Gary Breen
Gary Patrick Breen ( born December 12, 1973 in Hendon ) is an Irish football player. The 63- times Irish international played for nine different clubs, thereby rose with three clubs from the Premier League and changed from 2008 to Barnet FC, where he also held the position of assistant coach between 2009 and 2010.
Sports career
The career of the central defender began in the youth division of Charlton Athletic, where he remained barred the subsequent leap into the professional division. Instead Breen moved in March 1991 to the fourth division Maidstone United and arrived there at the age of 17 years to his first professional league games. That staying there at the " Stones" was short-lived, was less of a sporting nature, but lay in the failure of the club in 1992 justified - this finally stepped to the 1993/94 season as a "new Maidstone United" seven classes lower on. Breen had since been hired at fourth league rivals FC Gillingham and developed there for regular players. For 70,000 pounds, he joined the 1994/95 season at Peterborough United, who had recently relegated to the third division.
The club in Peterborough ultimately served as the springboard and after only 1 ½ years paid in February 1996 Erstligist Birmingham City £ 250,000 for the services of the young Irishman who thereby also interesting for the Irish national team was. On June 2, 1996, he came in a friendly against Croatia (2-2 ) to its first international match. There were only twelve months have passed and so moved Breen within the Premier League for £ 2.5 million to Coventry City. There he played ultimately to the end of the 2001/02 season - four out of five years in the English top division - and simultaneously strengthened its place in the Irish selection. The highlight there was his participation in the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, where he reached the second round under coach Mick McCarthy, in all games was on the court and in the 3-0 group stage win against Saudi Arabia scored one goal.
After the World Cup tournament, while Breen joined free transfer West Ham United, but left the club after just one year again, when the Hammers were relegated from the first division in 2003. Next address was the AFC Sunderland, which has now coached by former Irish coach McCarthy and later even made him the team captain. Breen succeeded with the "Black Cats" in the second year as second division champions the promotion to the Premier League, after he had previously failed yet in the play- off games - the stable and reliable performance in central defense and put him in the followers of the AFC Sunderland nicknamed "phenomenon" a. Nevertheless, he remained a year later the direct re- descent not spared and suffered these sporty check the Erstligaabstiegs already with a third club.
Through his new beginning with a two -year contract with the Wolverhampton Wanderers, he worked from then on with Mick McCarthy together, who had found there in the same year a new sporting challenge. He retired in 2007 with the " Wolves " in the play-offs, then but was sidelined due to injury more frequently in the season 2007 /08. He had at that time already ended, after he had declared in response to a non- nomination of the new athletic director Steve Staunton for the match against the Netherlands in August 2006 his resignation The National team career. Even when combined Breen stumbled over a disagreement with his coach when he after a game a loud argument with McCarthy made in March 2008, which caused his premature leave of absence before the end of the contract period.
Six months later, Breen moved to the fourth division FC Barnet. He worked there from the start in parallel on the coaching staff of the " Bees " and acted on the side of Ian Hendon between June 2009 and his departure from the club in the summer of 2010 in the official assistant coach function.