ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY NOT A DISTRAC … OOH, LOOK! A BEE!
Watching Friday night’s 22-man saloon brawl between Scotland and the Republic O’Ireland, the Fiver couldn’t help but wonder if events would have unfolded much differently if nobody had thought to add a ball or referee to the equation. “Almost certainly not,” it concluded, before stepping between our bruised and bloody Scottish and Irish cousins, Theme Pub O’Fiver and Shortbread McFiver, who’d been swinging haymakers at each other, before dragging them down to an east Glasgow pub for several pints of Foaming Peacemaker.
In an entertaining ding-dong where several thousand fans were left outside the stadium for much of the first half and anything resembling finesse, subtlety or nuance remained locked out for almost all of it, Scotland took the points when Shaun Maloney took time out to kick the ball instead of an opponent, win the stramash with a fine goal and leave his country three points behind group leaders Poland and level with O’Ireland and Germany.
With the fight over and peace restored, the O’Ireland camp quickly returned to normal, with the focus shifting once again to Roy Keane, who had made headlines in the buildup to the game over the manner in which he refused to promote his book, having made them during the previous international break with the manner in which he refused to stop promoting his book.
“You think I’ve got to justify all that to you? And you all sit there and think I’ve got to answer everything?” he thundered at hacks who asked him if that kerfuffle at the O’Ireland team hotel last week might have been a distraction. If the hacks in question thought of pointing out that Keano was conducting a press conference – an exercise designed with the specific intention of getting him to answer everything – they wisely kept their counsel. Keano used this silence to point out that he answers only “to the FAI and Martin O’Neill, and if we don’t get the results, I’ll be gone and you won’t lose a minute’s sleep, so don’t worry about distractions”.
Before going off on one (you can read the full transcript here), Keane had voiced his concerns about the apparent lack of enthusiasm on the part of Everton boss Roberto Martínez and his medical staff when it comes to releasing certain players for international matches, following the news that James McCarthy could probably have played against Scotland but missed his fourth consecutive international because he’d gone back to Everton to receive treatment on a hamstring that had showed up clear in a scan.
Speaking about McCarthy and his Everton and O’Ireland team-mate Séamus Coleman, Keane said: “You always get the impression from Everton that Séamus and James are both barely able to walk, that type of thing. So when they actually turn up and they are walking through the reception, ‘Praise the Lord, it’s a miracle.’” Calling for a sit-down clear the air pow-wow between O’Neill and Martínez, Keane went all Charlie Sheen in Platoon, likening McCarthy to a hapless child torn between two fathers. “We talk about the manager here and the manager there, but there’s a player in between all that – and I can speak from experience, he’s under lots of pressure too,” said Keane. “There is a guarantee that when the player turns up [for internationals] they are getting phone calls left, right and centre from their 15 physios at the club. You’re also hoping the player can make the decision and say ‘I’ll give it a go’ or whatever it might be.”
While McCarthy decided not to “give it a go” on this occasion, his employer showed no such reluctance to charge into battle. “I’m a big fan of Roy Keane’s but he does say some stupid things,” said Everton chairman Bill Kenwright. Cue Martin O’Neill: “Let me tell you straight, I’m delighted to have Roy. He’s terrific,” said the O’Ireland manager, rushing to his assistant’s defence … again.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I apologise to everyone, especially the Italians, for our supporters’ behaviour. I was disappointed and helpless, there are no right words for this. If someone has a problem, he has to deal with it outside the stadium” – Niko Kovac says Croatian fans creating havoc against Italy would have been better off taking it outside.
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FIVER LETTERS
“See what you’ve started with your reprinting of Daniel Doody’s letter in last week’s Fivers, now peripatetic football clubs have picked up the recycling bug. Not content with putting other clubs’ stadiums into operation on days when they would have lain dormant, Coventry have been hanging around neighbours’ bins and fishing out old kit to flog ‘as new’ in their club shop as well. I’m all for environmental awareness but where will it end? Cutting out unnecessary cup games to reduce the number of miles travelled by the team bus, and letting the Ricoh Arena pitch grow wild?” – David Wall.
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“Did Darrell Clarke [Friday’s Bits and Bobs] actually say this: “I had to clear the posters off the training pitch and try not to let if affect me.” Or is ‘if’ just part of the Fiver’s ‘humour’?” – Sijuade Ajagunna (and no others).
“I live in Poland. I’m Scottish. After watching Poland’s 2-2 draw with Scotland on the telly in my local pub (even if you are from Glasgow, you have no idea what it’s really like), I had to argue that the Scottish fitba team was not too brutal, but that the Polish team were too soft. I miraculously managed to leave the watering hole unscathed. Thank god we didn’t win. After the matches today, and the 4-0 win over Georgia, I had huge scary Polish fans cheering the 1-0 trouncing of the Queens Republic O’Ireland despite it not being as helpful to the Poles as a draw would have been. Could I win the prize for sheer size of (metaphorical) gonads?” – Janek Szkot.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is: David Wall, who wins a copy of Football Manager 2015, courtesy of the very kind people at Football Manager Towers. We’ve got more copies to give away this month, so if you haven’t been lucky thus far, keep trying.
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BITS AND BOBS
The two whistleblowers whose anonymity was effectively blown by Fifa’s “well thought out, robust and professional” report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cups have sent formal complaints whistling the way of the dormant volcano that serves as Fifa’s lair.
Manchester United’s defence at Arsenal may be more makeshift than a three-year-old’s attempt at constructing a rocket out of an empty washing-up liquid bottle after Daley Blind was ruled out with knee-knack and Víctor Valdés was deemed not fit enough to replace finger-ouch victim David de Gea.
Scottish polis expect fun and games at Queen’s Celtic Park having got wind of “pre-planned disorder” before Scotland v England. “We have to be on top of our game … there will be an increase in the numbers of officers deployed to this game. The whole purpose of this is to disrupt any hooligan activity,” gamefaced top cop Andy Bates.
An ongoing row over pay may lead to Galatasaray lending 2010’s Wesley Sneijder to Milan till the end of the season.
Bad news Arsenal fans: Lukas Podolski is not for sale.
And Genclerbirligi’s chairman has warned his players they will be fined £7,150 if they sport beards. “I am 80 years old, and I shave every single day … Man, is this an imam-hatip school? You are a sportsman. You should be a model for the youth,” honked Ilhan Cavcav, before scratching his brass neck and rearranging his bushy soup strainer.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
STILL WANT MORE?
I was traduced by Fifa, says whistleblower Bonita Mersiades, which sounded even more serious after the Fiver actually looked up what traduced means.
Scotland v England is no longer the goal-trashing, bone-crunching stramash of years gone by, laments Ewan Murray.
But here’s a list of international football rivalries that will put some pep in your pencil, cheer the Nicks, Miller and Ames.
And Fara Williams puts all the above into perspective by recalling her days of being homeless while playing for the England women’s team in this emotional interview with Donald McRae.
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