{"id":174893,"date":"2025-09-28T10:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T10:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/174893\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T10:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T10:08:09","slug":"celtic-icon-martin-oneill-hilariously-shares-what-happened-when-he-asked-irish-fa-to-appoint-roy-keane-as-his-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/174893\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic icon Martin O’Neill hilariously shares what happened when he asked Irish FA to appoint Roy Keane as his assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Celtic icon Martin O\u2019Neill is not known for taking no for an answer.<\/p>\n

The legendary Hoops manager, who paved the way for Brendan Rodgers<\/a> by becoming the first Celtic<\/a> boss of the 21st century to win the treble, has made friends and enemies across his 30 years in the dugout.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill<\/a> came to Celtic Park<\/a> in 2000, in a time when Celtic felt lost. Despite a first league title in a decade in 1998, the appointments of Josef Venglos and John Barnes had failed to build on that success.<\/p>\n

The Irishman called time on a successful period at Leicester to come to Celtic Park, and what a decision that was. By the time he departed Glasgow in 2005, he was one of the most adored Hoops managers of his era.<\/p>\n

His career since then hasn\u2019t been bad either \u2013 including a spell in charge of the Republic of Ireland, when one ex-Celtic man was his assistant.<\/p>\n

Celtic hero Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s Roy Keane story<\/p>\n

Roy Keane<\/a> isn\u2019t known for taking prisoners either, and eyebrows were raised throughout football when he agreed to follow O\u2019Neill back into the Ireland setup in 2013.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Celtic hero admits his decision to exit Celtic for La Liga was \u2018really stupid\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\"CelticPhoto by Richard Sellers\/Sportsphoto\/Allstar via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Keane\u2019s extremely infamous incident with Mick McCarthy<\/a> in Saipan in 2002 spelled the end of his Ireland playing career.<\/p>\n

It left his relationship with the FAI significantly damaged \u2013 but over a decade on, the opportunity to work with O\u2019Neill in the management team proved too good to turn down.<\/p>\n

However, the association understandably took some convincing, as O\u2019Neill recalled on The Late Late Show, saying: \u201cFunnily enough, John Delaney was in charge of proceedings at that time. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted me to be manager and I said to him, \u2018what about an assistant?\u2019 I said \u2018I\u2019ve got one in mind\u2019 and he asked who it would be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said \u2018Roy Keane\u2019 and then John fainted and fell down, because Roy had a spat with him some years earlier. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he recovered after about 20 minutes he said \u2018Ok, I\u2019ll go with it.\u2019 And it was honestly terrific, we had a lovely time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irish national team has gone downhill since Martin O\u2019Neill<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s last involvement in a major international tournament came with O\u2019Neill and Keane at the helm \u2013 and it was an enjoyable one, too.<\/p>\n

One point from their first two group games at Euro 2016 in France left them in need of a win against Italy in Lille \u2013 and the ex-Celtic pair masterminded just that, with Robbie Brady scoring the only goal.<\/p>\n

A tough task against hosts France in the first knockout round proved to be a step too far, as they were beaten 2-1 despite taking the lead in the second minute.<\/p>\n

They have not been back in a major tournament since, despite the appointments of Mick McCarthy, Stephen Kenny and Heimir Hallgrimsson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic icon Martin O\u2019Neill is not known for taking no for an answer. The legendary Hoops manager, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,113571,596,113572,113573,53958,85],"class_list":["post-174893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celtic","tag-football","tag-martin-oneill","tag-republic-of-ireland","tag-roy-keane","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}