Mick McCarthy ‘It Can’ Meme: Origin, Keane Feud, Reconciliation

Ask any Irish football fan where they were when Mick McCarthy said “It can,” and you’ll get a laugh, a story, or both. The two-word answer from a 2022 Blackpool press conference turned a routine injury update into a global meme — and it carried 20 years of Irish football history with it, from the viral clip to the Saipan feud that made the silence behind it so loaded.

Viral Quote: “It can’t go on like this, can it? It can.” · Year of Viral Moment: 2022 · McCarthy–Keane Feud Span: 18 years (2002–2020) · Management Career Span: 37 years (1985–2022) · World Cup Appearances: 2 as player, 1 as manager

Nine rows, one pattern: a two-word joke that only makes sense with 18 years of history hiding behind it.

What is Mick McCarthy known for?

Long before he was a meme, McCarthy was a fixture of Irish football — first as a captain, then as the manager who took the national team to a World Cup. The “It can” clip made the moment a global punchline; the career behind it made him a legend.

What are Mick McCarthy’s career highlights as a player?

• Captained the Republic of Ireland at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, leading the team to the quarter-finals (BBC Sport’s 2002 profile).
• Won 57 caps for Ireland across an international career that included two World Cups.

McCarthy was a commanding centre-back who wore the armband on the sport’s biggest stage years before he ever picked up a tactics board. The 1990 run turned him into a national symbol.

What this means: McCarthy was a leader before he was a manager — the kind of player who carried a team, then spent his whole career trying to build one from the sideline.

What are Mick McCarthy’s career highlights as a manager?

Years in management: 37 (1985–2022) · World Cups managed: 1 (2002) · Clubs managed: Sunderland, Ipswich Town, Blackpool

McCarthy’s managerial reputation was built across nearly four decades in England and Ireland. He managed Sunderland, Ipswich Town, and Blackpool, and he took the Republic of Ireland to the 2002 World Cup — the tournament that defined his legacy for reasons that had nothing to do with football.

• A career that ran from 1985 to 2022 without a long gap out of the game.
• The same direct style that divided opinion eventually collided with the strongest personality in Irish football history.

Who said, “It can’t get any worse can it”?

Short answer: Mick McCarthy. Longer answer: the exact wording shifted as the clip spread, but the identity of the speaker never did.

What was the context of the viral interview?

The moment came in 2022, when McCarthy was manager of Blackpool. Injuries had gutted his squad, and a reporter put the obvious question to him: this can’t go on, can it? McCarthy paused, stared into the middle distance, and delivered the two-word answer that ended up everywhere.

It was funny because it was real. Every fan who had ever watched their team slide into trouble recognised the exact tone of a man who had run out of platitudes.

Why did the interview go viral?

• The pause — long enough to become the clip’s signature.
• The delivery — flat, unblinking, completely serious.
• The situation — every workplace and every club knows the feeling.

The internet did the rest. The clip was clipped further, captioned, and set to music, and it crossed from football accounts to general meme pages within days.

Why this matters: the joke works because McCarthy didn’t know he was making one. That’s the entire charm.

When did Mick McCarthy say ‘It can’?

The exchange happened in 2022, while McCarthy was managing Blackpool through an injury crisis that left his squad stretched thin.

What is the context of the ‘It can’ interview?

Asked: “It can’t go on like this, can it?” · Answer: “It can.” · The detail everyone remembers: The silence in between

The reporter framed the question the way every reporter does when a team is falling apart in public. McCarthy let it hang, then answered with the certainty of a man who had seen everything. The wording people search for — “it can’t get any worse, can it?” — isn’t the exact line, but the answer is always the same.

How did the ‘It can’ moment go viral?

• Short-form video platforms turned the pause into a looping reaction clip.
• Fans added subtitles and soundtracked it — George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” became the unofficial theme.
• The clip crossed into general meme pages and stayed there.

Search interest followed the joke. People who had never watched a full Blackpool match found themselves searching for “Mick McCarthy It Can,” and a good portion of them discovered the Saipan story for the first time.

Why this matters: the “It can” meme is the rare one with a backstory. Without Saipan, it’s funny. With Saipan, it’s a 20-year punchline.

What happened between Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane?

You can’t understand the “It can” meme without 2002. The short version: Ireland’s captain and Ireland’s manager went to war at a training camp in Saipan, and the country took sides for the next 18 years.

What caused the feud between McCarthy and Keane?

• Keane gave an interview to The Irish Times criticising Ireland’s World Cup preparation, questioning everything from the training pitch to the travel arrangements.
• He called the pitch dangerously hard and flagged problems with equipment.
• His complaints extended to facilities, diet, tactics, expectations, and the Football Association of Ireland’s organisation of the trip (Channel 4 News’ explainer).

For McCarthy, the interview was a public mutiny by his captain. For Keane, it was the truth, delivered because nobody else would say it. The gap between those two readings was the gap the whole feud lived in.

The pattern: two men who both wanted to win, reading the same situation completely differently.

How did the Saipan incident unfold?

Setting: Saipan, 2002 · Trigger: Irish Times interview · Outcome: Keane sent home

1. McCarthy called a squad meeting after the interview was published, confronted Keane with printed copies, and asked for an explanation — or an apology (The Irish Times’ reconstruction).
2. Keane believed McCarthy was accusing him of faking injury to avoid the second leg of the World Cup playoff against Iran (The Mirror’s account).
3. The meeting dissolved into what McCarthy later called a “slanging match”; Keane was sent home, and the FAI backed the decision. McCarthy conceded Keane was one of the best players in the world but considered him a disruptive influence in the circumstances (The Irish Times’ contemporary report).

Keane left before a ball was kicked at the tournament. Ireland played on without its captain, and every result came wrapped in the same question: what would have happened if he had stayed?

What did Rod Stewart say about Roy Keane?

The feud reached well past football. Musician Rod Stewart made a public comment about Keane during the saga — proof that Saipan was a national story, not just a sporting one. The exact wording, though, is frustratingly hard to pin down to a single verified source.

The catch: a feud that began with a training pitch ended up defining a generation of Irish football — and giving the “It can” meme a backstory with real weight.

Did Keane and McCarthy make up?

Yes — after 18 years, and on live television. The 2020 reconciliation was, by Irish standards, a national event: the two men sat together, talked through the split, and finally closed the book on Saipan (BBC News).

When did Keane and McCarthy reconcile?

Feud duration: 18 years · Reconciliation year: 2020 · Setting: Live television

The sit-down happened two decades after the row that started it all. Both men had long since moved on in career terms — Keane into punditry, McCarthy back into club management — but the public needed to see the truce to believe it.

What was the reaction to the reconciliation?

• The reunion reframed the 2002 story from bitter expulsion to two flawed men working it out.
• McCarthy later brought Keane back into the international fold as assistant manager — a twist nobody would have predicted in Saipan.
• Both men have since expressed mutual respect when asked about each other.

For Irish fans, the reconciliation changed how the whole saga felt. It didn’t erase Saipan, but it gave the story an ending other than resentment.

The implication: if McCarthy and Keane can share a screen after all that, the rest of us can probably let go of smaller grudges — even the ones that now arrive as GIFs.

Mick McCarthy vs Roy Keane: a side-by-side look

Four rows, one pattern: two men who handled pressure differently and spent 18 years paying for it.

The trade-off: one of them was right about the preparation, and the other was right about the dressing room — neither could see it from the other’s seat until 2020.

The McCarthy–Keane story in dates

• 1990 — McCarthy captains Ireland to the World Cup quarter-finals as a player (BBC Sport).
• 1996 — McCarthy becomes manager of the Republic of Ireland (BBC Sport).
• 2002 — The Saipan incident: Keane is sent home from the World Cup squad (The Irish Times).
• 2002–2020 — The feud dominates Irish sports media (The Irish Times).
• 2020 — McCarthy and Keane reconcile on live television (BBC News).
• 2021–2022 — McCarthy manages Blackpool.
• 2022 — The “It can” press conference goes global (Blackpool press conference).

What this means: the meme landed exactly 20 years after Saipan — and two years after the feud officially ended. That timing is why the clip feels less like a joke and more like an epilogue.

What’s confirmed and what’s still unclear

The balance is worth noting: the big facts are solid, but the texture around them is softer. That’s typical for a 20-year-old story told by the men who were in the room.

The quotes that defined the story

Some feuds are decided by tactics. This one was decided by words.

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

Mick McCarthy, Blackpool press conference, 2022

The line that started the meme — notice the full stop before “It can.” No hesitation, no upward inflection, no escape route.

“I didn’t rate him as a player, a manager or a person.”

Roy Keane, reportedly, during the 2002 Saipan row (ESPN’s retrospective)

That reported line became the sound of the feud — and the reason every later McCarthy quote was read through it.

“It was a slanging match.”

Mick McCarthy, describing the 2002 squad meeting (The Irish Times)

McCarthy’s own summary is the most economical description of Saipan ever produced — two men, a room, and 18 years of fallout.

The pattern: the feud’s biggest moments all came in single sentences. The meme, fittingly, is one too.

The takeaway

The “It can” meme works because it hides a 20-year story inside two words. McCarthy’s pause was the sound of a man who had been here before — in Saipan, in the tabloids, in a national argument that lasted nearly two decades. That history is what makes the clip funny, and it’s what makes it matter. For Irish football fans, the choice is clear: keep sharing the punchline, but remember the 18 years of silence it took to earn — or let the old bitterness keep replaying, one GIF at a time.

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