Former Republic of Ireland and Liverpool midfielder Jason McAteer was a guest on BT Sport's 'Football Tonight' on Friday and ticked all the boxes of a McAteer TV appearance as we got stories from his time as a pro, opinions on Liverpool's current situation, and a joke about his 'Wash & Go' advert, as is to be expected.
One thing that was not expected for Jason was a question on the Saipan saga, as it was casually sprung upon him by the host who clearly had no idea of how big a deal that whole situation was, and still is, in Irish sport.
After McAteer regaled the live audience with an enthusiastic telling of that fantastic anthem lineup vs Norway story from the 1994 World Cup, Jason was asked how it felt when Roy Keane left the squad before the 2002 World Cup, to which Jason responded:
You never said you were gonna ask me that..
Looking back on it now he was world class at the time. We felt let down as a group of players, we actually never thought he was gonna do it, until we got to Japan and he still wasn't with us.
Even then we thought right up to the games that he was going to come back, but he never did. And I look back at it now and I think for his sake that I'm gutted that he missed it because he was world class, at the top of his game. He was in his peak and he would have added to what we had, definitely, and we might have gone on a little bit further.
Collectively we were gutted and personally I was gutted for him that he missed it, but at the end of the day that was his decision.
A pretty solid answer.
Much has been made of McAteer and Roy Keane's falling out, which reached boiling point after an on-pitch scuffle when Manchester United visited Sunderland in the 2002/03 season, but back in 2014 while talking to Balls.ie Jason revealed that he would like to have a talk with him and patch things up as there is no ill feeling towards Keane.
It was a tricky question on a sensitive issue for some, but he played it off well.
