Disappearing acts tragedy of the decade for Irish soccer

“GIVEN the time of the year that’s in it, I suppose you’ll be wanting an oul’ look back on the decade, boss,” I said to the Commander-In-Chief, as I plumped up the pillows behind his back and spoon-fed him his favourite tipple of brandy and Complan.

“Would have wanted it, Mackey, would have,” he barked. “But I think you’ll find that it’s now January the second, which means you’ve managed to miss yet another deadline and this time by a full 24 hours.”

“Au contraire, stout yeoman,” I cheerfully replied. “If I may be so bold, I think you’ll find that the so-called noughties don’t actually end until the 31st of December, 2010, which means, by my reckoning, that I’ve actually beaten the deadline by almost a full twelve months.”

I could tell the Commander-in Chief was impressed by the way he quickly unscrewed his brand-new solid-gold artificial leg and began beating me about the head with it in what I took to be an affectionate Phoenix-from-the-flames style re-enactment of the time old Trap is reputed to have set about young Reidy with a rolled-up copy of the Gazzetta Della Sport.

Oh, how we laughed as small bubbles of blood began to pop up out of my ears. One thing you have to give the Commander-In Chief: he’s a damn good loser. Just like his beloved Arsene Wenger.

So where to begin a rewind of the football decade (even if I must insist that it still has a year to run)? Sorry, but there can only be one place. True, we should all be “over it” by now, as the sensible people keep telling us, but you’d have about as much chance of getting through a review of the noughties without talking about Saipan, as you’d have of writing a biography of Neil Armstrong and never once mentioning the moon.

My own personal, outstanding memory of that star-crossed island in the sun? Er, don’t have one actually since I’ve never been there. Instead, with my usual sixth sense for a scoop, I was with a group of colleagues en route from Dublin to Tokyo when the biggest story in Irish sports history erupted. However, I do vividly recall the moment, as I strolled through Schipol Airport in Amsterdam to get our connecting flight, when I learned that Roy Keane was out of the World Cup. Walking a few feet behind me, RTE’s Gareth O’Connor answered a call on his mobile and the one side of the ensuing conversation I could hear went something like this: “What? No! You’re kidding! He walked out? He was kicked out? And he’s definitely gone?!? No!!!”

Which pretty much neatly sums up the whole saga, I think you’ll agree, deleted expletives all ‘round notwithstanding.

If that was the lowest of the lows for Irish football in the decade – eclipsing even San Marino’s goal, the five our boys shipped on another unhappy paradise island, Stephen Ireland’s death-defying disappearing act and more recently, the hand that rocked the nation in Paris – well, at least the highest of the highs came soon enough. Yes, better even than Jason McAteer’s unlikely stunner against Holland at a throbbing Lansdowne Road. Considering the unprecedented chaos which had enveloped the squad before they even got to kick a World Cup ball in anger, Ireland’s subsequent performances in Japan and Korea were improbably and upliftingly good. And best of all was when Robbie Keane got that deserved late equaliser against Germany in Ibaraki, bringing even us cynical old press hounds to our feet in joyous celebration while, down on the touchline, Mick McCarthy reacted like a man who’d suddenly spotted the lottery ticket he thought had been thrown in the fire.

Which brings me neatly to the game of this decade and, arguably, any other decade: Liverpool’s outrageous Lazurus act in Istanbul in 2005. Well, do I recall tip-tapping out my obituary for English football at the half-time break in the Ataturk Stadium, confident that, just this once, I’d definitely have my hot copy in well before deadline. And well do I recall too the passing Scouser who popped his head into the press box and, with exquisite gallows’ humour, told me not to forget to write that Liverpool would “win on pens”. Oh, how we chortled. The rest, as they say, is history and hysteria. As I wrote at the time, with the midnight deadline coming down on me like the blade of a guillotine: “I saw it with my own eyes and I still can’t believe it.” Not exactly Oscar Wilde, I’ll grant you, but what amazes me now is that I managed to write anything at all on that truly incredible night.

The footballer of the decade? You can make a case for Messi and I suppose you’d have to make a case for Ronaldo but, even though he won his World Cup medal in the 90s, I can’t see beyond the incomparable Zinedine Zidane. For good and ill. Highlights included his stupendous match-winning volley in the 2002 Champions League final, his ice-cool late brace to sink England in Euro 2004 and then, when coaxed out of retirement – unfortunately, for Ireland’s World Cup ambitions – his inspirational role in taking a supposedly over the hill French side all the way to the final in Berlin in 2006.

On which great stage, Zidane raised the curtain on what looked set to be a command performance with the most audacious of penalties before prematurely bringing the curtain back down again by toppling Marco Materazzi with a ferocious head-butt in what proved to be his very last act in football. A reprieved Italy went on to win the World Cup but, for those of us who were left trying to make sense of it all in Berlin, it was, and will forever be, the night that ZZ blew his top.

Team of the decade? The Spaniards who emerged triumphant from a wonderful Euro finals two years ago deserve a big shout but perhaps only if and when they finally win a World Cup will they come to be regarded as a team for the ages. So I’ll opt instead for the Barcelona side which, already invincible at home, proceeded to dismantle Manchester United with an exhibition of fantasy football on a super-heated night in Rome last summer. To watch it all unfold from the heights of the Olympic Stadium was to be reminded of why they call this the beautiful game.

On the domestic front, the dream of a European breakthrough curdled into a nightmare over the course of the decade, so that memories of Shels in their pomp are, by now, bittersweet. Yes, at various points, the likes of Cork City, Bohemians, Derry City, Drogheda and St Patrick’s Athletic all played football which testified to a welcome raising of standards on the pitch but, now that we fully appreciate the cost which had to be paid in trying to fly so close to the sun, there’s perhaps even more justification for saying that the single most positive and encouraging story in Irish club football in the noughties – and the one with, one hopes, the most enduring legacy for the League of Ireland as a whole – has been the rebirth and rehousing of Shamrock Rovers.

But then, as one who was a teenage Hoops nut, raised on Leech and Milltown, I suppose I would say that, wouldn’t I? A happy new year to one and all, even if I am 363 days early.