Saipan (15)

In the run-up to the 2002 FIFA World Cup hosted in South Korea and Japan, Roy Keane sustains a knee injury playing for Manchester United and he trains hard to be fit in time to lead his country. Tension is evident between the captain and manager Mick McCarthy from the moment Roy walks on to the team bus bound for the Pacific island of Saipan, where the squad will acclimatise to the heat and humidity and train ahead of a first-round match against Cameroon.

LondonNet Film Review

Saipan (15) Film Review from LondonNet

In a 2002 interview with RTE News, shortly after he walked away from the captaincy of the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup squad, Roy Keane explained that he felt like he had been backed into a corner in his dispute with manager Mick McCarthy. “There was only going to be one winner,” Keane explained on camera, “and that was Mick, of course, and I understand that. He’s the manager.” These comments and a wealth of archive footage are skilfully woven into directors Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn’s high-pressure fictionalised drama inspired by real-life events that gripped a nation…

In the run-up to the 2002 FIFA World Cup hosted in South Korea and Japan, Roy (Eanna Hardwicke) sustains a knee injury playing for Manchester United and he trains hard to be fit in time to lead his country. Tension is evident between the captain and manager (Steve Coogan) from the moment Roy walks on to the team bus bound for the Pacific island of Saipan, where the squad will acclimatise to the heat and humidity and train ahead of a first-round match against Cameroon. Roy is unimpressed with the facilities. The air conditioning in his room malfunctions, the hotel serves platters of warm cheese sandwiches to players, the training pitch is likened to a car park, and someone forgot to order footballs for the team drills.

Other players are more interested in free access to a nearby golf course than preparing for warfare on the pitch, which flies in the face of Roy’s belief that you should “play to win… or why bother playing at all?” As captain, Roy feels compelled to speak up and demand the best for the team. Personalities clash and Roy announces his intention to leave. Mick Byrne (Peter McDonald) acts as a go-between but the island simply is not big enough for two bruised egos.

Saipan opens with a memorable clip of football correspondent Tony O’Donoghue reflecting that the media circus-fuelled disarray was “quite possibly the worst preparation any country has ever had for a World Cup finals”. D’Sa and Leyburn’s picture cuts between footage from the era and glossy dramatisation to distil weeks of discontent and miscommunication into the running time of a standard football match.

It is an entertaining and occasionally fiery kickabout and gently humorous scenes of Roy and Mick with their respective wives, Karen (Aoife Hinds) and Fiona (Alice Lowe), soften the key protagonists. Hardwicke curries the greatest sympathy as he presses the self-destruct button on Keane’s World Cup campaign while Coogan embraces McCarthy’s soft Yorkshire lilt with restraint. Paul Fraser’s screenplay builds tension gradually to the public shouting match that leads to Roy receiving his figurative red card. He thought it was all over, and it was.

– Sarah Lee