Saipan, just like the weather, the housing bubble and Chris de Brugh somehow being Rosanna Davison's father is just something we don't talk about enough in Ireland.
And now Martin O'Neill says that he thinks Roy Keane was wrong to walk out on Ireland before the 2002 World Cup.
Quoted on Independent.ie, O'Neill said:
If you're going back to Saipan, way back in that time, I would have to say that my own view at that time, is that I would have disagreed with Roy.
I would have felt that, having qualified for the World Cup, it doesn't come around too often – for some great players it has never come at all – and here was this opportunity.
I thought that would have been, regardless of what Roy would have felt about it before, this was a chance to participate in a World Cup and for a great player, even more so, from that viewpoint. So I would have had a disagreement with that.
It's probably a good sign for the Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane partnership that O'Neill feels comfortable enough to disagree with Roy over something as divisive as the whole Saipan thing. It would suggest a real, mutual respect between the two.
