Mick McCarthy ‘It Can’ Meme: Roy Keane Feud Explained

Born: 7 February 1959 · Irish caps (player): 57 · Managerial clubs: 6 (incl. Ireland, Wolves, Blackpool) · Famous quote year: 2023 · Years since Saipan: 23 (as of 2025)

Nine facts, one pattern: an English-born defender who became an Irish captain, an Irish manager and a modern meme — in that order.

Can it go on like this, can it?

Ask a Blackpool fan about early 2023 and one word tends to come back: grim. The club was sliding toward relegation from the Championship, and Mick McCarthy, in charge during that desperate run, was running out of soft answers. When the questions turned to how much longer the team could keep going, McCarthy answered his own question out loud: “It can’t go on like this, can it? It can!”

Why would two words from a press conference become a defining clip? Because of the delivery. McCarthy did not toss the phrase away; he landed on it, flat and final, the way managers speak when they have run out of alternatives.

The exact quote and press conference context

The full context was a relegation fight. McCarthy’s Blackpool were stuck in the lower reaches of the Championship, and the press conference was an exercise in saying something without giving anything away. The “It can” answer achieved the opposite — it told everyone exactly how bad things were.

The clip spread because it was honest. Managers usually hedge; McCarthy didn’t. He asked the question, then answered it himself — “It can” — and in two words captured the weird resignation that defines a team in free fall.

And that is what ties the clip to the older story: Irish fans had watched McCarthy be this direct before, in a crisis far bigger than a relegation battle.

The 2002 Saipan incident as backdrop

• Roy Keane left Ireland’s 2002 World Cup camp after a clash with McCarthy that began over training conditions and preparation (Channel 4 News (2002 retrospective))
• On 21 May 2002, Keane told McCarthy he wanted to leave the Republic of Ireland camp (BBC Sport (2002 archive))
• He was sent home after a heated squad meeting on 23 May

The argument was never only about a hard pitch and inadequate training equipment. Keane’s complaints ran through travel, diet, tactics and the overall competence of Ireland’s preparation.

Once The Irish Times published his criticism on 23 May, the row went public.

Later accounts, including ESPN’s reconstruction of the week, describe Keane attacking McCarthy’s competence as a player, a manager and a person. The exact wording varies between tellings; as The Irish Post notes, reconstructions of the confrontation differ in detail.

The pattern matters for the meme: when McCarthy said “It can” in 2023, the joke landed because Irish fans already knew him as the man who stood firm in Saipan and carried the fallout for the rest of his career.

When did Mick McCarthy say it can?

Around March 2023, during Blackpool’s fight against relegation. That is the commonly repeated window, though the exact date of the press conference has never been pinned down as carefully as the clip deserves.

What is certain is the shape of the moment: McCarthy was fielding questions during a losing streak, turned the question back on himself, and the camera caught the whole exchange.

The viral moment

• Around March 2023: the clip appears during Blackpool’s relegation season (Ireland Insight (meme explainer))
• 2023: the phrase spreads across social media as a caption for doomed situations
• By late 2025: football coverage still reaches for it as shorthand

The meme’s engine is its simplicity. No context, no translation needed: something bad is happening, and someone has already accepted it. That is why “It can” works — you do not need to know Blackpool, or McCarthy, or even football, to get the joke.

The only missing piece is a reliable timestamp for the original video. The clip was passed around as a standalone moment, and nobody filed an authoritative record of the first upload.

How the meme spread

• Fans layered it over replays of goalkeepers conceding, forwards missing, and managers staring into the middle distance
• Podcast clips and highlights channels picked it up as a reaction sound
• It followed McCarthy into coverage of his next moves after Blackpool

The spread was assisted by the timing: McCarthy left Blackpool in January 2024, which meant the clip outlived his tenure and turned into a rolling reference rather than a single news moment.

By 2025, the phrase had effectively detached from McCarthy — it belongs to anyone who has watched a bad run and recognized the feeling. The implication: the meme is no longer really about him, but the questions always lead back to him.

What was Roy Keane’s problem with Mick McCarthy?

The short answer is that Roy Keane believed Ireland were not prepared properly for the 2002 World Cup, and he said so in the sharpest terms possible. The longer answer covers training facilities, travel, diet, tactics and a clash of authority between captain and manager that neither man was willing to lose.

That collision happened in Saipan, the Pacific island where Ireland’s squad was based before the tournament. What began as a complaint about a hard pitch and inadequate equipment quickly became the biggest crisis in the history of Irish football.

The Saipan incident in detail

• On 21 May 2002, Keane told McCarthy he wanted to leave the Ireland camp
• On 23 May, The Irish Times published Keane’s criticisms of Ireland’s preparation
• A squad meeting that same day escalated, and Keane was sent home

The complaints went beyond the pitch. Keane also attacked travel arrangements, strategy, diet and the general competence of the football operation. Contemporary reporting framed his comments as a direct indictment of Ireland’s World Cup preparation.

McCarthy confirmed at a press conference on 23 May that Keane had been sent home, and Keane flew back to England the next day.

Fallout and World Cup 2002

• Ireland reached the knockout stage without Keane and were eliminated by Spain on penalties in the last 16
• McCarthy stayed on as manager, but the feud followed him through the rest of his Ireland tenure and beyond
• The exact words of the Saipan confrontation still vary between retellings

The tournament result became its own argument. Keane’s defenders read the run as proof that Ireland needed better preparation; McCarthy’s defenders read it as proof that the team did not need its captain. The tournament ended; the argument did not.

Do Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy talk now?

No — and neither side pretends otherwise. Both men have said in interviews that there is no contact between them, and no public reconciliation has ever taken place.

That is not for a lack of shared spaces. Both have worked as pundits and both have been asked about Saipan for more than two decades. The answer has not changed.

Recent statements from both sides

• Keane said in a 2023 interview that he does not think the two will ever be friends
• McCarthy has said they do not speak and has given no sign of wanting to change that
• Neither man has made a public apology

Keane has expressed regret about parts of the episode, but he has been consistent on the central point: he believed the preparation was not good enough, and he has never taken that back.

McCarthy has rarely escalated the feud in public. He has mostly answered questions about Keane briefly and without sentiment — which is, in a way, more final than another argument would be.

Public encounters

• No joint appearance or public conversation between the two since 2002
• Both have stayed active in football, moving between punditry and coaching roles
• No reconciliation has been reported as of 2025

The most common question about the pair remains “do they talk?” The answer has been the same for 23 years. At some point, that consistency stopped being a detail and became the relationship.

Is Mick McCarthy still managing?

As of 2025, no. McCarthy has not taken a new club job since leaving Blackpool in January 2024, a departure that followed the club’s relegation.

The Blackpool spell was short, stressful, and bookended by the meme. He arrived in 2023, the “It can” clip arrived with him, and the clip outlasted his tenure.

Blackpool tenure and departure

• McCarthy managed Blackpool from 2023 to early 2024
• He left after the club’s relegation from the Championship
• The “It can” press conference happened during that stretch and became the loudest memory of it

The appointment was an attempt to stop a slide. Blackpool were drifting toward the drop, and McCarthy, with two decades of management experience, was the steady hand the club hoped would fix it.

It did not work out that way. The club went down, McCarthy went in January 2024, and the defining remaining artifact of his time there is a two-word answer to a reporter’s question.

Current role (pundit, no club as of 2025)

• As of 2025, McCarthy is not managing a club (Ireland Insight (career profile))
• He has appeared as a pundit and commentator since leaving Blackpool
• His exact plans for a return to management have not been announced

The “It can” label is not going anywhere. Every conversation about McCarthy’s next job starts with the meme, which is both annoying and, for a person with his playing and managerial record, reductive.

Mick McCarthy: timeline of a career, a feud and a meme

Seven dates, one throughline: the man who spent a lifetime fighting for results now carries a two-word soundbite that explains the fights better than any stat sheet.

What this means: the meme is a late entry in a long timeline, but it has become the most retold line in it. Everything before 2023 explains why the clip resonated; everything after 2023 keeps repeating it.

Confirmed facts vs. what’s unclear

The archive sorts itself into two piles. Some things about McCarthy, the meme and the feud are settled; others remain stubbornly open.

Why this matters: the settled facts are enough to explain the feud and the meme; the unsettled facts are mostly about memory and motive. The public story is complete. The private one, after 23 years, still is not.

In their own words

The feud and the meme both reduce to a handful of sentences. These three carry the weight of the whole relationship:

“It can’t go on like this, can it? It can!”

Mick McCarthy, Blackpool press conference, 2023

“I have no respect for Mick McCarthy.”

Roy Keane, interview after leaving the Ireland squad, 2002

“I don’t think we’ll ever be friends.”

Roy Keane, interview, 2023

The first quote became a joke. The second ended a career chapter. The third is the only one neither man has tried to revise.

Where things stand

Mick McCarthy’s “It can” is not just a viral clip; it is the two-word residue of a career spent at the center of an argument he never wanted and never ended. The meme works because the feud works — both are about a man who said what he thought and let the consequences fall where they might. For Irish football, the implication is clear: the clip will keep circulating as a joke, and the silence between McCarthy and Keane will keep competing with it for attention, until someone decides the story is finally over.

Frequently asked questions

The answers above cover the conversation around the meme; the conversation between the two men is still waiting to happen.