There will be no third act. Although the announcement by Roy Keane yesterday evening that he would be retiring from international football came as no surprise, it was nonetheless like the sounding of the lone bugle after a funereal week for Irish soccer.
In keeping with the Corkman's brilliant and controversial relationship with the Irish national team, his farewell was both devastatingly simple and complex.
In a brief, polite statement, the Manchester United captain outlined his wish to prolong his club career and offered his support for beleaguered Irish manager Brian Kerr. The sweet irony of this will not be lost on Keane's critics given the violent and calamitous breakdown in respect and understanding between Keane and Kerr's predecessor, Mick McCarthy.
And the fact Keane was missing - through injury and suspension - during the most critical week of Kerr's football life will also seem like poetic justice to those who claimed the Corkman used Ireland when it suited him.
But to the majority of sports fans in Ireland, the news of Keane's international retirement comes as further proof that the light is dying on one of the most distinguished and remarkable sportsmen the country has ever produced. Just last month, Keane stunned Alex Ferguson and Manchester United fans around the globe with his laconic observation on Old Trafford in-house television that it was probably time to move on.
While Keane has enjoyed a largely glittering career at Old Trafford and an almost patriarchal relationship with Ferguson, his Irish story has always carried an edge.
The cold statistics are remarkable only for the longevity. Keane was capped as a 19-year-old against Chile in the summer of 1991 and scored nine goals in 66 appearances for Ireland, the last of those in the tense and luckless defeat to France in Lansdowne Road a month ago. The man who burst onto the national consciousness as a pudgy-cheeked, brash and shy individual under Jack Charlton leaves some 14 years later as a sculpted and somewhat austere figure, a thoughtful and deeply serious football man who laces his remarks with cutting humour.
And he is the one Irish sportsperson of whom everyone has an opinion.
Even in his early days under Charlton, Keane showed a tendency to challenge authority for which he did not have absolute respect. Keane's club experiences were defined by two of the most sternly patrician figures in English football history, Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest and Ferguson.
On Irish sabbatical, Keane's volatile combination of insolence, mischief and a deep conviction in being honest to himself frequently led to fractious episodes. After Charlton stepped down on a night of bathos and singular defeat against Holland in Anfield in 1995, the FAI appointed Mick McCarthy, a kindred spirit of Charlton's. From the beginning, Keane tested the Barnsley man, failing to make contact after being selected for a match against Portugal in May of 1996 and declining an invitation to captain Ireland on an American tour later that summer.
Over time, an uneasy alliance developed between the two, eternally frozen in Lorraine O'Sullivan's great photograph which shows McCarthy literally bending over to shake Keane's hand after the Cork man led Ireland to a thunderous victory over Holland in 2001.
That unforgettable Saturday afternoon caught Keane in all his majesty. Keane's ability to produce imperious performances for Ireland and his evident desperation to drag and bully and cajole his team-mates towards heightened feats didn't tally with the accusations that he simply did not care about Ireland.
But even before the 2002 World Cup, Keane was both god and villain to sports fans in this country. The infamous stand-off with McCarthy in a hotel canteen on the Pacific island of Saipan deepened those divisions in an extraordinary way. An explosive row over Keane's candid but reasoned newspaper interview with Tom Humphries of this newspaper ended with Keane, the Irish captain, being sent home.
It was one of the most sensational stories in World Cup soccer history. And, although the remainder of the Irish team won hearts in going down to Spain on penalties after an emotional progression to the second round, the fall-out only became apparent through the next winter. It made Mick McCarthy's position untenable and, sadly, brought his long and popular relationship with Ireland to a bleak close.
It also caused a fundamental change of policy and personnel within the FAI. Across the country, though, it sparked a deep and bitter debate and division of loyalties, a civil war for the trivia age.
Through it all, Keane calmly maintained his absolute conviction that he was right and although he further infuriated some Irish fans by seemingly inviting and then declining Brian Kerr's overtures, ultimately the call to play for Ireland again was too strong too resist. Keane returned in April 2004, despite disapproving utterances from Alex Ferguson. This last phase of his Irish career was bittersweet.
Although Keane remains a great and intelligent midfielder, he is no longer the all-conquering life force of old. In the end, his deep wish to return to another World Cup fell short, a fact that makes his poised and lonely position during the crazy days of the Saipan affair seem all the more poignant.
Keane never leant himself to easy epitaphs. There were times when he seemed to court controversy, be it his premeditated tackle on old Manchester City foe Alf Inge Haaland or his stinging rebuke of Arsenal's Patrick Vieira in the tunnel at Highbury last season.
But he has always been a man of substance on the field, both for Manchester United and Ireland. Already, he is being tipped as a future Ireland manager.
Wherever his future, it seems highly likely Roy Keane will continue to stalk the imagination of English and Irish soccer in a way no player has before nor will again.
