If we're confused and bemused by the Keane saga, you should try explaining it all to those looking in from the outside, most of whom seem bewildered by the extraordinary events of the past few days.
Some aren't quite sure whether to regard it all as a footballing tragedy or comedy, but most appear mystified by the fact that Irish football has managed to mislay its most valuable asset on the eve of the World Cup finals.
For Michael Rossmann, writing in the German newspaper Westdeutsche Zeitung yesterday, the affair puts to bed the image of the Irish as the all-singing, all-dancing, all-smiling chirpy folk from the edge of Europe.
"The myth of the merry and nice Irish is destroyed after an unparalleled story littered with wild insults, serious accusations.Only losers remain, as well as upset, frightened and furious football fans."
Under the headline "The destroyed myth: Only losers in the Keane drama", Rossmann wrote that "the Irish soap opera with the tragic leading actor, Roy Keane, is terminated and Ireland's only world-class player will be missing from the World Cup.
"Coach Mick McCarthy had banished the merciless, ambitious star after wild insults . . . then, however, kept the door open for his return. Now McCarthy stands fully disgraced, exactly the same as the federation, which Keane had accused of lacking professionalism and of amateur World Cup preparations."
If Rossmann came down on the side of the player, Brian Clough, Keane's first manager in English football, was very definitely in the Mick McCarthy camp. Asked by the Sun if he would have sent Keane home, as McCarthy had done, Clough said: "Oh, I'd have sent him home alright, but I'd have shot him first. Come to think of it, I wouldn't have needed to have shot him because he's shot himself. He is - and forever will be - the captain who had to be sent home.
"If I was in Mick McCarthy's shoes," said Clough, "Keane would have had to apologise on his hands and knees at my feet and begged to be accepted back into the squad. He seems to have been able to develop the feeling that he's invincible, to the extent where he can override authority. I would have matched his anger with anger of my own as his manager."
Needless to say, they see it a different way in the red half of Manchester. "It's all down to jealousy," Mark Longden, chairman of the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association, told the London Times.
"The rest (of the squad) haven't a medal between them and to most the World Cup is a holiday. Roy wouldn't have that. He's a born winner and he can't tolerate people who don't feel the same way."
An editorial in the Manchester Evening News also had sympathy for Keane, while conceding that his attack on McCarthy left the manager with little option but to send him home.
"Those people who have followed Roy Keane's career closely over the years were not surprised. His zealous pursuit of perfection has seen him blow his top many times, on and off the field. This time he has gone too far.
"(But) Keane is always going to stick out at an awkward angle, no matter where you put him in football. He is ferocious, whether he be tackling Zinedine Zidane or appraising his own, and his team's, performance. His 'problem' is that he tells the truth, whether the listener or the wider world wants to hear it or not. He takes a sledgehammer to the lies, and his own reputation does not escape his onslaughts.
"His honesty is the single biggest reason why United fans love him - that honesty is in everything he says and everything he does on the field. So what chance have his Irish colleagues got? He laid into some of (his team-mates) because they accept failure too easily. He does the same when the United superstars fall short."
"It stuns me that the problem snowballed into such a big row," wrote former Wales and Everton captain Kevin Ratcliffe in the Liverpool Echo. "In my opinion, Keane is the best midfield player in the world, bar none. Forget Zinedine Zidane or Luis Figo, Keane has it all. He is the perfect midfielder. For Ireland he is irreplaceable. His single-mindedness has helped make him such a supreme talent.
"From what I have read in the papers about the facilities at Ireland's training camp in Saipan, the skipper had good reason to be frustrated . . . but there can be no justification for his outburst at the manager. Mick McCarthy had little option."
Meanwhile, on a Manchester United's supporters' website, they've already penned their first tune for the new season - "Oooh, Roy Keane is magic, he wears a magic hat, and when he saw McCarthy, he said "you ****ing twat, You only played for Millwall and City cos your *****, I play for Man United cos I'm ****ing dynamite."
