Double Standards and Blind Eyes

Let’s take a (not-so) hypothetical situation. It’s a regular game of football. Player A has his leg out; Player B, whether intentionally or not, goes over Player A’s ankle like the freight train through the city in Inception. A red card is shown, a ban is slapped on, and Player B becomes the centre of the football world’s attention. Imagine you’re the embodiment of the press – you get to decide how everyone reacts to this. And there’re two possible scenarios. Scenario 1: vilify Player B as a monster, the bane of football, atrocious and vile and disgusting. Scenario 2: defend Player B passionately, blaming it on the heat of the moment and emotions, saying that actually he’s a really great guy.

You see where I’m going. Diego Costa and Steven Gerrard, both guilty of the exact same situation, but faced with a completely different reaction to their behaviour. Which is, to put it plainly and at the risk (sorry not sorry) of offending various Self-Righteous Liverpool Fans, quite ridiculous. There is nothing that should separate the actions of these two players, and yet one has been torn to shreds by the media, whereas the other has been put on a pedestal and given a sympathetic pat on the head. Clue: Gerrard isn’t the first one.

I can pinpoint a few reasons why the pinnacle of international media that is the English Press (note: sarcasm) insist on viewing things in this fashion, each of them as stupid as the next. The first and most obvious is the herd mentality that most fans subscribe to at the moment: Diego Costa is the man everyone loves to hate. It’s become almost fashionable, if you’re not a Chelsea fan, to mock his face and deride his football, no matter what the state of it actually is. I’m not saying that his actions are excusable or indeed welcome – quite the opposite – but what I am saying is that people are calling him a monster not just because of what he did, but because of who he is.

Don’t believe me? Look at the reception Gerrard got. I spent a good ten minutes listen to Jamie Carragher spouting post-match mindless, drivel about how Gerrard’s red card was down to his being ‘emotional’ and ‘frustrated’, talking about how he’s ‘always been the captain’, and how it was somehow Rodgers’s fault for not playing him. Hm. United fans will tell you the tragedy of Juan Mata and Ander Herrera being left on the bench for large parts of the period, but when either of them gets to start they tend to score goals and log assists rather than spend less time on the pitch than a Minute to Win It game. And Gerrard’s captaincy should incriminate him more, not less, because he should be experienced enough to handle his emotions in a way that is not manifested by stamping on other players’ ankles. Not only Carragher, but much of the press was quick to lay the blame on a ‘moment of madness’. The double standard is quite frankly alarming.

I suppose it boils down to the massive gulf that separates these two players. Costa makes himself easy to hate, whereas Gerrard is a Liverpool legend and, tellingly, an English player. It’s a lot more comfortable to call out someone who’s already got a bad reputation in the press – far less so to call out someone who is highly regarded in general. I remember during England’s World Cup campaign hardly anyone was laying the blame on Gerrard for his beautiful assist for Luis Suarez, or at least not on the level of the stick that Wayne Rooney gets game after national game, even though Rooney doesn’t deserve 80% of it. It’s the same thing – it’s easy to hate Rooney, and the press tend to take the easy option most of the time.

The blinkers are intensified by the fact that Costa wasn’t punished for his stamp in terms of red cards, whereas Gerrard’s 46 second cameo inspired both hilarity and (misguided) sympathy. There will always be hate for a player who didn’t get the punishment he deserved, even though Costa did get the same 3 game ban afterwards. Meanwhile the context of Gerrard’s game and situation – the last ever Northwest Derby he will play in, the last time he’ll lead Liverpool out against Manchester United, the ‘tragic’ circumstances of his leaving – are all hyped up and massively overinflated. Gerrard himself hasn’t helped, playing up the victim part and courting pity. Rodgers said he was ‘man enough’ to apologise for the stamp, but listen to it again and you’ll realise he was only apologising to Liverpool fans for getting sent off. Not apologising for his actions, not apologising to Herrera. That’s not particularly ‘big’. (Another comparison if you are keen – when Rooney apologised for his ‘dive’ against Cambridge the press was on him like Mark Clattenburg on an Ed Sheeran concert. When Gerrard apologised for this, it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.) This playing up of the ‘Gerrard is sorry and he really can’t be blamed’ stick is hypocritical at best.

There is absolutely no reason why one man should be treated as a criminal and the other as ‘playing with his heart’. It doesn’t matter whether you think stamping is wrong or not – if you think that Gerrard shouldn’t be punished or isn’t to blame, then you must think that Costa shouldn’t have been punished and wasn’t to blame either. Vice versa. There is no moral high ground for Liverpool fans to assume because it  fundamentally boils down to the same thing (and don’t even get me started on Skrtel). Give discredit where discredit is due. Legends are not fallible and should not be treated as such. Of course it’s fine to love a player to the ends of the world and back, especially if he’s your one-club Captain and always has been. But loving him does not mean turning a blind eye to the mistakes that he makes, or worse, trying to defend him using the most inane reasoning (hi Jamie). If one of my favourite United players had done the same thing, I’d have been gutted, but would have to call him out on it.

The only thing different between Gerrard and Costa is that one’s considered a legend and the other a bad boy. But there’s no room for history and backstory on the pitch, and status should not overcome wrongdoing. Sure, it’s probably upsetting for Gerrard to leave Liverpool on such a sour note, but tough luck – it’s his fault and he shouldn’t get any sympathy, at least not in terms of his actions. There are so many things wrong with the fans and the press and this is just one of them, but we could really, really do with a lot less double standard and blind eyes. If you’re just here for the Gerrard jokes, though, then I offer a rendering of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off:

‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
Stevie G is going cray, cray, cray, cray, cray
What the Scouers gonna say, say, say, say, say
Slippin’ up, slippin’ up

Forty seconds on the clock, clock, clock, clock, clock
Makes it so easy to mock, mock, mock, mock, mock
Hope he had a real good walk, walk, walk, walk, walk
Slippin’ up, slippin’ up

The Monster Hypocrisy

By now everyone will have formed an opinion regarding Diego Costa’s (shall we say) less than savoury conduct. Battle lines have been drawn – by battle lines I mean Chelsea fans against everyone else – and opinions have already been shared. I thought Gary Neville (who’s surprised) wrote an excellent, excellent article that kind of steps on the toes of what I wanted to write about. In it he argues that Costa is exactly the sort of person that the Premier League is missing – the rough, tough, slightly demented character that makes matches worth watching. Of course not everyone’s going to agree that Costa fits this description, or whether he goes way past the line. But beyond what you think, I believe that you should at least be consistent in your viewpoints, which a lot of people aren’t. And that’s what’s irking me more than whether you believe Costa’s the right kind of monster or not.

A great many rival fans have been accusing Costa of being wild, manic, so on and so forth. But how many of these fans stood by Suarez when he was going around biting people? How many of these fans dismissed Keane’s tackles and revere Cantona’s kung-fu kick? Every time one of the lower-positioned clubs claws a draw or a win using ugly, physical tactics, they’re praised for being ‘giant killers’ and ‘living the dream’. I find this hypocrisy and self-righteous attitude far more problematic than the actual question of Costa and of the people like him. Neville has been called a hypocrite after his article, but he’s been far more consistent than most of the people criticising him. After all, he was exactly that type of player during his career, and he’s always supported this kind of play. No; it’s people who fluctuate based on their biases who irk me.

I think this problem stems from two issues: the first, of course, being club allegiances. Many a United fan will criticise Costa just as quickly as they will worship Keane, even though I personally think the latter is worse. But Keane is an Old Trafford hero and United fans would never consider putting him on the level of a Chelsea thug. And vice versa. This is the failing of club mentalities in general, and something I think will stay around for a long time. We’ll always be biased towards our own players. But what we should be able to do is recognise that not everyone who plays for our teams is perfect, and not everyone who plays for the enemy is bad. If you claim Suarez is a rabid idiot, you should be claiming that because he bites people and not just because you don’t like Liverpool. So on and so forth.

Secondly, people fail to understand that there are different ‘levels’, if you would, of violence and misconduct. Stamping petulantly on someone is not the same as, say, racially abusing someone. Like it or dislike it, such acts of borderline violence are commonplace – any given yellow or red card in a normal match is probably going to be as bad as Costa’s conduct in the Liverpool game. You can’t vilify Costa without vilifying all of those other players either. Likewise, if you’re going to defend Suarez, then you have no right to call for Costa’s ban. I know this veers into moral ethics territory, but all the same, there are certain things that are worse than others. There’s run-of-the-mill bullying and wearing down of the players, relatively provocative celebrations. There’s clumsy and mistimed tackles. There’s unintentional fouls, indignant protests, intentional reactions, slurs, cold-blooded revenge tactics. People need to understand this before they pass verdict.

I don’t expect fans to be completely deontological (by which I mean sticking to one set of rules disregarding context) in their approach. Of course there are certain things that just completely escape any attempt at condemnation (Cantona’s kick, immortalised by seagulls; Zidane’s headbutt almost turned into a pop-culture meme by now) and of course fans will see their favourite footballers and favourite teams in a more, well, favourable light. I just think it’s important to take an objective view to the situation before accusing others of bias, being hypocritical, ignoring the facts, so on and so forth.

As to whether I agree that Costa is someone who brings energy and interest to the game? I do think that playres of his elk are sorely missing in Premier League football. Certainly United doesn’t have a player like that anymore – ironic, because I think we were the team most known for those sorts of players. The English Premier League is known as its country is – full of underdog spirit, bulldog determination, passion, fight, never-say-die. And lately I think it has been missing the grit and character that defines it. Would I go as far as to say that we should all have a Costa in our teams? I think whatever the case Costa did go a bit far, and his behaviour should not be condoned. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have more combative fighters. People who could be thrown into a pit of lions and claw their way out, bruised, bleeding, but alive. That’s what football is about, after all – the way it’s meant to be played – not necessarily dirty, but gutsy as hell. The generation before understood this to a T; it’s time this generation does too.

Manchester Must Remain United

No doubt the image above will be disconcerting for many United fans. Even supporters who were not particularly fond of Danny Welbeck might be questioning the forward’s move to one of the club’s biggest rivals. I have to confess that I fall into the latter camp. Welbeck never particularly impressed me, and his primary importance was so that I could make jokes during games.

When you have a misfiring forward it is easy to ignore or forget certain facts – for example that he’s only 23, that he’s usually played in a position he’s not comfortable with, and that his return is 20 goals in 53 starts despite this limitation. It’s not an impressive statistic, but it’s a lot better than what you’d expect listening to Welbeck haters. And, most importantly, that he’s born and bred right in Manchester, been playing for United since he was 8, one more successful product of one of the best  (if not the best) youth academies in footballing history.

On the back of the new United shirt, three words are printed: “youth, courage, greatness”. The positioning of that first word tells you how important United considers the nurturing of the young. It’s not simply something looked upon favourably; it’s something that is inscribed right into the very DNA of United. The club holds the record for having a youth product in the matchday squad, having done so since 1937 – that’s 77 years running. Until they played Arsenal in 2011 they had an unbroken streak of youth products in the starting XI. 100 United academy players have gone on to play for their country (the latest being the mercurial Adnan Januzaj) and with rising starlets like James Wilson the number seems set on growing bigger.

Which is why this latest transfer window, although none too shabby indeed (Ed Woodward has outdone himself, although to be honest that’s not very hard to do) has still hurt the heart of many a United fan. Welbeck was a player who loved United, who wore his heart on his sleeve. United was in his blood. “Playing for United is all I’ve ever wanted to do – it’s the club I’ve supported all my life.” You don’t come across many players like that anymore. The last of his kind retired just this past season, Giggsy handing down the number to Januzaj, who although I would like to think otherwise will probably be snapped up by a club like Madrid five or six years down the road. Welbeck was the one to take his place, but now he has gone to London.

When you start selling players like that and you start bringing in foreign players to the tune of £59.1 million then you are sending a very clear message. I’m not saying that United doesn’t need players – they need world class players, they need them fast, and they can’t be picky about the price. I’m saying that United doesn’t need players at the expense of home grown ones, especially if they have a chance of proving themselves. Tom Cleverley was not one of these; he’s not getting any younger, nor is he getting any better (in fact in that sense you could say he is getting Younger). And that whole episode with pricing himself out of the Everton/Aston Villa deals sent any respect I had for him out the window. But Welbeck, given time, might have ‘come good’; a long-term replacement for a long term problem. I’m not saying that he would, but it seems a shame we didn’t really let him try.

One might argue that, with the introduction of youngsters like Blackett, Louis van Gaal is still continuing United tradition. Certainly as a question of personal preference I would rather see Blackett than Welbeck in the side, if we’re talking about which youth product to include. However the introduction of Blackett seems to me done more out of necessity than anything else. Another argument is that the selling of Welbeck does not demonstrate a complete slip in United’s identity; that youngsters will still continue to be cherished and promoted. But I fear that this is only the beginning. I remember reading an interview with Gary Neville and Paul Scholes where one of them says they don’t think they’ll ever see anything like a ‘Class of ’92’ again, which is extremely worrying.

It looks like the spending isn’t going to stop in the January window, with Woodward pledging even more money and even more stars. This spending, although necessary, should not take over the identity that United has built for itself over so many years. They cannot afford to become Manchester City (certainly cannot aspire to be them). Hopefully the selling of Welbeck doesn’t mean anything and all this is pointless blather. Certainly Ferguson did mix his youth with experienced players who came from elsewhere. But if one day we field a team entirely made of expensive, foreign transfers, and destroy that 77 year old record, then that would be a day to rue for United fans all over the world.

There Can Only Be One

Interestingly enough, the most talked-about numbers of Manchester United’s squad list (Shaw and Herrera) were soon discarded in favour of another. Adnan Januzaj, the boy who can do anything, has been handed the legendary no. 11 shirt less than three months after its owner called time on his illustrious playing career.

You might wonder what the big deal of all this is. “It’s not his shirt anymore,” you would say. To which I would have to reply “lol”. Just imagine seeing the red of United, the white eleven, and above that – not G I G G S. It’s almost impossible to think of it as someone else’s, least of all a boy who was born after Ryan Giggs made his senior team debut . Like the dugout will always belong to Sir Alex Ferguson, that shirt and that number will always belong to Giggs.

This isn’t to say that I’d rather see the shirt retired (although, if that decision had been made, I would have had no complaints). As much as it is about loyalty, United is about youth – and the handing of it to a gangly young winger is a nice continuation of tradition. What I would protest is how soon it’s been – too soon both for the fans as well as for Januzaj himself.

A lot of fans grew up with Ryan Giggs. Most of us have only ever seen one person wearing that number 11 for our entire lives. His retirement, May 19 2014, was nothing short of devastating. To a lot of us we felt like we’d lost a family member. We’d gotten so used to Giggsy and his magical Peter Pan genes that a part of us probably hoped, unrealistically but nevertheless genuinely, that he could play forever. He had, after all, already defied physics for so long – what was one more year?

This is the weight, the emotion, the history attached to the number 11 that Januzaj will have to bear. Many people leave the rooms of their children vacant after they move out and this is the same kind of sentiment. Just one season after GIggsy retires you give his shirt to someone else – and not even someone whose loyalty is unquestionable (yet)? Personally, it doesn’t feel right.

I’ve got nothing against Januzaj – I think he’s a wonderful player and I certainly don’t blame him (when the number 11 is offered to you what else can you do but take it?). But this, I feel, is also unfair to him. Too soon for him. It’s even more stressful than being the number 7 – if you were 7, you’d just need to be an excellent, quality player. And Januzaj was easily the brightest spot of Moyes’s dark era. But no. 11 demands much more than that. It demands, above all, loyalty – to be exceptional, but also to be a one-club man. If you were ranking the current squad in terms of loyalty Januzaj would not be a name that immediately springs to mind (consider how worried we all were when it came to extending his contract). He’s not the type to go about declaring his love for United, the way new signings Ander Herrera and Juan Mata do. His leaving in five or six years’ time is a very real prospect, and as number 11 he would only invite more scrutiny.

Not only that, but in a way it cheapens his identity severely. Januzaj could have made no. 44 his own. It is a unique number – probably not something that rolls off the tongue easily, but one-of-a-kind. With his skills and talent he could have turned 44 into a number that boys on the school football team fought over. Now that he’s no. 11, however, he will remain in the shadow of Ryan Giggs. No one can deny just how huge Giggs’s presence was, and it is this presence that Januzaj will constantly be compared with. If he manages to hold his own and establish himself then that’s all well and good, but how can you hope to beat a man who has 13 premier league medals under his belt? Not only does Januzaj have to cope with expectations, then – he must cope with being compared to a man who far exceeded them.

Certainly it seems that Giggs himself encouraged Januzaj to take the shirt. But in the classic self-deprecating manner of his teammate Paul Scholes, I don’t think that Giggs gives himself enough credit for what he’s done, or what he’s turned his shirt into a symbol of. For at least two generations of United fans, there can only be one number 11, running down the wing.

It’s (Not) A Sign

With the exception of just about every rival supporter, Manchester United’s 2013/2014 season was certainly one to forget. More so than David Moyes’s stuttering mannerisms, god-awful press conferences or even the losses week after week, the worst was the woeful performance of the squad as a whole. When your best players are an eighteen-year-old in his debut season and a transfer from a rival club, you know that something is terribly wrong. Indeed, buying more players was touted time and again as the solution to United’s woes.

Fast forward to the 2014/15 pre-season. It’s been touted as a fresh start for United by players, newspapers and pundits all over the world. Instead of the “lol” dismissively tossed out, our season already a joke that did not need to be said, rival fans have reverted to raiding their limited vocabulary of swear words – a sure sign that once more United is instilling fear in their hearts. Nothing can sum up the remarkable turnaround of Van Gaal’s reign more than the Curious Case of Ashley Young, who has scored more goals in the six friendlies (as a wing-back) than his last two seasons combined.

Van Gaal is definitely a magnificent prospect. He strikes me as a bona fide Pirate Captain, complete with the confident swagger and the ability to strike fear and respect into his men. Gone are the days of aspiring to be like City; with van Gaal it is clear that nothing but the best will be enough to satisfy him. His 6 wins of 6 matches more than eclipses Moyes’s record of three defeats and two draws in seven games. Mourinho has already begun the mind games, signalling that United is increasingly being seen as a title contender. The occasional gust of wind that you can feel is the collective sigh of relief of United fans.

And yet.

While the squad is looking better, it is still essentially the same squad. Our club has made the least number of signings for any Premier League club – and this is a Premier League including teams like West Ham (sorry, West Ham, but you were the first club I thought of). Compared to fierce rivals Liverpool, who have been snapping up players like Billy Joel in For The Longest Time, United’s transfer window has been dreary. Even City, who’ve admitted to ‘spending less’, have still been a lot busier.

It wasn’t always such a gloomy prospect. Woodward has fans abuzz (by abuzz I mean not mocking him for once) when he managed to grab not one, but two excellent players. Herrera has been absolutely stellar, Shaw as well (and the side will definitely be hurt by his four weeks’ out). 

Unfortunately, besides those two, no one else has come to Old Trafford. Hummels, my personal dream signing, is decidedly staying put at BVB. Vidal has waffled so much no one is sure anymore what’s going on. Vermaelen has gone. Kroos (another dream) has gone. Blind and Ajax are ready, but apparently United is not. Woodward told fans to ‘watch this space’; months later we’re still watching as the next signing turns into the proverbial Godot.

Shaw’s injury and the subsequent scramble for defenders demonstrates the need for signings – the squad simply isn’t strong enough. Van Gaal might start Blackett tonight, which speaks less for the club’s history of blooding players and more for the lack of options. Paul Scholes wrote in the Independent that the reason United won’t win this year is because they aren’t signing enough people. If one of the club legends, part of such a self-assured team full of belief, doesn’t think we can win, then he’s probably got a point.

The Premier League is brutal, and many clubs can’t go an entire season without suffering some sort of injury crisis. My worry is what will happen when United have theirs, and find out that sometimes being irreplaceable is not a good thing.

You Can Have This Heart To Break

For a World Cup touted as the remedy to its drab 2010 counterpart, with more goals, more drama and more memorable happenings, its final was remarkably like its predecessor; chances for both sides that neither seized and settled with a goal late into extra time. 

At the end of a final, be it the Champions League or Euro or World Cup, there will always be the same photo: someone sitting on the pitch, pulling his legs towards his chest, staring out over the field as if there is some consolation in the distance. You can see it in his eyes; a flicker of hope, as if maybe this is all a terrible nightmare, perhaps the referee will rule the goal offside, perhaps we will have a replay. And slowly it will fade, only to be replaced by crumbling spirits and shattered dreams. At the end of a final, at the end of any game, there is a winner and there is a loser. And so it goes.

In a sense football is a lot like war. Douglas McArthur (a man I’m not overly fond of, to be honest) once said: you win or lose, live or die — and the difference is just an eyelash. I was firmly in the German camp but Argentina should have won that game. They had a host of chances, and anyone from Higuain to Messi should have buried the hatchet in normal time. Unfortunately, that’s not the way football works. Football means that the best man (or team) doesn’t always win; it’s a story of bad calls, wrong cards, more misses than hits. But these are all things you cannot fight, no matter how much hard work you put in or no matter how much you try. You must just take what you can get then go on. Such is the tragedy of football.

The other thing about this game is that it tends to make heroes, sometimes out of nothing. Every club, every national team will have a ‘talisman’, a player plucked from obscurity by an assortment of footballing experts who fold their arms and nod: “you will be the next big star.” They have no choice in this (would Rooney voluntarily pick to be as vilified by his country as he is?); they accept the decision and then shoulder the hopes of their country. Some, like Neymar, are real talismans – look at how Brazil fell apart twice without him – some, like Rooney, are the scapegoats – England will, let’s face it, never do well, and so the blame must rest with the biggest player no matter what he does. Messi is special because he is the ‘best player in the world’, and therefore he can put no foot wrong. I disagree with giving him the Golden Ball because in this tournament he did not, and could not be expected to, rescue his team single-handedly. It was Argentina who got through as a whole (particularly Mascherano, who was very impressive) – but I digress. My point is that football is cruel because it makes heroes then breaks them. Messi, perhaps led to believe as such through media reports and the adulation of his counterparts, must have longed to score the winning goal. He must have thought, “I can save my team. I can lead my team to victory.” And when that didn’t happen he must have been crushed.

If you have read Waiting for Godot, football is a lot like that; assailed by setbacks, obstacles, pain, our heroes choose to go on instead of give up. Argentina played their hearts out the last few minutes. United always do (which is probably why we have so many last-minute triumphs, but that’s another team and another day). Again and again, the fallen will come back, will not stop, will try harder. And the winners will strive to win even more. Schweinsteiger played on with what will be a scar underneath his eye, Kuyt got his head stapled to finish the game. Because the thing that is missing in Godot is there in football – hope.

Hope alone is not enough to win, but it will always be waiting, tucked into a tiny corner of every footballer’s heart, the hope that we can win this, that no matter how small or how weak or how bad they are, we can pull this off. Hope that, if not this final, then the next. If not this time, then the next. Hope that one day it will be you who has scored the winning goal of a World Cup final, who has done your family city country continent proud, who will not be sitting on the ground staring off into space, but crying your heart out from happiness (and my god what a feeling it must be).

Yes, football will make you cry. It will make you feel like killing yourself. It will make you cook eggs for breakfast to comfort yourself, fail in doing so and spend the rest of the week moping around wondering how you can be so invested in men you have never met. Football builds dreams and takes them away. But that’s the beauty of it, the investment. With football, in those 90 minutes I don’t have worries, I have emotions; I don’t just feel, I feel for; and suddenly life seems like it’s worth living again. Life is about pain as much as it is about joy, and I would rather have my hopes crushed than not have hoped at all.

So here, football. I will share this room with you, and you can have this heart to break.

And A Little Spirit

Not a real post, but I would like to share (or, at least, remember for my sake if no one else’s):

I found the image of this old man and his trophy the most emotional and moving of Brazil’s humiliation for a few reasons. Because it was the first image I saw of the aftermath (and you can call it that), because of the way he hugs that trophy, because although he is not crying you can see the despair and desperation written onto his face as clear as day, because he is probably old enough to have seen the better part of Brazil’s rise (and now, too, their fall). 

What I did not see until now, though, was what happened after: he gives the trophy to a young German fan, who accepts it, and he says “take it to the final. As you can see, it is not easy, but you deserve it.”

I did a little more digging, and apparently this man, Clovis Fernandes or ‘Guacho da Copa’, has attended every World Cup since 1990, following his team with the blind devotion many of us have but refuse (or are unable) to act on. Watching the world cup wins of 1994 and 2002 contrasted with this sorry display must have been even more painful, but I just thought that he is a wonderful human being. If my team had lost 7-1 I would have gone home, drunk chocolate milk and wallowed in bed for the next five hours (something I already do, not even at a world cup, not even at a live match). 

But here he is, Brazil’s superfan, congratulating the Germans and giving this replica trophy – something he always has with him, apparently – to them. And other stories, too; how on the seventh goal, instead of sulking, the stadium rose to give Die Mannschaft a standing ovation, because they appreciate class and skill when they see it. 

This is what football is about. Not Nazi jokes, not people hating others just because they support different teams, not diving, not biting, not even winning or scoring goals. It is the heart. The spirit. The way fans who’ve never seen their team play care so much about them nevertheless. The way players kiss their badge when they celebrate. The way suspended players jump out of their seats and sprint down the length of the field. The way supporters who have had a battering still give ovations. The way a man who has invested so much in his team – a team who has just lost by six goals – can lift his chin up, put a smile on his face, and tell his opponents, “you deserve it.”

When Hope Is Not Enough

One: a quick corner, a clean goal. They pick themselves up, they move on. It is not yet over and both sides know it.

Two: a shot, a save, a rebound. A record broken, so are millions of hearts.

Three: the star forward misses, but no matter, because another is behind waiting to strike. There have been comebacks, even from three goals down, but surely not when the goals are within a minute of each other.

Four: not, as Churchill put it, the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.

Five: and now, surely, no more –

Six, seven: and now, Schürrley, two more.

Even non-football fans, even people who have never heard of the offside rule, will by now have heard of the decimation that Brazil suffered. Other words work equally well; annihilation, obliteration, but more than those things it was humiliation.

I was hoping for Germany to win, but watching the complete disintegration of a football team strikes pity into even the coldest hearts. These were eleven men with the weight of a nation – not just any nation, but the ‘spiritual’ home of football – on their backs, with everything to play for, with a final in front and a home crowd behind. Admittedly, they have been less impressive in the matches leading up to this semi-final, looking less of a team than a scattering of individual talent (and mediocre talent, at that). But still they were a force to be reckoned with, and to watch such a force being dismantled and so decisively outclassed was something I hope I will never have to see again.

Football at that moment seemed pointless. There were no tactics, no positions, no schemes. Half time is when you rethink your strategies, figure out a new way to go forward, or so the handbook goes; but the handbook has nothing inside about being five nil down in twenty nine minutes. They might as well not have played the second half, might as well have held up their hands in surrender before going back to the dressing room (and if they had, the margin would still have been one less). Instead of strategy there was panic, instead of tactics disorganisation. This was not about football, this was about the human condition; about panic, anger, fear, and then resignation. This was about giving up, when a consolation goal is not really a consolation, when fans do not wait for the whistle to go.

Even cushioned by thousands of miles, lacking connection to Brazil (indeed having no love for them), it was an awful experience. Tragedy on the pitch only mirrored tragedy off of it. The post match interviews might as well have been called snapshots of despair. Scolari, grave-faced, begging for forgiveness, for a nation to excuse an inexcusable mistake. Goalkeeper Cesar saying that he’d rather have been the one scapegoat, a noble sentiment of self-sacrifice that hardly matters in the end. And the most heartbreaking, Captain of the night David Luiz saying through his tears: “I wanted to see my people smiling.”

For a people so intrinsically linked with football, there is nothing which could ever remedy the bitter taste of defeat. Take a look at the faces of the fans – the little boy crying into his coke, the woman in the hat sobbing into someone’s arms. The old man clinging to his trophy, as if the harder he squeezed, the more he hoped, the better his team would play. But hope is not enough, will never be enough if the team does not perform. That is the cruelty to being a football fan – that better, louder, more passionate supporters do not a match win. That it is players who play and players who lose, while we are reduced to the sidelines and can take comfort only in the choicest swear words.

Last night they apologised, any of them, all of them, again and again. “I want to say sorry to all Brazilians.” “We ask for forgiveness.” And the Brazilians, like all football fans, like anyone who has ever had an idol and believes in them, will forgive. Because this is what happens in football – teams lose, sometimes awfully, we blame them, then we forgive them, and we love them once more. (No better example, really, than England year after year.)

Forgive, yes, but no one will forget. From now on, every time Brazil plays someone strong, some newspaper somewhere will dig this result up. It will be quoted in articles, columns, reports. It will become a statistic from which there can be no hiding. Brazil one day will love their national team again, and perhaps they will be paid back with the sixth star – but Scolari will always be the man who led football’s greatest son to a 7-1 defeat, and the 2014 team will always be the eleven men who brought a nation to its knees.

mas temos que aceitar essa derrota.

 

There is nothing more heartbreaking than watching your favourite football player go to pieces during a match; especially if that match is all that stands between his team and elimination. By now everyone will know at least something about Spain’s 2-0 defeat to Chile, and the fact that the match between them and Australia no longer matters. At the heart of last night’s defeat, ironically someone at the heart of other successes, was Xabi Alonso. His free kicks left much to be desired, and his passing (after 100% accuracy for the first 20 minutes) inexplicably became sloppy, leading to the first goal. Now I love Xabi, but I know the more frustrated he becomes the worse he plays and I was rewarded by a booking soon enough. The one good thing about last night’s match was del Bosque taking him off to end his misery.

It is heartbreaking because you know that you can do nothing about it. You know that he is going to be beating himself up inside, telling himself again and again that he messed up, waves of self-doubt assaulting him (you know because you’ve been there before; perhaps not on an international stage, not with the eyes of the world on you, but nevertheless there). You know that – whether he wants to or not – a flicker of I-don’t-want-to-play-anymore, maybe even I-don’t-want-to-live-anymore will cross his mind. Because it is never easy to let a whole country down, even less easy when you know that it was not because your opponents were better, but because you were worse.

Strange, also, that this man is usually the picture of calm and composition (just ask any one of the millions of ginger beard fangirls). Nine years ago in Istanbul he walked up to the penalty spot, the tail end of a remarkable comeback, with not just the hopes of a country but a club (of many different countries, mind) who had sung You’ll Never Walk Alone at half time like a prayer. Then he fired the rebound straight into the back of the net without a second thought at having missed the first opportunity. That night the skies rained red with happiness; last night, as he missed two fantastic opportunities, they rained with tears.

Such is the rise and fall of nations in the greatest sporting arenas. Casillas, four years ago producing a stunning save to deny Robben, now made a fool of by the same man twice. Xavi and Iniesta almost like they didn’t exist, overrun completely in midfield. Today domination belongs to Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany; a few more years and it will belong to yet someone else. More grown men will cry. Your favourite player will (must) have a horrible game, a string of horrible games. He will sit on the bench like Alonso up there – like you, really – unable to do a thing. See how he watches the scoreline, a word on his lips probably a prayer of some kind, begging any god he believes in (the football ones if he has none) for something, anything to change the result. And when he realises it is too late, he forces down the tears, swallows, and gives up. You can see it; the movement of the shoulders, the imperceptible sigh, the all-right, you-win. As a supporter, as a fan, it is the most painful thing you will ever watch.

Of course you will be disappointed, as Spain fans were last night, as AC Milan in Istanbul were nine years ago (and the list goes on). Of course you will be crushed. But this is football, and there are as many highs as there are lows. The thing about football is that there is no such thing, really, as giving up. Alonso and his teammates will feel awful, will feel like they never want to play again – and some of them are already going to retire from international football – but in the end they will get over it. They always have. They always will. They love football far too much to ever give it up, no matter what happens to them. Look at people who return from retirement, not just in football but in every sport; not just in sports but in every walk of life.

Tonight Spain will pick themselves off the pitch, rest and relax, enjoy their time off and watch other teams play where they could have. Then they will disperse, some back to Spain, some to England, other countries and other clubs and other allegiances. Because mas temos que aceitar essa derrota. We have to accept this defeat. There is nothing to do but accept it, understand it, no matter how bitter a pill it is to swallow.

That is football. So they go on.

Spoil-Sports

In a style reminiscent of Barcelona and Istanbul, Real Madrid came from behind to overwhelm a defiant Atletico and claim their 10th Champions’ League trophy. The 4-1 scoreline belies the actual harrowing experience of being a Real fan for the length of the match, as their team missed chance after chance and seemed destined to miss out on La Decima as well.

One would not, however, have been under any illusions as to Real’s hard-fought comeback had they (instead of the highlights) been watching the reactions of one man. Although there was much celebrating that night all around the world – fireworks in Brazil, half-drunk uncles screaming in Singapore – it was Xabi Alonso’s celebrations which took the cake (and all the cakes in the world available for taking).

Nine years ago Alonso scored the equivalent of Sergio Ramos’s header, firing in a rebound to bring the game to penalties. That night, as even non-Liverpool fans know, he celebrated by cementing Gerlonso into the hearts of millions of fangirls. In Lisbon as a spectator – whose emotions, free from the calm and pressure that actually playing in the game necessitates – it was no surprise that he managed to one up 2005 by

a) nearly hugging a teammate to death after a Bale miss,

b) headbanging after Marcelo’s goal,

 

c) and, most importantly and memorably, jumping over a railing and sprinting (in a suit) down the touchline to celebrate the winning goal.

 

Personally, Real Madrid is a distant second to Manchester United, and I follow it mainly because of the existence of Xabi Alonso. But if I had been in Alonso’s place I would have done exactly the same thing. (Perhaps not as classily, and perhaps my lack of athletic prowess would have left me unable to get over the railing, but still.) And so would any football supporter there, if it had been your club winning the biggest trophy possible for a club to win.

A gifset of Alonso’s reactions has garnered 4000 notes on tumblr – and although Alonso usually gets a lot of notes given his impossibly good looks, that number far surpasses most things I’ve seen in the football fandom. United fans were reblogging it. People who disliked Real Madrid were reblogging it. Why? Because in that moment, Xabi Alonso was us. He did exactly what we would have done and still do. The King of Cool totally and completely lost it, yet it wasn’t comical so much as it was meaningful, because he spoke for the emotions of fans around the world.

Which makes it all the more ridiculous why UEFA have decided to charge him for it.

Among the charges pressed against various parties post-final is Alonso having breached the ‘general principles of conduct’. It seems that UEFA thinks Alonso’s celebrations as having crossed some line of decency – never mind the raucous alcohol-fueled partying that went on long after the final whistle was blown. To that end, I would say that UEFA are in all possible senses of the word spoilsports.

The wonderful, wonderful thing about football is the celebration, the feeling of being so on top of the world that you can jump and shout and scream your heart out and no one will judge you for it. Watching your team win, even from thousands of miles away, even if you’re the only one awake at 3am plagued by pixels and pauses of your tiny computer screen, is the best feeling I will ever be able to imagine. Watching them secure a magnificent, historic comeback in the stadium itself must be a thousand times better. Such feelings must be expressed, and indeed the beauty of football comes from expressing them.

Alonso’s celebrations aren’t even the most ridiculous things to have come from footballers. Yet by fining him, UEFA has elected to kill off emotion. They are telling us that celebrating that way is no way to celebrate, and that we ought to confine (ahem) our happiness to clapping in the stands, leaving only the players in the match able to group hug. It’s as if you finally got that dream job, as well as the keys to your new house and your new car; but if you so much as scream with happiness, embarrassing only yourself and in fact serving as a source of amusement to passersby, the police are going to find you and handcuff you. Emotions, apparently, are signs of weakness and a breach of general conduct. They must never be allowed in the open, otherwise your man-card will be taken away.

Ridiculous. In fact I would be more likely to fine Alonso if he hadn’t jumped out of the stands and emulated Usain Bolt. It’s not like he damaged any public property, and it’s not like he swung a fist into a bystander’s face on the way down to the mosh pit. This statement implies that UEFA takes ‘breaches of conduct’ about as seriously as rough play and verbal/physical assault. That they have nothing better to do than to call out a player for celebrating with his team. Seriously, what is up with that, UEFA?

Of course it can be argued that Xabi Alonso is a football player, and football players should be held to a higher standard than normal people. They have to follow all the rules, including not being able to go onto the pitch when suspended (even when the match is almost over, they weren’t actually participating in gameplay, and are rightfully euphoric). They shouldn’t, say, hump the rival fans and kiss their teammates (to mention someone else entirely). But football players are people too. In fact, football players are often the biggest fans of the club they play for. Gary Neville – the aforementioned player – is a notorious die-hard and the things he says leave his love for Manchester United to no imagination. Admittedly, humping rival fans might be some way across the line, but is it so wrong to begrudge people of more innocuous celebrations?

No, I don’t think so. I think that UEFA should leave the art of celebrating to people who actually care about football. No one I know is taking the charges seriously and it honestly isn’t a charge that should be taken seriously. Pride and passion are part of football, and if UEFA can’t understand that, then they’re just spoiling sports.