by Irish doctors beat British rivals 1-0 to win Medical Football World Cup
A team of medical doctors from Ireland have won the World Medical Football Championships.
The 11-strong Ireland team beat Britain 1-0 in Vienna today to claim the crown after a playing a gruelling six games in seven days.
They came out on top of 24 teams from around the world, with the winning goal scored by Dr Fergal Moran, nephew of Ireland football legend Kevin Moran.
Ireland managed to make its way out of a group of death featuring the USA and two former winners of the event, Hungary and Brazil, beating all three sides – 3-1 vs USA, 2-0 vs Hungary and 3-0 over Brazil.
In the knockout rounds, Ireland again faced Hungary, winning 3-1 on penalties; before seeing off Spain in the semis by 4-2 in another penalty shootout.
“The final was against a combined Great Britain team, who had won 2 of the last 3 tournaments,” the team said. “A physical battle in 30C heat was decided by a storming header from Fergal Moran, nephew of a certain Kevin Moran who also played centre back for Ireland in his time.”
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“The squad was full of brave, exceptional performances throughout the week,” the team said afterwards.
“Kerry goalkeeper Padraic McCarthy kept 4 clean sheets, saved 2 penalties in normal time and saved an incredible 5 out of 7 penalties across 2 shootouts.
“Radiologist Brian Gaffney created many of Ireland’s goals and football’s loss is medicine’s gain. Oisin Pennycook was a constant threat down the wing.
The Irish Medical Football Team
“Indeed Ireland were blessed with pace in attack in the form of Michael Nugent, Fionn Nally, David Gildea and David Doherty. Our relentless midfield engines were Niall Collins, Paul O’Brien, David Mullins, Gabor Farkas and Adrian Yan. Our impenetrable wall of defenders included team captain Andrew Delany, Fergal Moran, Richard Bambury, Gareth Linehan, Colm Kirby, David Synnott, Connor Gallagher, Ed Garrahy and Peter Neary.
“Over 40 year old target men were Ronan Murray, David Greaney and Gavin Keane.”
The rules of the competition are the same as normal 11-a-side, with the exception of roll-on, roll-off substitutions and a requirement for two over-35 players and two over-40 players to be on the pitch at all times, in order to encourage players to keep competing as they get older.