{"id":631445,"date":"2026-09-21T13:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631445\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T13:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:50:13","slug":"joe-ocearuill-the-ex-ireland-international-who-says-his-son-jj-gabriel-is-the-next-messi-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631445\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe O\u2019Cearuill: The ex-Ireland international who says his son JJ Gabriel is the next Messi \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe O\u2019Cearuill wouldn\u2019t want to be sensitive. Since the news broke last week about his 15-year-old son telling Manchester United<\/a> that he wants to leave the club, where he\u2019s been since he was nine, his character has been somewhat questioned. Not least by elements of the woebegone United faithful who already had enough to be fretting about. <\/p>\n

As an active enough user of social media, O\u2019Cearuill will no doubt be aware by now that he, as his son\u2019s \u2018representative\u2019, is being held entirely responsible for a situation that has been likened to Barcelona losing Lionel Messi<\/a> before he ever played a senior game for them. Which didn\u2019t, of course, happen. But that\u2019s how cataclysmic this development is.<\/p>\n

For the uninitiated, O\u2019Cearuill is a 39-year-old retired footballer who played twice for the Republic of Ireland, the Londoner the son of an Irish mother and a Trinidadian father. His career took him on a winding path of largely non-league clubs, having started his professional days with Arsenal. <\/p>\n

His son is JJ Gabriel, a young fella so gifted he\u2019s had United fans in a tizzy since they first started seeing clips of him in action for the club\u2019s underage teams. He scores shed-loads of goals and his touch is so exquisite, he makes Messi look as slick on the ball as Harry Maguire. <\/p>\n

He is United\u2019s reigning young player of the year, joining a roll of honour that includes the likes of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes (and Alejandro Garnacho). He\u2019s already on a long-term deal with Nike and has represented England all through the underage ranks. The chances of him switching allegiances to Ireland? Probably much the same as United\u2019s hopes of winning the league this season. Zilch, like.<\/p>\n

\"ManchesterManchester United rejected JJ Gabriel’s request to leave the club but could still lose the hotly-tipped youngster amid reports that he has travelled to Barcelona for talks over a potential move. Photograph: Martin Rickett\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

Since he informed United that he wants to leave, he hasn\u2019t turned up for training, and missed out on the chance of becoming the club\u2019s youngest ever first team player, there having been talk of him being given his debut against Brighton in the League Cup on Wednesday. (A game United, need it be said, lost, having led 2-0). <\/p>\n

A note on that name, JJ Gabriel. He was born Joseph Junior Andreou O\u2019Cearuill. But the interweb tells us that his father later changed his name for marketing reasons, reckoning that \u2018Joe O\u2019Cearuill Jr\u2019 didn\u2019t have a superstar ring about it. This, said the interweb, was further evidence that Dad is a wrong \u2018un. <\/p>\n

But the usually ever-reliable Athletic says that the father \u201cchanged the family surname in recognition of his and his wife\u2019s religious beliefs [she is Cypriot] and because his given name carried little meaning to him\u201d. So, take your pick. <\/p>\n

You will also have to choose from the sundry theories about why Gabriel has asked United to cancel his registration with the club.<\/p>\n

1) He (and his Da) have been offered a ton of loot by several major European clubs, including Real Madrid and Barcelona, offers no one in their right mind would turn down. 2) He (and his Da) are peeved that he\u2019s not already in United\u2019s first team, even though, say, Diogo Dalot, is. 3) He (and his Da) have concluded that United are going nowhere, so him staying would be akin to using a Ferrari to plough a field. <\/p>\n

All or none of these things could be true, neither father nor son has spoken publicly about the to-do, but that hasn\u2019t stopped Da being cast as a greedy, pushy, brash parent who has lost the run of himself and isn\u2019t acting in his son\u2019s best interests. <\/p>\n

No end of \u201csources\u201d have been quoted about O\u2019Cearuill being a touch difficult to deal with, even worse than your average tennis parent, with multiple anecdotes being related by way of example. The truth of these? God knows. <\/p>\n

Now, granted, he hasn\u2019t always acted wisely when sharing his thoughts on his son\u2019s abilities, once likening him to Messi, Neymar and Lamine Yamal on social media. The last United youngster who was subjected to that level of hype was probably Ravel Morrison. His career subsequently took on the shape of a pear, and these days – at the age of 33 – he\u2019s playing in the UAE second division with an outfit by the name of Arabian Falcons. There might be a lesson there. <\/p>\n

It was back in 2008, when he was director of football at St Patrick\u2019s Athletic, that Brian Kerr signed O\u2019Cearuill from Barnet. Having read the interweb last week, there was only one question to ask Kerr. \u201cWas he a bit of a mad fella?\u201d <\/p>\n

\"JoeJoe O’Cearuill in action for Saint Patrick’s Athletic in 2008. Photograph: Donall Farmer\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cNo – I found him to be a quiet, courteous and decent lad. I checked out about him with the [Irish] staff who were in the US the previous year, when he played his two games for Ireland, and nobody had a bad word to say about him. I couldn\u2019t believe he was at Barnet and available. I think we got him for a few stone of potatoes, or something. They were looking for 10k!\u201d<\/p>\n

So, he wasn\u2019t a bad \u2018un? \u201cNo – Jim Lawler, the kit man from then, got on very well with him. He contacted Jim and invited him to the hotel and the Man U v Leeds pre-season friendly at the Aviva in August, which was very thoughtful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that this character reference absolves O\u2019Cearuill of the crime of breaking United hearts, but perhaps there\u2019s just a chance that he is acting in his son\u2019s best interests by attempting to extract him from the sh*tshow that is Manchester United, even if he\u2019s been a little, well, brash along the way. If they do lose \u2018Kid Messi\u2019, United will, you\u2019d suspect, look for a bit more than a few stone of potatoes by way of compensation. <\/p>\n

PS Before you feel too sorry for United, a headline from earlier this month: \u201cManchester United poach Liverpool wonderkid.\u201d Hello? \u201cUnited have landed a huge transfer coup by luring 16-year-old Liverpool wonderkid Isaac Konde to Old Trafford.\u201d Ah here. Go well, JJ. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe O\u2019Cearuill wouldn\u2019t want to be sensitive. Since the news broke last week about his 15-year-old son telling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,917,43,1842,136434],"class_list":["post-631445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-manchester-united","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-st-patrick-s-athletic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}