The information is Saipan is new to me as someone who dips in and out of watching association football. To me, the 2002 World Cup was about South Korea’s ascendancy, Ireland and Roy Keane being a footnote. The film includes archive footage of Irish media then, a comedian unable to believe they made it in. But they do, despite either budget shortfalls of its beleaguered Anglo Irish manager Mick McCarthy (Steve Coogan). Roy (Éanna Hardwicke) sees Mick as incompetent and what actually happens depends on which perspective the viewers believe.

Despite my relative distance to association football, the appeal of it is understandable for me and most viewers. Enough people dream of the best in something, and for Mick and Roy, they want a great Irish football team. An early scene in Saipan has Mick sitting back and bragging that managing Roy is an easy task. As the film progresses, it shows him having to announce that they forgot to bring footballs for… football practice. The team sees this as a long vacation but Roy fumes and blames Mick for the team’s scarce resources.

The montages here are reminiscent of the poppy films that Coogan used to star in back in the 2000s. That style is not just time specific but specific to films mostly from Britain and its Irish neighbour. There’s a frustration here that Saipan either can’t reinvent the wheel or maybe it prefers not to do so. But one can sift through Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa’s style and its two antiheroes come out. They try to bring a balance here where either Mick is incompetent or that Roy is being a diva.

Saipan, to the film’s credit, highlights the absurdity of being in the titular island in Northern Mariana Islands. If one sees it through Roy’s perspective or not, it’s not a good idea to put this European team there. The setting, then, makes this film feel like a White Lotus but on a two star hotel but with depressing interiors. In these hotel rooms, Roy fumes atop his superstar balcony, or Mick hears bad news. Come to think of it, there are enough films with Steve Coogan being competent at playing beleaguered middle management.

At moments, Saipan does seem like a sports film that ties itself too heavily with pop culture of yesterday. But the confluence of setting and story works for the film, with both antiheroes crashing out, island style. Mick and Roy having that final conflict in Japan or South Korea would have inflated this indie’s shoestring budget. Spoiler alert, but it eventually shows Mick in another hotel room, the Japanese lights glowing right behind him. Archive footage shows that Ireland goes far enough despite Roy’s exit but I’m sure diehards dream of alternate timelines.

Saipan is part of a mini retrospective about association football, The World’s Game, right in time for the World Cup on MUBI which –