Colin Sheridan: The Colossus of Roy Keane will keep doing his own thing

The last six names on their team sheet were Gianluca Pesotto, Antonio Conte, Edgar Davids, Didier Descamps, Angelo di Livio, Fillipo Inzaghi, and a balding chap called Zinedine Zidane.

United were completely outplayed in the first leg at Old Trafford, yet somehow managed a draw thanks to a late Ryan Giggs equalizer. No English club had played in a European Cup final since the post-Heysel ban ended in 1990.

United, dominant as they were domestically, were not expected to do much that night. It’s not a stretch to say that, only for Roy Keane that night, they hadn’t a prayer.

After 10 minutes, United were 2-0 down thanks to goals from Inzaghi — a player Alex Ferguson described as having been “born offside.” That should’ve been it.

Juventus were on their way to a fourth successive European Cup final, but Keane had other ideas.

What followed over the next 80 minutes or so was one of the greatest individual performances given by an Irish footballer, on any stage, ever.

His manager described it as “the most emphatic display of selflessness I have seen on a field”.

“Pounding over every blade of grass, competing as if he would rather die of exhaustion than lose; he inspired all around him.

I felt it was an honour to be associated with such a player

Keane scored once, but also received a booking that cruelly ruled him out of the final. While other players would be ruined by the narcissism of such a development, Keane seemed inspired by it.

If Paul McGrath set s standard of defiant defence against Italy at the Giants Stadium in the 1994 World Cup finals, Keane went around three better.

That one night in Turin, he was king, government, and nation. He was the best player in a galaxy full of superstars. His sacrifice — that of the team’s best player and captain missing a final — was not even a consideration. Surrounded by giants, the Cork man was a colossus.

It’s worth recalling because, 25 years after outplaying Zidane on his home turf, Roy Keane remains one of the most relevant Irish people in sports, media, and pop culture today.

His pomp coincided with a time when Olympic medalists were rarer than hen’s teeth, an Irish golfer making a Ryder Cup team was as big as winning a major, even the odd winner in Cheltenham was considered worthy of a day off work.

Keane excelled at a time when Ireland as a country was nothing like it is now in terms of producing world class sports people. He was an outlier. An outlaw. An outcast.

Above else, he was almost always outstanding.

25 years later, Keane remains one of Ireland’s most recognisable and relevant personalities across sports, media, pop culture and, well, life generally.

Last Thursday, the ironically named Scott Law (an Arsenal fan) was handed a three-year football banning order after headbutting Keane at a Premier League football match last September.

Keane, 52, said he was left “in shock” by the clash.

“I was just walking and, before I knew it, I was hit. I felt the contact and fell back through some doors. I was absolutely not expecting it,” he told the court.

Delivering his verdict, District Judge Angus Hamilton said: “There was no reason Mr Keane should have picked on him in particular.”

The judge said the former footballer “was calm and not agitated” when he left the studio.

He said Keane’s reputation as the so-called “hard man of football” was “years ago and was confined to the football pitch”.

In delivering his summary, the judge spoke of a Keane mellowed by time and age and life — but also of a man seemingly intent on never conforming to whatever stereotype the public may have of him.

Throughout his footballing career, the man from Mayfield was never not in the thick of it

If he wasn’t the instigator, he was the first man in.

The selflessness that defined that famous night in Turin was flagrantly absent on the many occasions he took the bait and reacted

to the likes of Alf-Inge Haaland, Jason McAteer, Gareth Southgate, Mick McCarthy, Niall Quinn, Alan Shearer, and countless referees.

Then, of course, there was Saipan — an episode that divided a nation. One that, despite painstaking revisitations by both the main characters and the rest of us mere mortals it affected, has never been properly explained.

Keane has maintained from day one his was not an abdication, but a dismissal on a point of principle.

His detractors posited it as the selfish act of an arrogant man, hellbent on self-destruction.

For a generation, the moment he left that godforsaken island remains a “I remember where I was when” moment. He was one of the best footballers in the world. He was ours. And, in what seemed like a fit of pique, he was gone.

His proclivity for holding grudges is worthy of PhD-level research.

You would think his ubiquity on TV as a pundit would render his animosity towards Alex Ferguson tiresome, yet, to watch him skillfully do everything but give appropriate credit to the Scotsman for all Manchester United achieved during his time there is to watch an escape artist at work.

Recently, he was asked to name the best manager of the Premier League era on the Stick to Football podcast: “I suppose if I don’t say Ferguson people will think it’s personal...”

When asked by Ian Wright whether this was because of a personal issue, Keane smirked before replying: “Everything’s personal.”

It’s worth pointing out that it’s 19 years since Keane fell out with Ferguson, a break-up that ended the most potent player-manager partnership the league has arguably ever seen

The reason for the split was Keane offering up some hard truths about his then team-mates to MUTV. Keane saw himself duty bound to hold his peers to account. Ferguson saw it as treachery.

There followed a brief, if underwhelming stint at Celtic. Keane has often spoken about his regret at not being more patient with Real Madrid, who delayed on a loan offer for him due to their club president Emilio Butragueño being away.

Much like the famous clip of him passing the Inter Milan lineup without shaking their hands, simply because they were busy pulling up their socks, Keane chose Glasgow over Madrid.

His time as manager of Sunderland remains erroneously underrated. His time as assistant manager of Ireland is correctly critiqued as underwhelming.

It’s been his evolution as a “pundit” that has elevated his standing — not so much as an astute analyst of the game, but more as a man of substance.

In his roles at Sky, ITV, and in partnership with Gary Neville, Ian Wright, and Jamie Carragher on the aforementioned Stick to Football podcast, he elevates the typically mundane to the profound — often to the downright funny.

His insight and anecdotes appear quite rudimentary when recounted coldly on page, but to watch his delivery, catch his facial expressions, and observe the warmth of the people around him is to bear witness to a man who has proven to be just as compelling a character off the football pitch as he undeniably was on it.

In that context, Judge Hamilton’s assertion on Keane’s reputation is quite correct.

However, while the years may have softened him in terms of fire behind the eyes, you’d be a stupid man to chance calling him out

Just ask Scott Law. The silly bugger likely saw an easy lay in Keane. Poke the bear and watch him fight. Instead, Roy — never one to do as he’s expected or told — kept his studs down and let justice do its thing.

To be so relevant still, so long after Turin, is nothing short of remarkable. That he is, not because of some descent into conspiratorial madness, megalomania, or political aspiration, is in keeping with a man perpetually intent on doing his own thing.

Like him. Loathe him. Love him. The man is nothing if not original.