Luis Suárez, the Ballon D’Or in 1960, was sold on immediately for a world record fee. Johan Cruyff, the Ballon D’Or in 1973 and 1974, was later (as manager) hounded out of the club with such devastating effect that he left management forever and in spite of returning to the club with advice has never taken up an official post with them since his departure.
Diego Maradona, the greatest player of all time (con el permiso de Cruyff…) suffered injury and illness so he was sold on for a record fee after the president decided he was no longer any use to the club. Hristo Stoichkov and Romário – Ballon D’Or and FIFA World Player respectively for 1994 – lived through acrimonious departures after falling out with the president and other club directors.
Ronaldo, FIFA World Player in 1996 and 1997, was suddenly dumped out of the club for a world record fee straight after winning the award. Fellow countryman Rivaldo, Ballon D’Or in 1999, was suddenly released from contract at the end of one season.
Ronaldinho, FIFA World Player in 2004 and Ballon D’Or the following year, was thrown out by the president as soon as he was injured. Samuel Eto’o, an excellent player who is by no means out of place with the above names, was forced out after constant rumours in the Catalan press drew a distinct lack of support from within the club, and he was subsequently released only as part of a deal for another player (claiming he was fiddled out of money into the bargain).
It seems FC Barcelona are not just “mès que un club”, they also go to great pains to show they are more than any player. As soon as a player reaches the top, the club proves that they are still higher. So just how long will Leo Messi, FIFA World Player and Ballon D’Or for 2009, survive?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Prima donna
Critics of football talk about how ridiculous it is for twenty-two grown men to chase around after an inflated pig’s bladder trying to kick it between some wooden posts. As much as I love the sport, it is hard to argue. It is even more difficult to claim that football is serious when it is turned into a sensationalist circus as it was on Saturday at Stamford Bridge.
The world – or at least the part of it with nothing better to do and even less to think about – waited with bated breath to see whether Wayne Bridge and John Terry would shake hands. This moment was the final act to push modern football – in England at least – over the edge of mediocrity and into the pit of TV reality.
(And by the way, those people who have lauded Bridge's maturity and his ability to get over it are wrong - if that had been the case he would simply have shaken hands with the man and got on with it. Instead he chose to stare him out, testosterone-fuelled alpha male challenge, showing that he is still disgusted that someone could do the dirty on anyone as important as a Premier League footballer.)
Worse than “the handshake (or lack of)” was Bridge’s decision not to play for England. This over-paid, arrogant, preening, self-centred prima donna has decided that his personal problems are sufficient excuse to abandon the national team, in a World Cup year to boot. These are not personal problems of the magnitude of those currently suffered by Edwin van der Sar, for example, or Carlos Tévez, rather a product of behaving as if he was proud to belong to England’s new underclass.
Playing for England should be an unpaid privilege, an honour with no more payment than the sheer pride of being asked to wear the shirt. The team, the badge and the country should always be above the players, it should be much more than the sum of its human parts, and any player who believes himself to be more important than the national team should never be invited to play for his country again.
Bridge is an embarrassment to the game, but he is simply another person showing the symptoms of the malaise that is poisoning the English game. So much so, in fact, that it is surprising that he should reject the opportunity to join the England camp – he would be well at home in the company of the prima donnas and hooligans who currently play for England.
The world – or at least the part of it with nothing better to do and even less to think about – waited with bated breath to see whether Wayne Bridge and John Terry would shake hands. This moment was the final act to push modern football – in England at least – over the edge of mediocrity and into the pit of TV reality.
(And by the way, those people who have lauded Bridge's maturity and his ability to get over it are wrong - if that had been the case he would simply have shaken hands with the man and got on with it. Instead he chose to stare him out, testosterone-fuelled alpha male challenge, showing that he is still disgusted that someone could do the dirty on anyone as important as a Premier League footballer.)
Worse than “the handshake (or lack of)” was Bridge’s decision not to play for England. This over-paid, arrogant, preening, self-centred prima donna has decided that his personal problems are sufficient excuse to abandon the national team, in a World Cup year to boot. These are not personal problems of the magnitude of those currently suffered by Edwin van der Sar, for example, or Carlos Tévez, rather a product of behaving as if he was proud to belong to England’s new underclass.
Playing for England should be an unpaid privilege, an honour with no more payment than the sheer pride of being asked to wear the shirt. The team, the badge and the country should always be above the players, it should be much more than the sum of its human parts, and any player who believes himself to be more important than the national team should never be invited to play for his country again.
Bridge is an embarrassment to the game, but he is simply another person showing the symptoms of the malaise that is poisoning the English game. So much so, in fact, that it is surprising that he should reject the opportunity to join the England camp – he would be well at home in the company of the prima donnas and hooligans who currently play for England.
Fur coat and dirty knickers
Last Friday morning the inevitable happened for Portsmouth as it was announced that they had gone into administration. Most commentators focused on one interesting question: how could this possibly happen in the richest league in the world?
This reminded me of a comment made by a Spanish journalist about Real Madrid at the turn of the century when one of the Spanish football dailies published a list of the most debt-ridden clubs in the domestic game. The journalist asked something along the lines of this: if your neighbour has a five-bedroom house, three cars in the garage, a yacht and a helicopter, would you consider him to be poor?
The answer must surely be no, the journalist asserted, even though you are sure that your neighbour has all these possessions on a mortgage, on hire purchase, on the never-never. If he has access to these things then he must have sufficient income to justify the banks’ confidence in him. The journalist failed to address what would happen if that income – or even the confidence – disappeared.
The Premier League is indeed the richest league in the world, but it is heavily mortgaged. It is not old money and its wealth has no foundation – it is mortgaged up to the hilt on its own reputation. The Premier League is, as they say where I come from, nothing more than fur coat and dirty knickers.
Almost the worst aspect of this falseness is that the Premier League looks on the clubs as mere playthings, similar to the attractive but expensive toys of the wealthy neighbour, and allows prospective owners to do the same. And by far the worst part of this charade is the fact that the Premier League has absolutely no regard for the fans.
And now one of its toys is broken, and the fans are left to pick up the pieces.
This reminded me of a comment made by a Spanish journalist about Real Madrid at the turn of the century when one of the Spanish football dailies published a list of the most debt-ridden clubs in the domestic game. The journalist asked something along the lines of this: if your neighbour has a five-bedroom house, three cars in the garage, a yacht and a helicopter, would you consider him to be poor?
The answer must surely be no, the journalist asserted, even though you are sure that your neighbour has all these possessions on a mortgage, on hire purchase, on the never-never. If he has access to these things then he must have sufficient income to justify the banks’ confidence in him. The journalist failed to address what would happen if that income – or even the confidence – disappeared.
The Premier League is indeed the richest league in the world, but it is heavily mortgaged. It is not old money and its wealth has no foundation – it is mortgaged up to the hilt on its own reputation. The Premier League is, as they say where I come from, nothing more than fur coat and dirty knickers.
Almost the worst aspect of this falseness is that the Premier League looks on the clubs as mere playthings, similar to the attractive but expensive toys of the wealthy neighbour, and allows prospective owners to do the same. And by far the worst part of this charade is the fact that the Premier League has absolutely no regard for the fans.
And now one of its toys is broken, and the fans are left to pick up the pieces.
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