Sporting renewed ambition

Tom Humphries talks to Phil Babb about his success at rekindling his career in Portugal and his exile from the Republic of Ireland set-up.

He's looking out the window this morning at the Lisbon skies which are grey and fat with rain. He doesn't like what he sees. No golf today. No sun on his back today. Still, still, mustn't grumble.

You find him in good fettle, Phil Babb, ghost of World Cups past. He was the first amigo, on board for that torrid night in Windsor Park nine years ago. The first and the best perhaps. He was came into our orbit, captain of Coventry City, engaged to be married, people from Carlow. He left, in controversy, a Spice Boy with, it seemed, a great future behind him. And somehow Phil Babb put himself back together again.

This has been a good year, the best in some time perhaps. Still, he is having a mixed time of it just lately, tasting a slice of poignance sandwiched between two fine chunks of the big time. He's just helped Sporting Lisbon secure the Portuguese league title and the double beckons tomorrow. The summer is his though. Golf and telly.

On the night the Portuguese league was wrapped up he got a call to come to a hotel in the town for 9:45 p.m. He left Caiscais and nearing central Lisbon realised too late what was going on. Hundreds of thousands of Sporting fans were painting the town green and white.

"You've seen Man U," he says, "winning the European Cup and they had tens of thousands out. Well you've never seen anything like this. This was way bigger. It seemed like the whole city was out. Delirious. The streets were crowded. We were getting closer and getting stopped at traffic and in crowds. People were jumping on my car." And he pauses to smile. "I wonder if that was just my car."

And this Sunday, tomorrow, Phil Babb will play his 42nd game of the season for Sporting when they play in the Portuguese Cup final against second division Leixoes from Oporto. The beat goes on.

Last Monday night he picked up a trophy as best foreign centre half in the league with 60 per cent of the vote. Next morning Mick McCarthy named his World Cup squad. Phil Babb didn't go out of his way to hear it. No need. He's always been stoic about good times and bad times. What will be, will be. And he knew this would be, a long time ago.

Maybe he didn't realise it at the very moment when he and Mark Kennedy slid across a car bonnet in Harcourt Street in the early hours of a September morning before Ireland began their world Cup qualifying campaign back in 2000, but he realised soon after. Real soon.

"I think I knew it was more trouble than I needed when I realised that within 15 minutes somebody had rung the press. There must have been a lack of news in the papers. It was blown out of proportion. Some of the things I read about myself were scathing. People who don't know me. Because I don't go to the papers and have a go at each of them back they kept at it.

"We were sorry for the incident. It was a joke or meant as one. To ever get to the stage of making a court appearance, of being taken away. It wasted other people's time. But you learn, or you should do."

You learn. When first he came here the managers were changed more often than the team. He's on his fourth boss already but he's got a solid relationship with Laszlo Boloni and he's reaping the benefits.

He knows, he knows. It's not Serie A and it's not La Liga but when all the Portuguese internationals disappear next week and Boloni keeps the squad in training until May 30th anyway because that's the work-ethic there, well, there'll barely be enough for a good five-a-side.

And Phil Babb is doing well in a good league. He played one Champions League game since he got here but more beckon next year. Six years at Liverpool yielded less. This season he played in front of 85,000 in the Benfica derby. He played in the UEFA Cup at the San Siro against AC Milan. Got Maldini's jersey in the away leg, Inzaghi's in the home leg. They sought him out both times. So does the season trail off in bitterness? Is he disappointed? Will he stir the pot? No on all counts, really.

"It's Mick's decision. If you're asking do I think that I've been unfairly treated by Mick, it's his decision. He's picked a squad that has done well for him. He can feel he doesn't need me, I can see that. He's got young players, who'll do a job. The flip side is that I'm enjoying playing well, I'm enjoying football.

"There's been ample opportunity to, well, forgive and forget. If I'm disappointed it's not over that though, it's that the door seems to be closed on my international career when I'm playing as well as I have ever done. Better. I know though, if I've made my bed I have to lie in it."

It hasn't gone unnoticed elsewhere that for Mark Kennedy the quality of forgiveness has not been strained. Kennedy has not only been welcomed back into squads, he is being given ample chance to prove himself injury free in order to claim a place on the plane.

"Yeah, maybe he has been forgiven but in a footballing sense Mark is very important. Not many centre halves can win you games. Mark can win you a game. I don't know how much it has to do with our respective relationships. You don't have to have a friendly or social relationship with the manager, you just have to work professionally and rate each other."

But, you ask, if you lined up all the Irish centre halves going to Japan and invited them to sprint you'd beat any of them? He pauses. And laughs.

"I'd like to think so. Jesus, I'd hope so yeah."

He's not going down that path either. These are his friends. But it's not only that. "I've always liked Breeny as a guy and a player. Kenny is Steady Eddie isn't he? Stan has been there forever. Dunney played well in the campaign, obviously. In fact he was fantastic at times. I haven't seen Andy O'Brien this season but I've heard good things so there's nobody I'd pick on. Maybe if Mick picked a squad of 30 and I wasn't in that, then I'd be gutted."

Perhaps the animus is historical, a legacy of that incident in 1997 when Curtis Fleming withdrew late from a squad and Mick McCarthy spent a few embarrassing days trying to track down Babb as rumours went around that he'd been seen in every spot from the Harp Bar to downtown Manhattan. McCarthy left Babb out of his next five squads.

"That was something personal that happened at that time. I can't get into that. Couldn't get into it then. Can't now." Was it resolved? "We met. We had a chat. Mick asked why it was he couldn't get hold of me. I explained it to him and, fair dues, he has kept that under his hat since and so have I. Obviously I was involved in squads again after that. So . . ."

So why is he still unforgiven?

"I think I've explained. Maybe it's not about all that. One thing is that I was never Mick's first-choice centre half anyway. So he's looking at the bench thinking, why not have some fresh blood. Maybe they'll be good enough to step up soon and have a long career. I don't know. If I was picking the squad, I'd have myself in there on merit. Of course I believe in myself. I can't speak for Mick."

At a recent press conference McCarthy was polite but quietly dismissive about Babb's case. "At the end of the day I have to ask myself what's going to have changed with a 31-year-old centre half."

Maybe nothing has changed but it seems unlikely. Babb's career has always been about the sense of flux beneath the calm exterior. He's a centre half who was once the most expensive defender in Britain, his first competitive international was in the Giants Stadium against Italy and he was masterful. He was tipped to be captain of Ireland. All that changed.

Perhaps the imprint of the Spice Boys era at Liverpool is still large on his forehead. Babb's cool was often interpreted as apathy and the period he played as a wing back at the club brought out the coolness in him. The position didn't suit and his style infuriated Anfield. It ended badly.

"Do I regret the last year or so at Liverpool? Tough question. There was red tape there. I wanted to go. Liverpool were saying 'well we're not going to let you go'. All sorts of wrangles kept me there but football-wise that was the start of my renaissance. A lot of the time I was left to train on my own. I was training harder than the lads on the team and I was building up a mental stability and resilience. It's tough. If you are out and pushed to one side, it's hard to motivate yourself."

Gerard (Houllier) didn't want me and that's fair enough. They should have let me go though. People said about me, that I wanted to stay on so I could get my money or I wanted a free transfer. There were clubs in for me but Liverpool wanted a fee for a 29-year-old centre half who was a free agent at the end of the season.

"Was I pissed off? Yeah. I'm not saying it was unfair. I still love Liverpool. It was a great time, a great experience. What Gerard has done is what he said he would do. He's turned it around. A lot of the older players from my time, Macca, Robbie, Incey, Jamie, are all gone. Quality players, but Gerard's got the results. So fair play to him."

Change. What has changed? It's about growing and maturing.

"It's like this. You ask yourself can you leave the Premiership and that scene. Can you go abroad? Can you be successful? Can you adapt? Can you learn? Can you do all the things away from football? Lots of players have said no, they've stayed comfortable."

Recently he spoke to Kevin Moran about it. Moran went to Spain late in his career, it was tough, but he did it and when he went back to England, to Blackburn, he was a better player. Babb understood. "This season has brought me up a notch. Playing at this level adds small things to your game and your personality." He has changed with his environment. Sporting train twice a day. Hard fitness work in the morning. Tactics and ball work in the afternoon.

His daughter, Mia, is four and a half years old and life here is good for her. And he's wondering about retirement. Something to do with golf is his feeling.

And next month? "I'll miss it, but it's not a surprise I'm not going. I've had time to get used to it. I'll just enjoy it. There's some great Irish pubs in Lisbon. I'll go there. I haven't shut the door in my mind. I still haven't. You play well enough, you think some chance might come to play for Ireland again. I don't want to get in through injury. I want to get in through merit."

Right now, there's another couple of years on the table at Sporting and they're crossing the Ts and dotting the Is. He's been honest in every game for them and they like that in Lisbon. He misses the Premiership but a few managers have been out to see him so he knows he's not forgotten entirely. "You know, I've always had this shrug-the-shoulders image but you have to have an inner drive in football. I have that. It's never waned. It's people's perceptions of me and the shrugged shoulders. I suppose I never bothered to change it."

When the Irish team gathers, Jason McAteer will put in the regular call to Casa Babbsy in Lisbon and the phone will be passed around the players. Yo Phil! Hey mate! And later when the boys are in drink they'll continue the habit of raising a toast to their old friend. In Lisbon, exiled, but happy - he likes the thought of it. It's enough, for now.

Don't mourn the lost amigo. He misses the friendships, the bonds, but . . . "Life is too short for regrets," he says. "You just look forward to the next day. Regrets? Nah, sod it."