Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill has ribbed his assistant Roy Keane for his famed fiery temper during ITV’s post-match analysis of Brazil’s 2-0 win over Costa Rica on Friday.
Second-half goals from Philippe Coutinho and Neymar gave Brazil their first win of the group stage after an opening round draw with Switzerland, however, the match was somewhat blighted by Neymar’s constant bickering with match referee Bjorn Kuipers.
Keane said after the match that he had learned towards the end of his playing career that arguing with officials would generally result in less favourable calls towards his team, a point that was quickly picked up on by O’Neill.
“What I thought towards the end of my career, maybe it was a bit late, I used to give referees a hard time,” Keane said before O’Neill interrupted “towards the end of your career? I would have said 15 minutes into it.”
Keane continued: “The penny dropped for me but then you soon realise that the more you give referees hassle, any 50/50 decisions they will go against you but I found that out too late.”
O’Neill countered Keane’s point and said that his theory typically held no weight when it concerned Keane’s former team Manchester United and their home games.
“It’s simply untrue. Especially at Old Trafford when you get 15 men around the referee. He’s going to bottle it.”
The pair were comedy gold on ITV all afternoon.
Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane were a wonderful double act on ITV today 😆 pic.twitter.com/g64OVlh8V3
— Kevin Palmer 💙 (@RealKevinPalmer) June 22, 2018
More entertaining than most Ireland games anyway…
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