Heavyweight contest leaves soccer out for the count

THE BUILD-UP to this afternoon's FA Cup Final has felt less like a football story than a tale of the tape, a heavyweight eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with all the appropriate chest-pounding, shadow boxing and verbal sparring.

If it was anyone other than Arsenal and Manchester United we'd be certain we were in for a damp squib.

In the red corner there's Roy 'The Rebel-Rouser' Keane, and in the even redder corner, Pat 'The French Connector' Vieira.

Throw in a couple of managers who specialise in their own abrasive mind games, a recent history between the two sides of punches - or at least pizza - below the belt, and the prospect of incensed supporters invading the ring, and you have to ask yourself how the hell did Don King not get a part of this tasty little payday?

Vieira stoked up the temperature nicely early in the week when he recalled his last bout with Keane, that Highbury tunnel match-up in which the Irish international stepped in to defend little Gary 'The Pacifist' Neville, then infuriated Arsenal's French international by asking him why he didn't play for this native Senegal. Oops!

The Corkman might protest until the end of time that he only packed his bags in Saipan when, as he saw it, Mick McCarthy hurled the ultimate insult by suggesting that the player had feigned injury to get out of his Irish commitments. But Keane must also know that, as far as a large body of opinion is concerned, he simply did a runner and so questioning the man's concept of national allegiance just gave Vieira an open goal into which he fired home his riposte this week.

"For someone who leaves his team in the World Cup, I think he should keep this kind of remark to himself," said Big Pat. "He does not know my background and I do not want him to make a comment like that because he is not in a good position to say something like that.

"He walked away from his national team when they really needed him."

I know what you're thinking: Ireland v France can't come quickly enough.

Keano hasn't responded directly so far. Maybe he's saving it up for an intimate chat in the tunnel of the Millennium Stadium. His own comments in the run-up to the game have done their bit to keep the pot boiling, though you suspect the United captain was talking nothing but the truth.

"I know FA Cup finals can sometimes be an anti-climax but I think this one will be pretty explosive," he said. "Obviously there is that bit of rivalry which has built up over the years because we have been so close to each other. It is going to be a hard match physically."

Pretty explosive? That bit of rivalry? A hard match physically? Is Keano trying to tell us something here, do you think?

"Hopefully, the players will not get carried away and they will stay focused on the game but I am sure the referee will handle anything that might get out of control."

Music to Rob Styles' ears, no doubt, but then if the ref is having any problems, sure they can always send in the SAS.

Worryingly, there's the possibility that the game could be disrupted, or even abandoned, if the threat of staggered pitch invasions in carried out by the more militant United supporters protesting at Malcolm Glazer's takeover.

Season the whole steaming brew with that juicy little Fergie/Wenger spat over the fitness of Thierry Henry, and you have to wonder if this particular game of association football won't look quite so alien to the eyes of an American tycoon more accustomed to the gridiron culture that was once neatly summed up as 'surround 'em and pound 'em'.

Naïve question I know, but is there any chance at all that football might be the winner today? Even without the splendid Henry, there will be an abundance of talent on show at the Millennium Stadium as the two second-best teams in England try to salvage a season of disappointments at home and abroad.

Depending on whether he's in creative or sullen mode, Wayne Rooney, for one, is a player who could stamp his talent on the occasion. Or just stamp.

The consensus seems to be that the force is with Arsenal, observers pointing to their demolition job on Everton (and conveniently overlooking the slip-up against Birmingham) while United were being taken apart by a weakened Chelsea side. But it's worth remembering - indeed, by the very nature of the build-up, how could we forget? - that the force was with the Gunners to the tune of 49 games unbeaten when a hitherto unimpressive United abruptly put a stop to their gallop at Old Trafford last October.

However, for all sorts of reasons - some of them even to do with football - this is the final the FA Cup badly needed, an irony that won't be lost on neutrals who recall how United, bowing to FA pressure, abandoned the competition a few years back.

But there won't be too many neutrals inside Cardiff today, for a game which has bragging rights as well as silverware up for grabs.

I'm looking forward to it myself, though I'm not entirely convinced they shouldn't be sending Norman Mailer instead. Or maybe Robert Fisk.