Back when ROB first signed I posted a small story about this.. But this article is much deeper and gives a bunch of background on ROB. posted without permission.... -------------------------------------- Ronnie O'Brien: Man of the Century? By Trevor Keane Tribalfootball.com - January 10, 2003 Trevor Keane tracks the career of former Juventus starlet Ronnie O'Brien, now in the process of resurrecting his career in the USA. Back in the year 2000 everybody was going dot.com crazy - if it was to do with Internet then it was hot, very hot. That year Time online magazine ran a poll to see who was the most important person of the century, the winner, contrived by thousands of soccer hungry Irish fans was none other than Ronnie O'Brien. Time online eventually realised something was not right and restricted the nomination to 100 people with Albert Einstein eventually winning but the people had already spoken. So what had Ronnie done to earn the respect of the Irish, well he had just signed for none other than Italian giants Juventus, that's what. After Bryan Robson had decided that he was not good enough to make the grade at Middlesborough and released him, Juventus stepped in. Juventus had seen a video of Ronnie playing for the Irish U18 team that won the European Championship and were impressed. All that was needed was an agent, this is where football genius Paul Merson stepped in. Merson put the Irish youngster in touch with his agent. The agent who now represents Ronnie had contacts in Italy and after meeting with Robert Bettega (this former player speaks perfect English as he shared a room for a while with Liam Brady) and the General Manager; Ronnie signed a five-year deal. After 2 ½ months and a first team debut in the Intertoto Cup O'Brien was loaned out to Lugano in Switzerland. However there were internal problems at Lugano and he returned to Turin. Upon return he was sent to Crotone who at the time were leading the Serie C and eventually promoted. Although Crotone were top when he arrived the experience was very beneficial to O'Brien and he returned to Turin hungry for first team football. O'Brien was soon loaned out to another Italian club Lecco, this time getting the chance to play in Serie B. The lack of a reserve team at Juventus seemed to be hindering his progress and it was no surprise to learn after his spell with Lecco that he would be going on loan again. This time, after a trial with a then David Platt managed Nottingham Forest was stopped after international clearance failed to arrive, he ended up on Scottish shores with Dundee United. Alex Smith was another one to see potential in the youngster, and it was agreed that after a season long loan that if Ronnie impressed he would be signed on a permanent basis. But it seems to be the case that Ronnie is not living up to his enormous potential and after 13 games and a goal there was another club on the horizon. This time he left European shores for the chance to play major league soccer in North America, signing for the Dallas Burn. Mick Jeffries, the coach of the Burn saw enough potential to cut one man from their roster and grant a visa to the Irishman. It looks as though under the guidance of Jeffries we may see Ronnie back in Europe as he is finally settling down and playing good football. He scored the golden goal in the quarter final of the Lamar Hunt cup. Ronnie was also involved in the victory over a Carlos Valderama/John Spencer lead Colorado Rapids team in the play off series, although the Burn eventually suffered the heartbreak of losing to a golden goal in the final game. Time will only tell if Ronnie lives up his potential but not many 23 years old can say that they have trained with Zidane, shared a room with Antonio Conte and played against Carlos Valderrama.