Steve Coogan Steps Into Football History Without Loving the Game
Steve Coogan has never pretended to be a football obsessive, and that honesty sits at the heart of why his latest role feels so intriguing. Despite growing up in Greater Manchester, where football is practically a second language, Coogan freely admits that the sport never really grabbed him. His childhood memories of football are less about matches and heroes, and more about colouring books and childish rivalries, shaped by family loyalties that leaned toward Manchester United. Even then, the game itself was never the main attraction.
Yet here he is, starring in a new film about one of the most explosive moments in Irish football history. In Saipan , Coogan plays Mick McCarthy, the Republic of Ireland manager whose fierce clash with captain Roy Keane in 2002 tore a nation in two just days before the World Cup. The dispute, which erupted during Ireland’s training camp on the Pacific island of Saipan, ended with Keane leaving the squad and sparked arguments that still linger more than two decades later.
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What makes Coogan’s involvement interesting is that he approached the role not as a football fan, but as a storyteller. The deeper appeal came from McCarthy’s background as a second-generation Irishman, a detail Coogan felt added layers to the conflict. It was not just about training pitches and footballs, but about identity, authority, and how Ireland saw itself on the world stage. That wider context, he suggests, is what gives the story its lasting power.
Before filming began, Coogan even reached out to McCarthy himself, wanting to understand the man behind the headlines. It was felt that the original script leaned heavily toward Roy Keane’s perspective, and Coogan believed McCarthy’s side deserved equal weight. Although there was some concern about how the manager would be portrayed, the conversation helped ground the performance in realism rather than caricature.
The film also stars Éanna Hardwicke as Keane, and his approach was very different. Rather than speaking directly to the former captain, he relied on the mountain of interviews and footage already available, letting Keane’s own words shape the character. The result is a portrayal of two strong personalities locked in a collision that seemed inevitable.
Adding a lighter twist, Coogan also revealed his unlikely brush with football and pop culture history. Back in the late 1990s, he happened to be out in Manchester on the very night David Beckham first met Victoria Adams. Coogan downplays his role, but his presence at the birth of “Posh and Becks” only adds to the sense that he has quietly drifted through some remarkable cultural moments.
Saipan arrives in cinemas on 23 January, inviting audiences to revisit a feud that was never really about football alone, and proving that you do not need to love the game to tell one of its most powerful stories.
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