THIS WEEK’S COLUMN is not about Mayo football.
I mean, it could be. But, frankly, there are far too many other things going on in the wide, wide world of sports to merit my raking up that whole business again. For example, what about this morning’s crass and insensitive “Go Kane!” headline on The Sun’s front page ahead of England’s World Cup showdown with Colombia?
As puns go, that one was a little on the nose.
Tuesday's Sun: "Go Kane!" pic.twitter.com/Y36YXPrOB2 #BBCPapers #tomorrowspaperstoday (via @MsHelicat)
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 2, 2018
Or who else spotted Roger Federer making a young fan’s day by giving her his headband at Wimbledon yesterday? A very thoughtful gesture by the eight-time champ.
Or what about LeBron James’ move to the LA Lakers? I know shag all about the NBA, but a bunch of rappers I follow on Twitter seemed to regard this as a pretty big deal.
No, no, no. I’m sorry. I can’t help myself. I can ignore the elephant in the room no longer. When I started writing this column a few weeks back, I stressed that I wasn’t a sports journalist. I’m a writer who happens to be a sports fan. Specifically, a fan of the Mayo football team.
Yes, we were there. Yes, we witnessed what occurred. But if you don’t mind, we’re still kinda in shock right now and it may still take some time to process.
Many commentators, naturally, will regard Mayo’s two point defeat to Kildare as the end of the road for the greatest ever inter-county football side not to have won an All-Ireland. And it’s not inconceivable that as many as half a dozen of our most senior players will announce their decision to step down from the panel in the coming weeks and months.
But I’m not going to eulogise them just yet. For one thing, plenty of others have already paid eloquent tribute to the side elsewhere in the media this week. (Malachy Clerkin had a fine piece in the Irish Times yesterday.)
For another, I’m not actually convinced this really is the end of the line for this Mayo team. Call me crazy, but Aidan O’Shea and Cillian O’Connor are both still well under 30. Indeed two of our standout performers on Saturday, Paddy Durcan and Diarmuid O’Connor, are under 25. There are still several members of the 2016 All-Ireland U21 side waiting in the wings to come through.
I will make one bold prediction though. Andy Moran won’t retire. As I said, many others may go. But Andy won’t. Andy is Mayo football’s answer to Hyman Roth from The Godfather II. He’ll never retire. Fifteen years from now we’ll still be reading about him kicking eight points from play in a club match for Ballaghaderreen and wondering if, hmmm, maybe could he do a job for Mayo again?
Away from St. Conleth’s Park, Saturday was a day on which the curtain appeared to fall on some other higher profile sporting eras. Argentina and Portugal were both eliminated from the World Cup, effectively ending any hope the games two biggest superstars, Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, might have had of adding a World Cup winners’ medal to their already hefty collections of honours.
Outside of Portugal, there probably weren’t too many shedding a tear for Ronaldo. He’d already won a European Championship with Portugal, he’d scored four goals in this campaign and, besides, he kind of seems like a prick, so who cares?
But millions around the world were devastated on Messi’s behalf. On the surface, that is an absurd position for anyone to take. It’s equivalent to being one of those readers who write letters to celebrity magazines lamenting Jennifer Aniston’s failed relationships. It’s like, dude, this person is more acclaimed and talented that you can imagine, and enjoys a life of opulence you could not even begin to conceive. They definitely don’t need your pity.
But in Leo’s case, it did seem a particularly cruel irony that, at the end of a tournament in which he had cut an often frustrated figure, the game in which the sun finally set on his World Cup dreams was the very same one in which football’s next superstar announced his arrival on the largest stage. Sunrise, sunset… and all that.
France’s two-goal hero Kylian Mbappe was absolutely sensational in Kazan. At times that French trio of Pogba, Griezmann and Mbappe looked almost unplayable. Olivier Giroud did provide the assist for Mbappe’s second. But most often when he stepped into frame, the Chelsea striker looked a heavily medicated pensioner who’d just wandered out of a retirement home somewhere, next to his younger teammates.
Given what a shambles Argentina’s World Cup was, both on and off the field, it is to the team’s immense credit that they took France right to the wire on Saturday. That 4-3 French victory may ultimately go down as the game of the tournament (if Belgium’s comeback to beat Japan 3-2 last night hasn’t already overtaken it.)
There are other reasons for Messi to take some solace. At 31, he’s two years younger than Ronaldo. He’ll be 35 when the finals in Qatar come around in 2022, so it’s not beyond all possibility he might get one more crack at this. After all, I seem to remember his compatriot Maradona putting in some incredible performances at USA 94 when he was 34 years old.
What was the secret to his footballing longevity again? Oh, yes. I think it rhymes with “Go Kane!” Probably best not go that route, Leo, on second thoughts…
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