McCarthy prior to his debut in 1984
McCarthy made his way to Scottish giants Glasgow Celtic in 1987 for £500,000. His time at Celtic was plagued by injuries and he found it hard to establish a firm place in the starting eleven. Having said that, Celtic won the Scottish League and Cup double in the 1987 - 1988 season; McCarthy also basked in the considerable limelight that the Irish team enjoyed during the 1988 European Championships in West Germany. He played in all three of Ireland's matches and returned to a heroes' welcome along with the rest of the squad after Ireland were eliminated by Holland. A year later McCarthy left Celtic and moved to the French club Olympic Lyon. He returned to England less than a year later and joined the South London club Millwall. He played at The Den for several seasons before he was made Manager in 1992.
In 1996 Mick McCarthy succeeded Jack Charlton as manager of the Republic of Ireland's Senior side. The significance of this role cannot be overstated - Charlton had taken the Irish team from being brave underachievers to a team that had purpose, conviction and a genuine belief that they could beat any team on their day. Charlton had brought the Irish team to the 1988 European Championship Finals, and to the 1990 and 1994 World Cup Finals. Lesser men would have baulked at the prospect of following in the footsteps of a manager as successful as Charlton. McCarthy, however, took on the role and - in many ways - moved Irish football on, building on the platform that Charlton had left.
McCarthy brought in younger players and tried to encourage a style of play that was more attractive for supporters to watch. He brought Ireland to the brink of qualifying for the 1998 World Cup Finals and Euro 2000 as well. In September 2001 Ireland enjoyed one of their finest moments of recent times when they beat Holland 1-0 in a qualifying match for the 2002 World Cup. Ireland finished second in their qualifying group behind Portugal and qualified for the Finals after beating Iran in the play-off; the sterling performances of the Irish team ensured that rivals Holland did not even make it to the play-offs!
Regrettably, the 2002 World Cup Finals will always be remembered in Ireland for one reason - Roy Keane. There were many underlying reasons which led to what happened - too many to go into here! Basically, Roy Keane left the Irish squad before the tournament had even started; Ireland were unable to call up a replacement player because the playing squad had already been submitted to FIFA. The Irish team nonetheless still enjoyed a successful tournament - they came from behind to draw with Cameroon 1-1; Robbie Keane scored an injury-time equaliser to ensure an identical score against Germany; and they convincingly beat Saudi Arabia. The team played very well considering the circumstances behind the Roy Keane incident. The second-half against Cameroon and most of the match against Germany showed the world that the Irish were a team to be reckoned with and that in Damien Duff and Robbie Keane they had two potentially world-class players. They unluckily lost to Spain in the second-round on penalties. Spain took an early lead in the first half; at the start of the second half, Ireland won a penalty which was saved - the pressure of the situation got to Ian Harte and he sent the ball straight at the Spanish goalkeeper. As the game went on Ireland became more and more attack-minded and began to create chance after chance. Spain substituted most of their attacking players for defensive ones. Just as the ninety minutes was up, Hierro was seen by the referee pulling Niall Quinn's shirt and Ireland were given another penalty. With Ian Harte now off the field, the responsibilty for the penalty fell to Robbie Keane. Keane cooly despatched the penalty taking the match into extra time. During Extra Time, Ireland played some of the finest football seen in the whole tournament; Spain had taken off all their attacking players leaving them with little option but to play for penalties. The Irish attacked relentlessly but could not find the goal that would take them through to the Quarter Finals. Spain won the match on penalties and Ireland were out.
Ireland's qualifying campaign for the 2004 European Championships started badly putting pressure on Mick McCarthy. Many people in Ireland were (and still are) unhappy with McCarthy because of what happened with Roy Keane. McCarthy resigned as Manager of Ireland soon afterwards and took up the manager's duties at Sunderland. His performances at Sunderland have been quite impressive: when he took over they were a team that was sliding downwards at a rate of knots and at one point seemed to be on the brink of relegation to the English Second Division. However, in 2004 they made it to the play-offs for promotion to the English Premiership, and also made it to the FA Cup Semi-Finals. In 2005 they were finally promoted back to the Premiership but were relegated the following season. McCarthy left Sunderland took over at Wolves as the manager.
Mick McCarthy won 57 caps for the Republic of Ireland and scored twice during
that time. He was captain for 22 of those matches; while he was captain, Ireland
were only defeated twice - a statistic that surely says something about his
considerable leadership and pride. He now continues to manage at Wolves.
