter . He never suffered fools and had little time for instance for the antics of Ronaldo , and called that out at an early stage .
Most of all however he kept emphasizing that Football was a simple game , and that if you watched the great players they rarely complicated matters .
He would often say that the best midfielders are the ones that always look for the ball , always look to control the play from several areas of the pitch , as opposed to just sitting in or around the same area ( Neves comes to mind ) , ' get it and give it ' as he would say .
He'll be missed , and even at 84 years old he could match a fair chunk of what's out there now and who classify themselves as pundits .
Interestingly , he never had any issue with the money that players earn today , comparing it instead to how clubs treated played back in the 1950s and 1960s , often referencing the Manchester United players who survived the Munich Air crash and how they were treated by the club afterwards once they returned ( which apparently was quite poor ) .
He would also often contrast the treatment of injured players today versus before - using Matt Busby as an example . Great Manager that he was , but Busby was only ever interested in the players that were fit , and Giles maintained that back then an injured player was forgotten about pretty much and not really given the full help they needed .
Giles - always interesting , you'd never feel the time go by when he was talking .
He then left RTE and joined up with a new Football show called ' Off the Ball ' on Newstalk and had a weekly slot on that .
All of the above of course was preceded by a long and lengthy career as a Footballer and Manager . Giles squeezed a lot into his life .
I always loved listening to him . He cut through all the nonsense and would get straight to the heart of the matter . He never suffered fools and had little time for instance for the antics of Ronaldo , and called that out at an early stage .
Most of all however he kept emphasizing that Football was a simple game , and that if you watched the great players they rarely complicated matters .
He would often say that the best midfielders are the ones that always look for the ball , always look to control the play from several areas of the pitch , as opposed to just sitting in or around the same area ( Neves comes to mind ) , ' get it and give it ' as he would say .
He'll be missed , and even at 84 years old he could match a fair chunk of what's out there now and who classify themselves as pundits .
Interestingly , he never had any issue with the money that players earn today , comparing it instead to how clubs treated played back in the 1950s and 1960s , often referencing the Manchester United players who survived the Munich Air crash and how they were treated by the club afterwards once they returned ( which apparently was quite poor ) .
He would also often contrast the treatment of injured players today versus before - using Matt Busby as an example . Great Manager that he was , but Busby was only ever interested in the players that were fit , and Giles maintained that back then an injured player was forgotten about pretty much and not really given the full help they needed .
Giles - always interesting , you'd never feel the time go by when he was talking .
