Roy Keane was the first to predict his own role in Saipan. ‘In this bad movie I was going to be the fall guy,’ he wrote in the autobiography published a couple months after the 2002 World Cup and a couple of decades before the Pacific storm hit the big screen.
It is the instance when the penny drops in Keane’s own compelling account. His Republic of Ireland team-mates were not exactly with him. Even if they were not entirely with his boss Mick McCarthy either.
And the moment when he begins to realise that he may have unwittingly helped McCarthy achieve what he wanted, because the self-destruction of his captain, biggest star, leader of all-conquering Manchester United and social hand grenade came in exchange for the relief of enhanced dressing room harmony.
Keane was wrong about one thing though. It isn’t a bad film. It is terrific fun both as an exploration a simmering personal feud within a team environment and a skip back in time to the claustrophobic absurdity of the pre-tournament training camp on a remote tropical island.
Eanna Hardwicke captures all the visceral aggression of early-Noughties Keane with twinkles of the acidic wit and comic timing we are all able to appreciate a little more having seen him relax into punditry and podcasting.
Hardwicke’s Keane is angry and intense. Seething at the spluttering aircon unit. Strutting in silence through inadequate training facilities. Struggling to contain his feelings about absent footballs, idle goalkeepers and cheese sandwiches.
A new film depicting the Mick McCarthy (left, depicted by Steve Coogan) and Roy Keane (right, depicted by Eanna Hardwicke) 2002 World Cup feud will be released in January
Keane and McCarthy’s row overshadowed their 2002 World Cup camp, with the former leaving
Keane shows his frustration during training during a tense World Cup camp in Saipan, Japan
Always on the brink of picking up the phone and breaking for home as the tension builds until the point when it explodes in the defining tirade. As Sky Sports viewers know well, Keane is never more compelling than when gathering a head of steam for the big take-down on any given Super Sunday. Even if you know it is coming it remains a delicious prospect.
Steve Coogan as McCarthy is less convincing. He doesn’t quite land the Barnsley accent nor the ring of Barnsley confidence and lacks his physical presence.
McCarthy at 43 would have proved a powerful counterbalance to Keane’s wiry strength and appetite for a fight, but Coogan pitches him closer to the long-suffering and exasperated post-Ipswich version than the man he would have been in Saipan.
Unlike the documentary, dramatised sport on screen tends to strip away the layers. One or two very talented Republic of Ireland internationals might be irritated to find they are conveniently cast as drunken amateurs. Keane alone repels temptation in his determination to do the best for his country.
Saipan though isn’t pretending to be wholly factual. Large parts are faithful to Keane’s account in the first of his two autobiographies, including watching the Muhammed Ali biopic on the flight and the references to Fawlty Towers, although one fictional leap is the newspaper interview, which ends all hope of smoothing out any differences.
Hardwicke captures all the visceral aggression of early-Noughties Keane during his display
In the film, showing this week at the London Film Festival, Keane is stitched up by a reporter who promises nothing will be printed under after the World Cup and then publishes immediately claiming it was simply too good to hold.
Whereas Keane never tried to hide the fact he had willingly granted the interview to two respected football writers and approved the copy for one of them and was under no illusions about precisely when it would be printed.
Other points will be disputed, including whether Keane at the peak of his rage slung the crowning insult at McCarthy, that he was English not Irish.
More than the heavyweight issues of nationhood, the English in Ireland or toxic masculinity though, Saipan revolves around the classic sporting quandary of the manager’s relationship with his biggest star and best player on his personal pursuit of excellence.
We are left in little doubt about McCarthy’s limited man-management skills as he fails to handle the demands of Keane’s anger and led to a conclusion that he was happier without him, and that the bulk of the Irish squad probably felt the same way.
Coogan as McCarthy is less convincing. He doesn’t quite land the Barnsley accent nor the ring of Barnsley confidence and lacks his physical presence
Left to their usual routine in the absence of their captain, they performed well after leaving Saipan for Japan and South Korea and reached the last 16 before losing to Spain on penalties.
The film is on general release in January and with another World Cup on the horizon, albeit one increasingly unlikely to involve the Republic of Ireland, the same old issues with rise to the surface for different nations.
Distracting presences and perceptions of special treatment. Games missed to nurse injuries and pressures applied by the world’s most famous clubs, who happen to employ the talent on which the World Cup depends.
Minor episodes, innocuous in isolation, collected over time to acquire a greater significance as they resurface in the emotion of a dressing room power struggle.
All eyes turn to Thomas Tuchel and Jude Bellingham as we wonder if England are about to conjure up their very own Saipan.
