Gone but definitely not forgotten
Still, he must offer the occasional raised eyebrow or trademark shrug of the shoulder at the odd realisation that he seems to be turning up in the headlines more since he retired from international football than he ever did before.
Of course, down all the years the Duffer often featured high up in the match reports but that was all about his feet doing the talking. Otherwise, his fabled aversion to the limelight meant that he almost made a career out of keeping the meeja at arm’s length.
The definitive tale is the one about the well-intentioned PR person who spent a considerable amount of time trying to persuade the player of the value of doing a promotional gig. Duff respectfully heard him out, considered the proposal for a moment and then offered this unanswerable response: “But how will that make me a better footballer?”
When Damien Duff announced his Irish retirement last month, he was forced into the uncomfortable position of having to do a minor media blitz to explain his decision – and, always as bright as he was elusive, well he did it too. Still, you could imagine him heaving a sigh of relief once it was over – now he could get back to family, friends and football at Fulham.
Yet, there were some who were not prepared to let him be, chief among them Giovanni Trapattoni and Marco Tardelli. It was Tardelli, after Irish training in Malahide one day, who was the first to almost casually float the notion that maybe Duff could be persuaded to change his mind, a proposition which seemed to me at the time to belong firmly in the category of ‘wishful thinking aloud’ but which, once uttered in the presence of the microphones, proceeded to take on a life of its own.
Not that Trapattoni hardly went out of his way to dampen the speculation, even if only to offer variations on his catch-all philosophy of “never say never”.
There’s no doubt that the manager genuinely has a high regard for Duff as a man and a footballer. Whenever he talks about him, it is with evident emotion and, invariably, the touching mime of placing his hand on his heart. That the feeling is mutual was also clear in Duff’s own explanation of how he wobbled in his determination to proceed with his retirement plan under the charm offensive launched by the Italian.
The coincidence that Ireland played Oman at Duff’s home turf of Craven Cottage earlier this month only ensured that the story would gain fresh legs. ‘Spot the Duffer’ was the name of the game for the Irish media present but, not for the first time, he gave us the slip. Afterwards, with Kevin Doyle taking advantage of the occasion to observe that, in his opinion, Duff was “well and truly retired”, there was even a hint that Trap himself was finally about to let sleeping Duffs lie.
Which is probably where an unnecessarily tangled saga would and should have ended, except that this week Duff was back in the Irish football headlines – and, once again, through no fault or desire of his own. The remarkable revelation that a cock-up by the Hungarian FA had resulted in the friendly in Budapest last June not being recognised by FIFA appeared set – at least for a few hours – to cruelly rob the player of his centurion status as an Irish international. Happily, in an Irish solution to a Hungarian problem, the FAI rode to the rescue by exercising their discretionary right to award international caps, with the result that Damien Duff deservedly stays on the 100 mark.
And, more to the point, will stay forever on the 100 mark, even if, for just those few hours, there were doubtless more than a few thinking that maybe, just maybe, the great man could be coaxed into, at least, one more outing in the green shirt. In fact, in his column in today’s paper, Keith Andrews quips that it might be actually be a good idea to withhold that cap, if it means that Duff could be persuaded to give the lads a “dig out” in next month’s game against Germany.
In splendid form at Fulham, the player is not far off the top of his game and, even if not quite the wing wizard he was in his pomp, experience has only added value to the many attributes he brought to the Irish game, from tying up opposition markers to an uncanny ability to win free-kicks which, given Ireland’s limited creativity, act both as much needed pressure relief and springboard for the attack.
The logical replacement is James McClean, and while he didn’t help his cause in Kazakhstan, the manager is enough of a football pragmatist to be able to park all that if he thought the Derry flyer was the man for job. But, bizarrely, it seems he doesn’t. Just as he doesn’t see Robbie Brady as even a wild card option.
Instead, Trapattoni tried three different wide men in the course of 90 minutes in Astana – Simon Cox, Jon Walters and Shane Long – before opting for yet another converted striker, Andy Keogh, in that position for the game against Oman.
With Germany coming and — lest anyone should underestimate the challenge — a genuinely tricky trip to the Faroes to follow, Trapattoni has a big call to make. And how he opts to fill that Duff-shaped hole will not only have a big bearing on Ireland’s World Cup qualification hopes but could even prove critical to his own position as manager.
