So. What ails modern sport? Well, have a listen to Damien Duff, a walking, talking embarrassment to his spangled profession. In the course of the following interview, he states unapologetically that he loves his Ma and Da to bits, that's he's not really very interested in money, that he lives a really quiet life out in the sticks, that he had a tear in his eye when they played the anthem on his senior international debut.

Don't feel obliged to read on unless you sense that you must because here's where it all gets sick and twisted: Duff even claims that it's great being a well-paid young footballer.

Finally, with an insouciance that will shock you rigid, he gets up and shakes your hand and thanks you by name. And he departs for The Point to watch Ronan Keating. Disgusting.

What is wrong here? Can Damien Duff find nothing about which to be bad mannered, pouty and aggrieved. Does he lack the basic professionalism to be rude? Has he nothing to moan about? Why is he talking to a journalist anyway?

Where did it all go so wrong? It's his parents, Gerry and Mary, who must shoulder much of the blame - and yet it will be hard not to feel sorry for them if they have to watch their tearaway son zigging and zagging around Lansdowne Road this afternoon, with over 30,000 strangers tribally chanting Duffer! Duffer! That's the sort of thing that happens when you rear one of the best wingers in football and bestow on him the sort of shy groundedness and self-deprecating humour that soccer players usually can't access.

Whatever part Duff plays in this afternoon's proceedings, his presence will send a little electric shock of excitement around the ground every time he touches the ball. He's a throwback to another age, when dribbling was performed by slope-shouldered waifs in baggy shorts. It was an art form, the retailing of dummies, the throwing of feints and skips, the quicksilver feet. Duff has adhered to first principles all along. He was introduced to the soccer racket by his father, Gerry Duff, who at the time was a notorious Manchester United fanatic. Damien, the middle one of five kids, knew no better and was soon worshipping in the mainstream religion also.

Yet, when the time came, Blackburn was one of a few clubs he went to try out for. He made it one night at a trial game in Ewood Park. Alan Maybury was playing, Nicky Byrne from Westlife was there, too, as was Stephen Roche of Millwall. Duff was magical, though. Blackburn and himself chose each other and there was something right and fitting about that marriage. The blue and white quadrants and the grimy old town bear the same old-fashioned quality, as does Duff himself.

Brian Kerr had heard about him before he went away. One evening, with a couple of hours to put down, Kerr wandered up to Dalymount to see an Irish youths team play Poland. He wasn't employed by the FAI at the time and the names were largely unfamiliar. The PA man read through the teamsheet quickly, crackling out the squad numbers and names like an Eastern European railway announcer. Kerr didn't catch many of them, but as the game unfolded one kid stood out. That must be the famous Damien Duff.

There would be a twist, of course. Ireland scored an equaliser in the fourth minute of injury-time, leaving Ireland, Denmark and Portugal deadlocked in the qualifying group. It was decided to settle things by coin toss, there and then. Kerr hung around out of curiosity. Ireland won and went through to meet Norway in a two-legged play-off the following spring. By the time the play-off came about, Kerr was in charge of the team.

"I remember we went to Norway for the away leg. To Bergen. It was beautiful there. I remember it clearly - John Carew was playing for Norway, the groundsman in the place was Irish, and Duffer had turned out to be this quiet shy lad who didn't say much. You'd kinda worry about him, but he went out onto the pitch that day, though, and he was so good that the crowd were laughing at their own left back. He went past him and around him so many times that the back was dizzy. Duffer did extraordinary things that night."

Ireland won 2-1 and took the return leg 3-0. The good times were about to roll. Duff was taking it all with a shrug. His progress in football has been like a scorching run down the wing. Astonishing to watch, bread and butter for him.

"I started down the road with Leicester Celtic, went on down to Lourdes and finished at St Kevin's before I moved to Blackburn. Don't know why I moved around really. I'm usually just a homeboy. I found myself going from team to team."

Kerr understands how Duff kept moving, though. His feet were scorching too many sidelines. When he and Noel O'Reilly decided to look at all the prospects for the Malaysia Youth World Cup, they set up a week of football in Limerick and, as well as a slew of players from the right age group, they brought four from the group two years younger. Duff, Maybury, Richard Dunne and Dave Whittle. After the first training session, Duff was going to Malaysia. Everyone else was playing for the chance to go with him. How good was he?

"I remember," says Kerr, "spending a lot of time telling the team about conserving energy in matches, not to be gung-ho, not to spend all their energy. We'd talk about tactics and patience. One day I called Damien aside and said to him: `None of this applies to you, you can do what you want, go with your hunches.' And he looked at me, very suspiciously." "Why?" asked Duff.

"You're nearly always right," said Kerr, "go with your instincts."

As Duff was leaving the room, his blond brow furrowed and still intensely suspicious, Kerr called after him: "Hey Duffer."

"Yes."

"We all love you here! Relax!"

And Duffer burst out laughing. Kerr knew the kid was onside, he'd cracked the seal of his inhibitions.

By then Duff was on the way. The fact that he was Ireland's player of the tournament was no more of an indicator of his potential than his progress at Blackburn.

He'd realised quite young that he wanted a career in soccer. He remembers announcing it in school and, even though he was handy, people laughed. He attended school in De La Salle, Churchtown, a rugby college, and even abandoned soccer for two years to try rugby.

How did that go?

"Well I'm a soccer player!"

Pat Devlin had scouted him for Blackburn. What clinched it for Devlin was a match in Sallynoggin one day when Duff, just a little blond splinter of a kid, rounded two players and then chipped the goalkeeper while playing for Lourdes against St Joseph's Boys. Devlin's jaw dropped. He brought Duff across when he was 15. It was the season Blackburn won the Premiership and they met and chatted with Kenny Dalglish, whose accent Duff found virtually impenetrable but whose wit he came to enjoy.

"I thought Kenny was funny and I thought overall it was the place to be. I was just dying to go. There was the odd tearful night. When I got there I was a bit homesick and at one time they had to bring my parents across because I wanted to go home, but it was years ago now."

Alan Irvine was the youth team manager, shepherding quite a group of Irish kids through it all. Chris Malone, Gary Tallon, Tommy Morgan, Graham Cassin, Kieran Ryan, Dave Worrell were also there at the time. The English lads would all skip home for the weekends. The Irish kids would look after each other, arrange cinema trips. On the pitch, Duff made an immediate impression. He made his debut on the last day of the 1997-1998 season and won the man of the match award.

Since then he has become a local legend. He was player of the year last year with Rovers and was narrowly pipped for the award this season by Matt Jansen. When people speak of him they don't stint on using words like loyalty and decency. In Dublin this week he took an evening off to go and watch old schoolfriends play in the Leinster League. Pat Devlin still looks after all his interests. He never considered jumping off the ship at Blackburn when they sunk to planet Nationwide.

"It was devastating, but all I wanted to do was help us get back up. Then last season we under-performed big time. We came in 10th or something. Luckily we made it this year."

And if they hadn't?

"Well, maybe the club would have wanted to cash in on a few of us. It was kind of make or break. I'm not interested in money, though. I just like playing football. I don't worry about what anyone else gets."

Still, the impression is unavoidable that Blackburn know what they have on their hands. When player of the year Jansen renegotiated his contract this week, the club noted that they had brought it "into line with players like Damien Duff and David Dunn".

He has never grasped the superstar life which his skills entitle him to. He lives well outside Blackburn - "up in the sticks near a load of old people" - and doesn't socialise much beyond the odd bit of golf or snooker. "Some of the other lads live around, but they're all loved up with girlfriends and wives and kids and stuff. Mostly I just sleep."

He has seen off a half-dozen managers during his time at Ewood Park. This year it's been Graeme Souness glowering across the training grounds.

"He's tough and he still likes to join in during training. He's still got the touches and he likes taking the mickey out of the lads. I stay well away from him over the other side of the pitch."

Yet, tackling isn't as alien to him as most wingers. Kerr remembers him as being devoted to winning the ball back whenever it was lost and, this week in training, it was Duff's hunger which brought about the collision between himself and Steve Carr.

He'll be nervous this afternoon. Playing for Ireland gets the butterflies flying. He made his debut in Olomouc, in the Czech Republic, a few years back, an occasion marked by his apparent willingness to take on the entire Czech team.

"I played about 70 minutes that day and hoped to build on that. It was great. I remember having an old tear in the eye when the anthem was played and then the game was great. My job is going past people and I suppose back then I thought I'd have to beat people all day. I was trying to be Billy the Hero, but I was just a young lad and it was a great honour."

He'd deny it, of course, but he has that old-fashioned Billy the Hero quality to him. The Premiership will enjoy him next year, Devlin feels. "People forget he made his debut when he was 17 and he's had a few hard years. Different managers, a few injuries, but he's a determined fella. Next year people will be surprised by him all over again. The best is still to come and Damien deserves every good thing he gets. He's special."

The bus is filling up for the Ronan Keating trip. "Ah sure, it's better than just sitting around," says Duff as he heads off for the night, a young man already freckled by greatness, with the best of the beautiful game stretching ahead of him waiting to be his, and without an enemy in the world to begrudge it to him.

Something must be done.