Eamon Dunphy has admitted to being underwhelmed by the standard of fare and Euro 2016 and believes the game’s brightest stars are burning out due to the rigours of a demanding calendar.
Euro 2016 concluded in Paris on Sunday night, where a Portugal side shorn of the talismanic Cristiano Ronaldo after just 25 minutes managed to grind out a 1-0 extra-time victory over hosts France.
“It was a poor tournament overall,” the veteran RTÉ pundit lamented when speaking to 2fm's Game On.
“There wasn’t one really outstanding team in it, and Portugal are well organised.”
One man who did come in for praise was Portugal boss Fernando Santos (pictured below), who masterminded the unlikely triumph.
“They’re good winners and a well-coached team,” Dunphy said. “Even if you look at Nani’s performance, this coach has something - he got more out of Nani than anyone’s ever got, including Alex Ferguson.”
“I thought Ronaldo looked thin earlier in the tournament. I think he’s lost weight."
The former Millwall stalwart cited burnout as one of the main factors which may have compromised the standard of play at Euro 2016, and believes many of those tipped to star at the tournament, including Ronaldo, came into the tournament jaded after long, hard seasons.
“You get injured when your conditioning is wrong and when you’re not fit,” Dunphy opined.
“I thought Ronaldo looked thin earlier in the tournament. I think he’s lost weight.
“He finished the season in Madrid injured and didn’t really perform in the Champions League. This is one of the two or three great players in the game and he’s got to turn up in three weeks’ time and play.
“We can’t be doing this to people. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Expanding on his position, Dunphy added: “We need to protect the great players in the game - and we haven’t got many of them, as this tournament has underlined.
“I think we’re playing far too much football, demanding far too much of these lads, and there’s a crowd now from China who want to start another competition.
“Football has always been a badly-run sport, but in the decades to come all of that is going to come home to roost.
“And in the near future too, you’ll have more tournaments like this one. Don’t forget, the last World Cup wasn’t great.”
Dunphy also insisted that quantity is now trumping quality due to the commercial appeal of arguably the only truly global sport.
“It’s about television money, about sponsorship money and that’s the whole name of the game - get them plating all the time so that people at home won’t get bored,” he said.
“But you’ll crucify the players and you’ll get a different kind of player - they won’t be great.”
The lucrative international pre-season circuit also came in for criticism, with Dunphy adding: “If they don’t have championships, they have Mickey Mouse tournaments.”
“Look at the Premier League clubs. They’re all off to China now. The first Manchester derby will be in China between City and United.
“That’s in a few weeks’ time. I think the players are being crucified. They get a lot of money but that’s not the point.
“The point is they’re people, and to be at their best to entertain us, and thrill us, and make us dream, they have to be protected, they have to be fit to play and they should be playing no more than 50 games a year, in my opinion.”
Many listeners will have been shocked to hear a softening in Dunphy’s stance on the winning captain at the Stade de France on Sunday, with Dunphy saying: “I’ve been among his severest critics because he’s vain, he’s not really a team player, the whole cult of ‘me, me, me’ isn’t terribly attractive at first, but now I think it’s almost endearing!
“He’s done so much in the game and now – if you keep doing it year after year – the goal he scored against Wales is a very memorable goal, the height he climbed, the way he made a yard of space for himself.
“He’s a great, great player of this era, of any era. There’s probably never been a goalscoring machine like him.”
