Tommy Martin: Keane has brought his domestic form to the biggest dancefloor

Finally, we get to see Roy Keane performing at a World Cup in his prime.

Thu, 08 Dec, 2022 - 06:40

Finally, we get to see Roy Keane performing at a World Cup in his prime.

Unlike many of the tournament’s big-name stars, Keane has brought his form from the club game seamlessly onto the greatest stage of all. Long the most consistent Premier League provocateur, any doubts over his ability to handle the step up in quality can be laid to rest. In sparking an international incident with his criticism of Brazil’s dancing goal celebrations, the Corkman has shown an ability to mix it at the highest level.

Surveying the tournament from his ITV studio perch, Keane’s eye for an opponent’s weakness has never been sharper. He has kicked on from small-time domestic concerns, mundane matters such as lack of bottle and the inability to put in a tackle. Now he is going in two-footed on the neuroses of entire nations. Qatar’s fundamental unsuitability to host. The excessive politeness of Japanese players sweeping up the changing rooms. Annoying Senegalese chanting. England’s kleptomaniac history (granted he was talking about Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, not the Elgin Marbles).

Slamming the Brazilian fondness for a post-goal boogie was just another Keano cultural takedown. Despite our lowly current status, at least in this regard Ireland can take some credit for developing a world class talent. When it comes to harsh analysis of a country’s foibles, Keane learned his trade by practicing on his own.

In fact, one of his most famous jibes at his home country’s shortcomings came in a similar setting to Monday night’s rebuke of Brazil. Remember Roy’s disgust at the beery resignation that greeted Ireland’s 4-0 thrashing by Spain at Euro 2012? No sooner had the last bar of The Fields of Athenry died down in Gdansk than he suggested the Irish fans should expect more at major tournaments than to “go along for the sing-song every now and again.”

This week’s comments about the dancing Brazilians drew criticism about a lack of cultural understanding and it was no different back then. Just as many have pointed out that impromptu samba sessions are deeply ingrained in the Brazilian identity, so in 2012 was Keane reminded that being drunken losers was part of who we are.

Indeed, among the many thousands of social media posts expressing outrage towards Keane (most of which included images of his own not-entirely-respectful encounter with Alf Inge Haaland) one by Brazilian screenwriter called Antonio Tabet brought things full circle. “Ireland’s Roy Keane complaining about goal celebrations at a World Cup,” he tweeted, “is like Ronaldinho disapproving of bobsledding at the Winter Olympics.”

The man from Mayfield couldn’t have said it better himself.

Still, the volume of hostility directed his way is a reminder of Keane’s world-beating ability to strike a nerve, to get under an opponent’s skin. “Brazil is not a serious country,” French president Charles De Gaulle is reputed to have said on his way home from trade talks, during which the hosts presumably insisted on doing the Richarlison funky pigeon dance. De Gaulle probably never actually said that, but the fact that Brazilians think he might have says much about how they see themselves.

Buried in debates about Brazil’s inability to fulfil the potential inherent in its size and resources is a nagging question about whether all that imagery of samba and soccer and partying that everybody loves actually holds the country back in some way. Deeper than that are complicated questions about the country’s racial divisions, the legacy of slavery, colonialism and corruption and the degree to which its European and South American identities are entwined.

None of which Roy was getting at when he declared that Monday’s display was “like watching Strictly.” But as De Gaulle might have had it, in purely football terms there was a suggestion that the shenanigans against South Korea is not the behaviour of a serious football team.

Alas, lectures from the old world tend to be problematic in the home of O Jogo Bonito. “Brazilian football is the embodiment of happiness. Roy Keane be damned,” wrote the sports columnist Julio Gomes on the website UOL Esporte, taking up the theme of po-faced European arrogance. “[Europeans] think they are the best at everything and have the right to judge anyone…They think they are the masters of what is right and what’s wrong, and that the entire world must follow their behavioural manual.”

Neither would Brazilians have forgotten the controversy that greeted Vinicius Junior earlier this season when a Spanish football pundit accused the Real Madrid star of “acting the monkey” with his goal celebration dances. Vinicius was subjected to monkey chants by Atletico Madrid fans for his trouble. How’s that for disrespectful?

But then an inability to follow the Roy Keane behavioural manual might be said to be the common trait of everybody who has ever fallen foul of the man. It is no wonder then that Roy has been a star of this World Cup. This is, after all, the tournament of cultural differences, where lines have been drawn in the sand, so to speak. Keane’s whole public life has been thrashed out at the barricades where differing standards meet. With the confrontation in values between the West, the Arab world and the Global South as its backdrop, he has risen to the peculiarly fractious occasion with ease, taking on whole nations rather than the weekly inadequates of the Premier League.

As for Brazil, behind the classical élan of their first half performance against South Korea, hip-shimmies included, they look like a very well-balanced team full of experienced players and exciting young talent. So far, they seem to have the right mix between instinctive flair and defensive structure. When they get that right, they usually win the thing. That would make them a serious football team, Roy Keane be damned.