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Special One meets his match in Balotelli:LAST TUESDAY in this paper, the estimable Prof Morgan Kelly of UCD wrote what was for me the seminal noughties think-piece on our economic future; and, as prognostications go, downright depressing it was too.

One sentence still reverberates for me: “The Irish economy has been faking it for a decade.” What’s frightening about his thesis, as I understood it, is that the exercise in mass delusion that led us into our present pickle has not dissipated; far from it, with even the Icelanders now set fair to out-navigate us in the voyage towards economic sanity.

It strikes me that only the French are as eager as ourselves at buying into collective national myths, and many French intellectuals must now be pinching themselves as Anglo-American commentators vie with one another to extol the Gallic model: a strongly regulated economy, swingeing taxation, Big Government controlling markets tightly, as well as heavy social and public spending that cushions against crises.

As Eloi Laurent and Michele Lamont recently pointed out in the International Herald Tribune (global.nytimes.com) however, the surface attractions of short-term economic resilience can mask deeper societal chasms.

Remember Clichy-sous-Bois?

It was the Parisian banlieue in which two teenagers died four years ago while being chased by police. That accident that sparked nearly a month of shocking rioting as the marginalised and resentful inhabitants of many other suburban sink estates reminded the world that the foetid sewers of French society house a vast and deprived underclass.

And Les Banlieuesards are virtually all from racial minorities.

Interestingly, in sport the concept of racism seems a distant French memory, aided of course by the fact a great deal of the nation’s success – in athletics and soccer, particularly – has been produced by black and north African-origin performers.

Not so, sadly, in Italy, where the culture of naked racism is so entrenched in that nation’s “beautiful game” that Juventus supporters especially seem free to chant whatever hateful bile they delight in, and punishment is minimal (although Juve did have to play behind closed doors once last year).

Their special focus remains on “Super Mario” Balotelli, not yet 20 years of age, but already one of Serie A’s hottest prospects. Even when he’s not on Jose Mourinho’s teamsheet at Inter Milan, Balotelli has the capacity to attract even more attention than the Special One, and as with many other sports stories on race, the issues are far from clear cut.

Born in Palermo, Sicily, to Ghanaian parents who gave him up for adoption aged two, he’s a full passport holder, and the undoubted football talent of the strong, 6ft 2in forward could easily see him included in Marcello Lippi’s squad for South Africa. He is also, not to put a tooth in it, a right royal pain in the ass. In public he’s rude and distant, on the field he’s petulant, aggressive and a cheat.

Last month against Juventus, he took an elbow in the chest from Felipe Melo and went down clutching his face – and having had Melo sent off, Balotelli ran off unperturbed. In Italy, they reckon even Mourinho finds Mario Balotelli arrogant.

Kosovo took toll on Slovenian climber

PERHAPS ONE of the Slovenian footballers will cover himself in World Cup glory this South African summer, but in the meantime there’s no doubting the real sporting hero of this relatively-recent nation state.

We tended not to notice, wallowing as we were in our own play-off martyrdom at the hand(s) of perfidious Gauls, how neatly the Slovenians filleted the Russians – despite the best efforts of Fifa and its egregious leader, Sepp Blatter.

It wasn’t just the French and the Portuguese that Fifa wanted to manoeuvre into the finals, the Russians were also seeded to ensure the easiest possible play-off opponents. The Russians were in poll position following a home win in Moscow but wee Slovenia turned the tables in the second leg.

They navigated the two-leg process a whole lot better than our lot, and saw off Guus Hiddink’s crew with some expedition.

Meanwhile, Slovenia continues to mourn mountaineer Tomaz Humar. Climbers worldwide were also marked by his awful death last month on Langtang Lirung, a 7,200-metre peak in Nepal, although it will have surprised few that the 40-year-old was climbing alone. He had a deserved reputation for arrogance, self-centredness and eccentricity; but was a supreme climber and alpinist.

Most would remember 2005 when Humar was rescued from 6,000 metres up the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, in Kashmir, after extraordinary courage by two Pakistanis crewing an SA 315 Lama – admittedly a super helicopter, but at the time working at the very limits of its high-altitude capacity. The entire contretemps was broadcast on the internet by Humar’s support team at base camp.

In November, there was to be no such safe rescue, after he used his satellite phone to tell his base camp manager that he had broken his back and one leg, and by the time an Air Zermatt rescue chopper got permission to operate in Nepal, Humar was dead several days.

His biographer, Bernadette McDonald, reckoned much of her subject’s oddness stemmed from his grisly experience as a conscripted Yugoslav soldier serving in Kosovo from where, she wrote, he returned “less a person than an animal”.

Sparrow quick to tap in to rugby's ways

NOW THAT Limerick, Clare and Cork have variously got their managerial shenanigans more or less sorted out, it’ll be interesting to see who winters well.

Cork remain an interesting summer prospect, not least because some younger talent is fast maturing, and 6ft 7in Michael Cussen’s decision to plump for the hurlers – alongside Aisake Ó hAilpín’s 6ft 6in – will certainly create interesting tactical jousting over the winter league games.

Clare will certainly have to prove on the field that their players’ rebellion against Mike McNamara was worth the upheaval and shenanigans.

As for Limerick: Justin McCarthy may remain in situ, but at what cost to the county’s championship prospects?

There’s an argument to be made, and fairly easily sustained, that there’s no great surfeit of talent awaiting the summons of McCarthy, and the usual local strife and sniping continues apace.

Just before Christmas, Jackie Cahill in the Mail quoted an unnamed Limerick player as saying: “I don’t want to blacken that man’s name (OH, YEAH?), because he’s a massive hurling man, but as a communicator and man-manager, he’s awful.”

Sound like a Messiah?

Even more interestingly, the busy Jackie Cahill also talked to former Limerick manager Tom Ryan for the Examiner. “Everything here in Limerick is geared towards the Munster rugby team now, in city and county,” quoth Ryan. “Bruff, Abbeyfeale, Newcastlewest and all these places are developing rugby teams because they can see a huge void to be filled with the county board stuttering from one crisis to another.”

Interesting, in light of Tom Humphries’ view last Wednesday that “county teams (NOW) crave the attention of men who have had contact with Munster or Leinster or Ireland”. Not least given the story that Ger “Sparrow” O’Loughlin, Clare’s new manager, is enlisting as trainer one Fiach O’Loughlin (no relation), a winner of six AILs with Shannon and fitness coach of Cratloe en route to their first Clare senior hurling championship this year. In less than three weeks, their first competitive outing looms in Meelick when they open the defence of the Waterford Crystal. Soon after that, the All-Ireland club semis are mouth-watering prospects.

Oh, and of course, for those of us of a catholic sporting disposition, the Heineken Cup reaches the critical group games also this month.

Watson proving to be a chip of the old block

It’s a delight to see Luke Watson going well with Bath in the English rugby Premiership, and the fact the club is recovering from some summer drugs-and-shenanigans controversy will not faze this remarkable young man one tiny bit.

Still only 26, he’s already endured and handled more challenges than most entire teams might be expected to suffer in their collective lifetime, and throughout those episodes he’s maintained a pretty decent level of rugby.

His dad, one Daniel ‘Cheeky’ Watson, was one of the few oval-ball heroes of the apartheid era when he refused to play whites-only rugby, instead breaking the law to go to townships and play with non-whites and ending up in prison as a result of his campaigning.

So young Luke grew up being disliked by his schoolmates to the extent he was never even asked to play in other kids’ houses, and birthday invites were non-existent.

He grew strong, captained the national schools team and played for South Africa at under-19 and under-21 levels.

An intriguing side of South African captain John Smit emerged in his recent autobiography when he revealed he had accused Luke Watson – who some felt had been “parachuted” into the Springbok squad – at a Tri-Nations team meeting last year of destroying squad morale.

Watson’s a survivor. He’s had to be.

Kinane and Domingo in their own way deliver elegiac valedictories

Recently I lauded the earned and sublimely-timed retirement of MJ Kinane, flat jockey supreme and an adornment to his sport in every sense.

I was greatly taken last year by the resemblances between his dignity, intelligence and capacity to take risks, and the decision-making of Placido Domingo (68), himself engaged on a lengthy farewell to the scenes of his singing triumphs.

Kinane’s ineffable grace in considerable extremis during October’s Arc sprang to mind when Domingo in November chose to sing in Berlin the great baritone part of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra.

Last month at La Scala, he went for the huge tenor test of Siegmund from Wagner’s Die Walküre.

On both occasions, the Spaniard earned 20-minute ovations.

Fine men, elegiac valedictories.