Saturday 1 Mick McCarthy is delighted with Ireland’s comeback against Cameroon: “There’s been a lot talked about the spirit and camaraderie and I think that has been shown today.” Niall Quinn claims he tried to get Roy Keane to return but couldn’t persuade him to phone McCarthy: “I’ll never understand why Roy didn’t make even a lukewarm attempt.”
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger explains why Rudi Völler's battlers were different from their predecessors, and how they made him care about the national side again
Sometime around a quarter to three on Friday, June 21, I caught myself slowly and silently rocking back and forth. Even my son, a nervous chatterbox less than two hours earlier, was very quiet. He is only 12, and at that age it’s not only normal to support your national team but perhaps even, well, healthy. So I kept my mouth shut because there was nothing positive to say and I didn’t want to foster a cynical image by saying something negative. All the more so since there were plenty of other people already doing that.
The World Cup produced some truly awful TV. Cameron Carter relives the BBC's late-night shocker, while Barney Ronay laments the humiliation of Paul Gascoigne
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I admit it doesn’t take too much to appear the clever one in a broadcasting partnership with Denise van Outen or Kelly Brook, but Johnny Vaughan has been funny and will be funny again (like our plucky England team, he’s relatively young). It is, however, becoming increasingly difficult to find people who still believe this. Like his recent sitcom ’Orrible, Johhny Vaughan’s World Cup Extra provided fewer moments of pleasure than a motivational talk from a reformed crack addict.
David O'Byrne saw the Turkey outdo all World Cup expectations despite Hakan Sukur's baleful influence
Before the start of the World Cup, few Turks had expected their team to last as far as the semi-finals. After the first two group matches, that number had shrunk considerably. As a scenario of failure, relinquishing a one-goal lead not once but twice had a distinctly familiar ring. A decade of senselessly chucking away promising positions was capped last November when Turkey gifted Sweden two goals in the last three minutes of the final qualifying match, leaving them to face a play-off against Austria.
Scotland's efforts at the World Cup Finals have been frustrating, but their best team never made it that far. Cris Freddi looks back on their narrow exit in 1961
Czechoslovakia were probably annoyed to be in this play-off. After beating the Scots 4-0 at home in their World Cup qualifying group, they led 2-1 at Hampden before Denis Law scored twice, including the winner with only seven minutes left. That left the two teams level on points – the only other team in the group, Ireland, lost every game. To make matters worse, Czechoslovakia’s captain and left-back Ladislav Novak picked up an injury that was still keeping him out.