Cork native John was a stand-out player at underage level for Ireland, captaining the Under-19s to the semi-finals of the UEFA U19 European Championships in 2011.

He became a regular for the Under-21s and also wore the captain's armband for that team. At the same time, his club career started to take off after originally starting out at Sunderland.

The intelligent cantre-back had loan spells with Crystal Palace, Sheffield United, Bradford City and Southend United before joining Gillingham in 2014.

A regular with Gillingham, where he scored 10 goals, John opted to move to Brentford in 2016 and was appointed as club captain. Then in 2018, he joined Sheffield United for what was then a club transfer record fee.

John made his Ireland senior debut in a home friendly against Iceland in 2017. He led Ireland out as captain against Bulgaria in 2019.

Under manager Stephen Kenny, John Egan has gone from strength to strength and has been captain under Kenny on a number of occasions when Seamus Coleman is unavailable for selection. 

Egan scored his first-ever international goal in the heart-breaking 2-1 defeat against Portugal in the Algarve in September 2021 when his fine header put Ireland ahead against the home side until the final minutes of the game when Cristiano Ronaldo scored a brace to give the home side the victory.