“Every time I found myself chasing Philly down the field now, what confidence I did have dwindled. Every opportunity he got he just went haring forward and, well, my instruction was to follow. I suspect if we were having this conversation with Eamonn [Fitzmaurice] now, he’d say that was a mistake. I was using up all my energy in a role that never involved me getting my hands on the ball. But Kerry had systems failures right through the field so, in fairness to him, he had more to worry about that my struggles to hold a corner-back.”
- Colm Cooper, ‘Gooch: The Autobiography’
IT ought to be more nuanced that Ronaldo good or Ronaldo bad, but it just isn’t.
The answer is in the middle but such is the shouty age we inhabit that you’re not allowed to look there.
So make your bed and lie in it: Is the most brilliantly manufactured footballer in the game’s history the problem at Manchester United, or is he the solution?
You’re either Team Keane or you’re Team Carragher.
Keane makes for compelling television and he appeals to the no-nonsense demographic. Half the time he’s right, and the other half he does a damn good job of telling you he is.
It took him a while to warm to Cristiano Ronaldo when they became team-mates but in time he came to view them as one and the same. The singular, obsessive nature and endless time dedicated to perfecting their very different crafts.
At 36, Ronaldo has returned to Old Trafford and found himself the subject of intense scrutiny.
Having been dropped on Sunday for the trip to league leaders Chelsea, Keane and Jamie Carragher brought to the mainstream two sides of a debate that has raged for months.
His late goals home and away against Villareal, and at home to Atalanta, have been the difference for United between European qualification and ignominy.
Yet his comeback has been glammed up by those strikes.
Ronaldo’s four Premier League goals this season is the same tally as Chelsea’s right-back, Reece James.
Burnley winger Maxwel Cornet and Watford duo Josh King and Emmanuel Dennis all have five each.
Top scorer Mo Salah has 11.
Call it ageist, but even the most freakish athlete cannot turn back the hands of the clock.
And when age begins to catch up, you can very quickly become a liability.
Colm Cooper was 31 when Kerry played Dublin in the 2015 All-Ireland final.
Widely regarded as one of the most naturally gifted footballers in GAA history, Gooch penned defenders back out of the fear of what he’d do if they dared leave his side.
He’d had a decent summer, a decent game in the All-Ireland semi-final against Tyrone. When it’s in the head, lesser opponents don’t know how to make the legs pay.
But Philly McMahon was a different animal.
What he saw was a 31-year-old whose physical limitations could be preyed on.
Cooper spent the whole of the All-Ireland final tracking the Ballymun man’s endless bombing runs.
“I don’t think Colm Cooper has been a great footballer playing defence. It was one thing I thought about going into the game when I was doing my homework, put him on the back-foot and see what he is like defensively,” said McMahon after that final.
The most frustrating thing about being a footballer in your 30s is that your mind finally knows exactly what to do and your body can no longer do it.
On that day, even one of the most gifted footballers in the storied history of the green and gold became a luxury Kerry couldn’t afford.
The Paddy McGrath of his mid-20s was like a prototype for a new type of nightmare defender.
When Derry travelled to Donegal for a first-round renewal of acquaintances ten months after their 2011 Ulster final meeting, Conleith Gilligan was marked by McGrath.
“Every single time they turned the ball over, Paddy McGrath ran to the far 45’ as quick as he could. I spent 50 minutes running after him until I was taken off,” Gilligan would recall in 2018.
“I had no impact on the game and that was really when I knew the game had changed. Why was I running after a corner-back?
“I could live with him going forward, but the problem was that when we turned it over, the ball was being kicked to where I wasn’t. At that stage I kinda knew the game was up.”
When Donegal met Monaghan in the Ulster semi-final in 2016, they gave McGrath the task of marking Conor McManus.
During the second half, I took a photo of them standing one-on-one on the edge of the square. Except it was the Monaghan square, right in front of Rory Beggan.
Paddy McGrath took McManus to full-back several times that night. The Ardara man felt he had more in the tank than the man he was marking, and took those forwards up and down the pitch simply to drain the forward’s legs for the big moments they were there to produce.
Gaelic football’s trend is akin to soccer, where there has been greater emphasis on individual responsibility than the collective in the last 18 months.
That was a huge part of why Tyrone won the All-Ireland.
Not only did they get their forwards to work like dogs, but they also showed the value of an attacking full-back line in this year’s All-Ireland series, with Padraig Hampsey, Ronan McNamee and Michael McKernan all getting big scores.
No matter how good a man might be on the ball, one lazy link that doesn’t want to work and tackle can be a team’s undoing.
And that takes it back to the problem of Cristiano Ronaldo’s inability and unwillingness to roll up his sleeves.
Preserving himself to score goals is the solution.
At the top of the food chain in a league where the best teams are in endless pursuit of the ball, there is very little hiding place.
If you’re going to pick a man that has to conserve himself, he’d damn well better be producing those big moments every single time he goes out.
Cristiano Ronaldo is not doing that. Four Premier League goals in ten games is not enough to justify the flaws. That’s why Michael Carrick was right to drop him, and why Jamie Carragher was right in the studio.
You can find ways to hide the clock from view and convince the world that time has stood still, but eventually you’ll run into your Liverpool or your Philly McMahon.
On the really big days, you just can’t afford that luxury of someone who isn’t prepared or able to work.
* * * *
I WAS standing at my daughter’s under-5 football training on Friday evening when word began to spread about the tragic death of Francis Lagan.
Laid out beneath us from the balcony in Bellaghy’s big hall was a scene of joy and laughter and innocence and fun.
That’s how I found Francis to have run my old primary school, St Mary’s Gortnaghey, when he was principal there.
The children loved him. The parents loved him. The community loved him.
He did so much for the place, the people and the presence of GAA in the school during his time there before returning to his beloved Maghera to take over as principal at Glenview.
I hope in time his devastated family are able to find their joy and laughter again, and that they are able to draw strength from the powerful force that he was for them and the communities that he served as a brilliant educator and role-model.
May he rest in eternal peace.