It was a week when we all saw red. Manchester United's stunningly dramatic and impudent win in the Nou Camp stadium on Wednesday evening dominated every news outlet in this country, earning more print and air time than the eventual All-Ireland hurling or football champions will.
The interest and hype which spun around the Champion's League final was most succinctly captured in the introduction to Thursday's Last Word radio programme when, running through the agenda of topics, Eamon Dunphy promised us "Bertie Ahern on Man United's triumph". (FA Cup one week, European footie talk the next; is our leader about to defect to try to fill the vacuum left in our lives by the departure of Jimmy Hill?)
There can have been few other times when the political leader of one country has gone on air to discuss the (admittedly unparalleled) success of a professional soccer club from a neighbouring land. Given the Zen-like worship the Reds command in this country now, it was, perhaps, shrewd judgment on Ahern's part, further enhancing his image of one of the boys at the end of the day.
Still, it was a jarring moment and one which highlighted the complete loss of impartiality of which the Irish media have been collectively guilty since the possibility of a Manchester United treble bid first appeared on the horizon. Even allowing for the glamour of the club and the traditional links between this county and Manchester city, this seemed to be stretching it.
The imbalance can only be redressed if, at some point over the summer, Dunphy opens his show with: "And today on the Last Word, Martin McGuinness on decommissioning, Henry Cabot Lodge reviews the new Star Wars movie and Tony Blair analyses the fall and rise of Cork hurling."
As sport on TV goes, the last minutes of the Champions' League will remain out in orbit somewhere in terms of twisting excitement and good, old-fashioned entertainment. Afterwards, TV and radio stories abounded as to where people were when United knifed Bayern with those strikes from the blue. George Best, it transpired, was in a car park. Believing the Reds to be doomed, he had left the ground with a few minutes remaining to avoid the 50,000 folk intent on exiting Barcelona with his autograph.
As he reached his car, he heard the cheer for the equaliser. Sprinting with the sort of enthusiasm he last displayed in the Sixties, he dashed for a hotel to find the fat lady already singing. By the time he got back to the stadium, even the champers was all but gone.
Terry Venables, meanwhile, popped up on Chris Evan's TV show to recall his reactions in those heady moments after the win.
"I just larfed," beamed El Tel. "I just couldn't stop larfin."
The two lads talked some tactics - Tel revealed that Schmeichel "took off two fantastic saves" - before getting down to the real issues, such as whether ITV provided Tel with a better car than the BBC had.
After Tel's typically Benidormesque appearance, Victoria Adams, aka Posh Spice, turned up to speak about husband-to-be David Beckham and, like El Tel, cheerfully and politely deflected Evans' foolish line of questioning while Becks, the subject of the conversation, stood in the crowd, grinning uncomfortably. One good moment was Victoria's assertion that her fiance "played football with his friends", leaving Evans to respond with, "yeah, they go to the park, throw their jackets down . . ."
No matter what button you zapped, the match was mentioned in some guise or other. The boys of Have I Got News For You? used game footage for their current affairs round. Best line of the week came from host Angus Deayton who, upon learning that Alex Ferguson was to receive an invitation to visit Her Majesty the Queen, predicted that she would first have to "get over the shock of having seen her country lose the match".
So prevalent was talk of the match that it was surprising to switch on to NBA '99 and find Karl Malone from the Utah Jazz not talking about Manchester United. You'd think he didn't know the game was on.
Karl was, rather unfairly, more involved in his team's fading chances of winning the NBA championship. Utah lose titles with the same sense of predestination with which United pick them up.
Having gone down to the Chicago Bulls last June in a manner as devastating as that experienced by the Bayern Munich players last week, the Jazz were considered as a cert to take this year's championship, which was shortened due to the player's lock-out before Christmas. Instead, they found themselves being outgunned by the up-tempo Portland Trailblazers, leaving them in a must-win situation in game five of the best of seven series.
Malone, one of the greatest players never to win a championship, was unstoppable and the few minutes of clips aired by ITV showed a player in the zone. Early in the game, the 6ft 11in Malone flung an elbow at Portland's Brian Grant, drawing blood and angry words from the young Trailblazer. Afterwards, Malone was unfazed.
"I don't like him and he don't like me and we established that. He told me he didn't like me and I said, hey, get in line, because they're a lot of people don't like Karl Malone."
After a spiel like that, it was inevitable that the Jazz would be humbled in the next game, and so it transpired. But it's a shame none of the domestic channels are broadcasting the conference finals. Last night, the Indiana-New York Eastern finals began. Catch what you can on ITV and TnaG. Sport doesn't come any better.
