PELE’S visit to Ireland this week reminded me that I’ve been lucky enough to meet with the five footballers I consider to be the greatest of all time: George Best, Maradona, Johann Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane and ‘El Rei’ himself.

“I CAN’T get sent off this time but we can still win 2-0,” says Liam Brady with a laugh.

AN historic week in Irish football didn’t begin and end with Marco Tardelli’s press conference at FAI headquarters in Abbotstown on Tuesday.

MY earliest memory of anything to do with rugby was the horror of the Christian Brothers in the early 1950s at the news that Eamon de Valera described rugby as his favourite game.