Hit and miss

You expect World Cups to have their moments of drama, but most of them tend to come after the tournament’s kicked off! Before addressing the inevitable, can I just say that I was blown away with some of the football we played. You can argue the toss about individual players but, as a team, I’ve rarely seen Ireland perform as well as they did in that final half-hour against Germany or the entire second half against Spain.

These are quality sides who we made look ordinary. The credit for that goes fairly and squarely to Mick McCarthy who was pretty much spot-on tactically. That said, if things had been managed properly, Roy Keane, would still have been involved. The first question that has to be asked is, “Why, knowing what was going on, didn’t the FAI do more to arbitrate?” They should’ve got both parties to thrash it out one-on-one, not in front of 22 squad players who had their loyalties torn every which way. Mick’s an intelligent enough man. He knew that as good as the other lads are, Ireland’s chances of reaching the semis or the final itself would’ve been far greater with Roy Keane.

By the same token, Roy should’ve just bitten the bullet and gone, “Look, this is probably going to be my last World Cup. I’m the captain of the team and I’m going to give it my best shot.” That’s certainly what he said to me before he left. He was as proud as anything to be leading his country out in a major competition.

Why didn’t he apologise for his choice of language, whilst at the same time standing by the content of his grievances? I’m not going to betray confidences, but my understanding is that something like that was said. An olive branch was offered to the management out there and refused.

Events over the past few days may have overtaken me, but I wouldn’t be totally surprised if Mick McCarthy ends up at Leeds. To get the quality of passing and battling spirit out of a side that he did during the World Cup, you have to be a good manager. While no quitter, I can’t imagine Mick wanting to spend the next few months answering non-stop questions about the content of Roy and Eamon Dunphy’s book. Especially as its publication will coincide with our first European Championship qualifier in Moscow.

I think he enjoys the day-to-day contact with players too much to give up on club management at the moment, but again, it’s not inconceivable that David O’Leary will go the other way and take over as Ireland manager.

I can appreciate why the Leeds board deemed missing out on Europe a failure, but sacking David before the start of the season wasn’t something I expected. I don’t think he did himself any favours by being so forthright in his columns and on TV. I didn’t see it myself, but if The Sunday Times are right and he really identified his own player, Danny Mills, as a potential weakness in the England team, I can understand Peter Risdale being miffed.

I think we’ve reached the stage where clubs are going to go: “Part of you getting ‘X’ million pounds over the next three years is that you don’t write a newspaper column.” Or, as in David’s case, a book addressing the trial of some of your key players. None of which detracts from the positive things he achieved at Leeds, like that wonderful Champions League run.

Returning to the World Cup and I have to say I was bowled over by Damien Duff. It may well be a done deal already, but if I was Gerard Houllier I’d be doing everything in my power to bring him to Anfield. If he wore a yellow shirt and had -inhio at the end of his name, Real Madrid and Juventus would be in there like a shot!

Robbie Keane’s shown he can do it at the highest level before but, even so, I thought he was outstanding. Hard act to follow or not, Matt Holland filled Roy Keane’s boots superbly and Gary Breen played out of his skin. Another player whose name will have made it into Spanish and Italian notebooks is Shay Given. Without him, I doubt if we’d have made it beyond the group stages.

I’ve always had Brazil as my second-team, so once Ireland were knocked out I was rooting for Big Phil’s men. Their game against Costa Rica was a joy – unless you’re a defensive coach, that is! The “If they score three, we’ll score four” mentality only works if you’ve got the best strikers in the world, which Brazil do!

A question somebody asked me today is: “If you were Alex Ferguson with £40 or £50 million to spend on World Cup players, who would you buy?”

Well, first I’d sell Veron and Barthez to raise some extra cash, and then I’d go all guns blazing for Rio Ferdinand who completely came of age during the World Cup; the Turkish keeper Rustu; and his number 11 teammate Sas who was a handful from start to finish. I’d also try and gazump Gerard Houllier – not for the Senegalese lad, El Hadji Diouf, who I’m not convinced is suited to Premiership, but for Damien Duff. Who you’d drop from the Man U line-up to make way for him I don’t know, but he’d definitely give the team an extra dimension.

Having witnessed the hatred that’s sometimes been directed at them in the past, it was great to hear Irish people saying, “If we get knocked out, I’m rooting for England.” A large part of that was down to the BBC and ITV’s coverage being far less jingoistic than of old and very supportive of Ireland. It also helped that there were no scenes of so-called England fans rioting. It’d be naïve to think that the World Cup marked the end of hooliganism, but it was a certainly a step in the right direction.

Of course, the most important match of the month took place after Brazil beat Germany. Congratulations to my old club St. Patrick’s Athletic for making it through to the second round of the Inter Toto Cup. Forget the Irish, you’ll never beat the Supersaints!