To Russia with love

The Russians used the ball as it’s meant to be used.   Games like that make me feel lucky to be a football fan, lucky to have a television.  Beautiful football.   The only shame is that they didn’t score a fourth goal to better represent their brilliance.   This Holland team had swept all aside to get to this game; it has just been absolutely trounced. Football, eh?

Ronaldo: not a great person

Very interesting from Daniel Taylor at the Guardian:

First of all a little story to tell you what kind of man we are talking about. It is January 9, 2008, and in an upstairs room at Manchester United’s training ground five elderly men in smart blazers are struggling with their emotions in front of a hushed audience. It is the club’s media day building up to the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster and Sir Bobby Charlton’s polite smile does not hide the fact he is trembling as he takes his seat. Bill Foulkes is straight-backed and dignified but only a couple of questions have been asked before the tears appear in his eyes and he reaches for a glass of water.

In an adjacent room Wayne Rooney has agreed to offer a modern-day perspective of that seminal day when 23 people, including eight members of Sir Matt Busby’s team, were killed in the wreckage of the burnt-out BEA Elizabethan. It is not his specialist subject but he handles the occasion with dignity and more eloquence than some people might imagine. But then Cristiano Ronaldo comes through the double doors and the mood is broken.

He is wearing a white suit jacket and ripped jeans, looking every bit the boy-band hunk, but it is very obvious he is in a bad mood. He begins by berating Karen Shotbolt, the club’s press officer, because he is waiting for Rooney and the event has over-run. He is banging his watch with his hand, flapping his arms and gesturing in the way that Portuguese footballers usually reserve for fussy referees and, at first, he is so animated it appears as if it might be a wind-up.

When he flounces back through the doors, cursing loudly, it is very obvious he is being deadly serious. Rooney is professional enough to carry on with his tribute but the attention is no longer exclusively on him. Thirty seconds later Ronaldo appears again, first rapping his forefinger against the glass in the door, then opening it by a fraction and starting to whistle at Rooney in the way that a farmer beckons his sheepdog.

As an added twist, you have to wonder about the article itself.   Taylor is the regular United ‘beat’ reporter for the Guardian, to the extent that the British press have such things.   We know that Sir Alex is not always forgiving of bad press.  Taylor relies on Ferguson for access.   So he wouldn’t cross him without permission, would he?

Am I reading too much into this?   I just can’t see Daniel Taylor writing this story unless a) Ronaldo is already gone, or b) he’s got clearance from Old Trafford.   I don’t know – Rob from FtF is a journalist, perhaps he can add something – but this is far beyond the usual sort of information we usually get.  Intriguing.   Or maybe not, maybe Taylor’s just made a judgement call.   Or maybe it doesn’t matter; it’s not like we all thought Ronaldo was a Saint is it?

Makes me all the more proud that Roy seems intent on making our club one of dignity, of correct behaviour, etc (see FulTime for more).

Fun with Turkey

Amazing scenes in Vienna last night.  A game as tense as you’ll see, exhausting to watch, let alone play in, was won by the team who had just come back from the dead again.

I watch these things and wonder how Martin O’Neill feels.  He’s a very bright man (he trained as a lawyer I think) and too often in these championships he’s been sitting on the end of the sofa trying to give an intelligent counter-argument to one of Alan Shearer’s half-baked non-ideas.  O’Neill’s not a man who delights in brevity, so doesn’t always get his point across without Gary Lineker trying to change the subject, but he’s a valuable addition to the usual dry panel.  Lee Dixon and Gavin Peacock could take things to another level, but presumably aren’t quite famous enough.

Last night it seemed to work though.  Shearer and Hansen started by slating the Turks for ‘being negative’, but O’Neill piped up and praised them.  They were without a number of their players, they are less technically gifted, but here they are hanging in there – again.  O’Neill was full of admiration for the Turkey team, and as the game wore on Shearer seemed to see this perspective.

Great stuff though.  I love these Turkish players.  They’re getting lucky break after lucky break – you don’t win three games in the last minute through courage alone – but why not?  They’re giving it everything, and it’s thrilling to see.  Last night’s game might not have showcased the most open football you’ll see, but almost 120 minutes of deadlocked knockout football, well, I’ll take that.  I find this sort of “who blinks first” football pretty wonderful, and don’t expect to enjoy Spain v Italy nearly as much.