A reinvigorating Cup Final

Isn't the world a better place after a fine FA Cup Final?

I love the FA Cup. I always have. I always will. The years in which I came to love football - 1988 to 1991 - had a series of great FA Cup Finals. I've subsequently watched the 1986 final and heard  that, arguably, 1987 tops the lot. A generation of fans - aged 25-35 - saw final after wonderful final. Each entertaining. Each still talked about to this day. Each throwing up a defining moment in English footballing history.

The Houchen header, the Wimbledon humbling of the great Liverpool team, two Liverpool wins over Everton (including the final only a few weeks after Hillsborough where a city came together in an awe-inspiring way), Ferguson's first trophy after a rip-roaring 3-3 draw with Crystal Palace, and then the Spurs vs Forest final where English football history changed forever.

Even the semi-finals in those days threw up crackers - Palace beating Liverpool 4-3, Gascoigne's wonder free-kick against Arsenal, Hughes' volley against Oldham. As an aside, there's an alternate universe  somewhere, where Gascoigne was sent off prior to that tackle on Gary Charles and we have a glittering decade.

So I'm not part of that nauseating club who ask 'how do we make the FA Cup matter?'.  It already does matter. Happily after the reinvigorating final at the weekend more will be on my team than standing with the barbarians at the gates. It has probably enthused a generation of kids about the Cup.

The Cup has always thrown up such moments. Great finals. One-off spectaculars. Giant killers. Cup runs. It provides us with moments that the Premier League crowds out and cannot produce.

The grand old cup might have been tarted up with Budweiser ribbons, might have been devalued by having to compete against Premier League fixtures, the specialness of Wembley rubbed away by the money-grabbing administrators, and eclipsed by the money available elsewhere but it still works. Tarnished, undermined and mistreated by the FA and, still, it has the power to generate fantastical stories. Two fingers up to the blazer and the cretins.

We needed Ben Watson's header to give little old Wigan, pretty little Wigan, their first ever FA Cup. We'd had a run of fairly unspectacular finals since Liverpool and West Ham's ding-dong in 2006. A last-minute winner for a smaller club against the reigning Premier League champions was necessary. The backstory of Wigan's owner building the club from a fourth tier club having broken his leg in an FA Cup Final was, in its own way, beautiful. That could only happen in the FA Cup.

Generally, there is a lot of nonsense talked about the romance of the Cup but even the coldest of hearts must enjoy the spectacle of a team of amateurs walking out to play one of the biggest teams in the land. That's what football should be about. Those who want a European super-league generally support the clubs that might form it. They have no soul. They shouldn't be allowed near the game.

Havant and Waterlooville taking the lead at Liverpool, Woking's Tim Buzaglo's hat-trick against West Brom, Burton Albion drawing against Manchester United. That's the stuff that makes the heart sing. That's what football is. That isn't to say the league doesn't matter - of course, it does - but merely to point out that the FA Cup is part of our DNA. We should look after, we should cherish it, we should stop letting idiots mess about with it. As I've said before, the FA Cup is the exciting mistress. The league is the wife.

What we don't want is radical surgery. We don't want anyone with big ideas. We should just want a knock-out competition with the final played on the holy turf of Wembley at the season's end. Sing 'Abide with me' and the national anthem and watch a game of football before we all switch over for the County Cricket.

If we must tinker, my ideas would be to scrap replays (cutting fixture congestion and allowing a greater chance of upsets), no clashes with the semi-final weekend or final weekend (they should be unsullied) and - sadly - some level of incentive for the bigger clubs to take it seriously (either a big pot of cash or a Champions League place).

Well done Wigan. Well done Ben Watson, you magnificent bastard.  You've written yourself into English footballing history and made a lot of people (not just Wigan fans) around these islands rather happier.

RCM

Sunday Night Treat #6

Am not a great one for promoting kit and sportswear on the blog but I loved this advert from FC Twente using their legends to promote their new kit!

I'd rather like some UK clubs trying the same sort of thing for their kit releases in the future.

RCM

Farewell to an adversary: A Liverpool fan on Ferguson

Football can bring out the strangest of emotions.

When Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United won the club's 19th title my over-riding emotion was an odd sort of relief. For years, I had watched an irrepressible genius creep up on my team's record and my team was all but powerless to stop him. With the record gone, painful as it was, it didn't feel to me as if we were falling off a perch but rather that a black dog lifted from our shoulders. 

Many Liverpool fans today will be celebrating. Their nemesis, the hated red devil at the other end of the East Lancs Road, has gone. For many this is some sort of sign that the good times will roll once again. That the last 20 years have been some terrible spell and - with Ferguson leaving - the spell will be lifted and we will go gathering cups in May once again.  It is written. It is destiny. They believe it is inevitable the next manager will fail because the expectation is too great or because Ferguson was the difference all along. It is inevitable that Liverpool will return to their rightful place. There is little inevitability in football no matter how much we wish it to be the case.

I understand the jubilation. But I do not feel it. I hated Ferguson in my hot youth but that is what youth is for and, for me, is a diminishing memory. I used to hate his teams but this is not a hateful United vintage. These days, I respect and admire Ferguson. Those who do not respect him are the sort of people who do not really appreciate the game they profess to love. 

Rather than celebration a better word to describe my feelings would be a kind of solace. There is some kind of comfort to be taken in an adversary losing a massive strength but there is a sadness and a regret. I once wrote, paraphrasing Lennon, that life is what happens to you when you are watching Ryan Giggs. It is just as true with Ferguson. Life is what happens to you when you are watching Alex Ferguson win.

For a generation of football fans, there just isn't a time before Alex Ferguson. He has been a constant in our footballing lives. This is another nail in the cofffin of our childhood. For me, only Giggs and Tendulkar remain from my childhood. For United fans, a genius, a God. For the rest, a hate figure, an infuriating genius, at times a spiteful man, a hypocrite, a dour man but always - dagnammit - a winning one. He has been a colossus in English footballing life and one that we will all miss in time.

Don't believe me? Ferguson is the last of an old school of managers. Despite his ability to manipulate the media, despite his capacity to deal with the stresses of numerous tournaments and do so whilst keeping in check the egos of modern footballers, Ferguson has more in common with the likes of Busby, Stein, Shankly and Paisley than he does with most of today's managers. 

As he shuffles into retirement, he walks into a great bar-room debate. Is he the greatest ever manager? Some will argue yes. They will point to his breaking of the Old Firm with Aberdeen, that glorious win over Real Madrid with the Dons and his breathtaking achievements with Manchester United. They have a point.

Others will say Stein winning the European Cup with 11 men from Glasgow and his 9 league titles in a row or to the back-to-back European Cups that Clough managed with unfashionable Nottingham Forest win. Others still will point to Paisley's third European Cup as irrefutable evidence that Ferguson isn't quite there. This is before we consider the likes of Michels, Herrera and Happel or the multi-league genius of Mourinho. It is before we consider the greats of the past like Chapman. It is an impossible task.

It is my view that Sir Alex Ferguson is the greatest league manager that the world has seen and is likely ever to see. To those Liverpool fans spluttering into their champagne, it is impossible to think that we will ever see a manager win 13 league titles in the same league with the same team. It is impossible to think that another manager will be given the time, even if successful, to build numerous great teams. It is difficult to put those achievements into context. He is outsmarted, outfought and out-thought, some truly outstanding managers. In the league, at least, he is incomparable.

That isn't to gloss over his European record. All footballing careers end in some level of regret and Ferguson's will be that he doesn't have that third European Cup. No other manager has been given the amount of time Ferguson has to win in Europe. Much has been made today of Real Madrid having 24 managers in the time, Bayern and Juventus having 14, AC Milan having 13 and so forth. Given that advantage one would expect Ferguson - even with the difficulties of the 1990s - to have done better.

It is to Ferguson's enormous credit that his team has played more games - and won more games - than any other side since the reconfiguration of the European Cup. More than Barcelona, more than Real Madrid, more than AC Milan. If one lauds that achievement, and we should, it is only correct to ask why that has not been turned into a greater number of tournament wins especially given the continuity Ferguson has enjoyed.

Ferguson never created a team that truly dominated Europe or defined an era. None of his teams, wonderful as they were and dominant as they were in England, compared to Real Madrid of the late 50s/early 60s; the Internazionale of the mid-1960s, the Ajax team of the early 1970s, the Liverpool team of the late 1970s/early 1980s, the AC Milan team of the late 1980s, the Galacticos or the Messi inspired Barcelona team.
Now we know why Sir Alex Ferguson refused to give an interview after the Real Madrid match. He knew that his Everest - that third European Cup - had evaded him. If he knew then that he was to retire in the summer that would have hurt. He would have known that even regaining the title from those noisy neighbours and making it to 20 league titles for his club would be tainted in his own mind by that game against Real Madrid.

It must have been galling to see Barcelona - the team which embarrassed him twice - on the wane as he sat in Cheshire and only to see Bayern Munich soar to new heights. His Everest hadn't just evaded him; it seemed to be shifting ever further away. That these are the criticisms - that he merely did very well in Europe rather than define an era or win three European Cups - should stand as testament to him.

He didn't define English football in his time at Manchester United. He redefined it. Manchester United were a huge club before he arrived in post. A rich club which had seen manager after manager fail after Sir Matt Busby left. Ferguson took this team, this club that had broken so many managers, from sleeping giant to dominant power. Ferguson repositioned the centre of English footballing gravity. He is, in many ways, Manchester United's Shankly and their Paisley - the man who took them from the doldrums to greatness and the man who won a potload of gold. He did so by building a series of great teams (In my view, this side is a fine one but the finest vintages of Ferguson's time were: 1992-94, 1999-2001, 2002-2004, 2007-2009).

Any of those teams could reasonably be considered as one of the finest English league sides in history. If we flay him for not quite hitting the heights in Europe, we must praise him for his sheer consistency in domestic football.. We should praise him also for always looking to play football in an attractive way. Say what you like about him and his team but they usually put on a show that, once our partisan glasses were put to one side, we could enjoy. Too many managers these days think winning is everything. Ferguson was a winner, an obsessive about winning, but he realised that winning in style and to entertain the paying punters was important too.

Some say that van Persie was the difference this season. This is nonsense. Ferguson is the difference. He has been for some time. He would have won the league this past season with Arsenal, Chelsea or Manchester City. It is difficult to say that any of the managers in charge at those clubs could have inspired this United team to a league title or, as it still may occur, to 90 points. Rarely, if ever before, has a manager's sheer force of personality and cunning won a team a league title. Will they win the league next year with Moyes in charge? My guess is no. If you disagree you can try your luck over at bwin.com/en/football/

Ferguson is a genius, a colossus of the game, a modern legend. He is, in the truest sense, a football man. A man who loves the game, who studies the game, who still - when talking about that Real Madrid game against Eintracht Frankfurt - has the awe-filled look of a boy falling in love with the game. A man steeped in the game.

He leaves his club with the biggest managerial decision of all-time. They have to replace a man who has redefined and dominated English football and who has developed a cult of personality over two decades. I don't envy the club nor do I envy the next man in the dugout. Few in football have the ability to challenge for four trophies at once whilst the world looks on. Fewer still can do so in the shadow of a giant. Almost all choices look bad this afternoon. Replacing an all-time great is never easy but never has it been so hard.

A good day for fans of my club but one that has made many of us ponder. Not many managers make us do that. Another testament, methinks, to that wily old man from Govan.

RCM

Reconsidering homophobia in football

Sadly homosexuality in sport is in the news again. One day, I hope, we'll get to the point where a player coming out isn't news. If a player decided to announce his or homosexuality we wouldn't even shrug our shoulders. We wouldn't even notice.

We aren't, however, there yet. For now it is news. That said, we have seen more sportsmen coming out in recent years. The most high profile, in the UK, of those was, probably, Gareth Thomas the Wales and British & Irish Lions rugby captain. Others included Steven Davies in cricket (where, happily, almost no one gave a monkey's) and in football Robbie Rogers came out only to retire immediately.

In the USA, yesterday, Jason Collins came out. Collins isn't massively famous in the UK but he is the first active male athlete to come out in a major US sport. That's pretty big. So big it led to a call from the President. Whilst we may all wish a player's sexuality wasn't news that led to a call from the President the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Collins coming out and the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Rogers coming out from footballers, journalists and fans makes it easier for whoever comes out next.

Naturally, given Rogers' retirement and the news of Collins coming out, has led to many in the footballing world consider: when will we have an active gay footballer.

I've written about this consistently since this blog started. Not just the Rogers piece but on a number of other occasions (covered here and also here). One thing I think we need is for the FA, the PFA and the Kick it out need to get some players involved.

Compare this Y Word Video:

With this anti-homophobia campaign:

The FA decided not to go ahead with this video. That was the right call.


As far as I am aware no anti-homophobia campaign has ever made use of high profile footballers in the way the Y word campaign did.

The Y Word campaign included Ledley King, Frank Lampard, Kieran Gibbs, and Gary Lineker are, or were, England internationals.

Lineker is a legend of the England game - the second highest goalscorer for the England national team, the main presenter on BBC football shows and a great player for Spurs.

King, at the time, was Spurs club captain which, given the use of the ''Yid Army'' chant by Spurs fans, was important. Lampard is one of the finest players for Chelsea and England in recent decades. He is one of the most recognisable players in the game. Gibbs is a young Arsenal player and, again, Arsenal have long had a large Jewish fanbase.  Zesh Rehman was one of the first players from a Pakistani background to play in the higher echelons of the English leagues.  (My views on the ''Y Word'' here. As an aside, if you want to read the history of Jewish football in England I cannot recommend Anthony Clavane's book ''Does your rabbi know you're here?'' highly enough).

From the women's game, Rachel Yankey is the most capped player in English football history (indeed, only Peter Shilton has been capped more times total). The campaign was produced by the Baddiel brothers one of whom is tied in to English football culture forever because of his cult TV show in the 1990s ''Fantasy Football'' and being the man behind ''Three Lions''. It just, to me, smacks that the bigwigs take racism, and anti-semitism, rather more seriously than homophobia. I can't imagine the FA, or PFA, or Kick It Out, ever thinking that a racism advert which focused on a man yelling racial abuse was acceptable or a good idea.

So why don't the FA follow the example of the Y word video. Get some big name players to talk about homophobia. Bring in Beckham, Gerrard, Ferdinand* or Terry (people of the stature of King and Lampard). Bring in Hope Powell. Wheel out an England legend from a previous era.

Clubs are doing some work but more can be done. Consider that only 29 clubs supported ''Football vs Homophobia''. Is it conceivable that any club wouldn't have signed up for Football vs Racism? Consider that my own team, Liverpool FC, were the first Premier League club to be represented at a gay pride event. That happened in 2012 (2012!) and no male players attended.

The ability of gay players isn't in doubt. It never has been. It's whether gay players can feel comfortable enough to come out knowing that, despite the overwhelming support, the culture of some fans, the attitude of some managers and the 'banter' in some dressing rooms makes their life needlessly difficult. Why come out in such a culture? That permeates football, sadly, and will do for some time. It permeates football worldwide - Marcello Lippi has made questionable statements on a number of occasions, numerous German players have said that players shouldn't come out because of potentially hostile attitudes (although Mario Gomez urged gay players to come out), and Luis Felipe Scolari, the current Brazil manager, has said that he would have thrown out of the team a player who he found to be gay. This isn't an English thing. That doesn't make things any better.

Players who wish to come out face any number of challenges. The FA and PFA could do rather a lot more to help them. It is time for big name players

RCM

* Ferdinand in particular given his use of ''faggot'' on air.

Sunday Night Treat #5

A return to the Sunday Night Treat (I took a break last weekend partly because I was away from home and partly because any blogpost covering something other than Suarez was always going to be overlooked in the latest maelstrom).

Anyway, tonight's Sunday Night Treat is a genuine delight! The man with the porn star moustache, the pioneer of the elastico and a man with beautiful touch: Roberto Rivelino. When you watch the video, as he glides past players or plays outrageous passes, he looks like a modern day winger. An astonishingly gifted player and one who, forty years on, brings a smile. Enjoy!



RCM

The Reds' Devil

The game between Liverpool and Chelsea will be remembered as a Luis Suarez greatest hits performance. It had everything that people will remember about him when he has retired - a handball, a bite, and some sumptuous football.

Moreover, in a game of talking points, when any number of stories could have dominated - the return of Benitez to Anfield, the extraordinary second half performance from Sturridge against his old team, the minute's applause for Anne Williams - the only person that anyone is talking about is Luis Suarez.

What should happen to Luis Suarez?

When it was announced that Ian Ayre had cancelled a trip to Australia and the Far East my initial thought was one of horror. Ayre handling a crisis is like giving a toddler a grenade. Happily, the club seem to have handled this crisis rather better than previous ones. 

Liverpool have already fined Suarez for his action yesterday and it is likely that the FA will act against him. Liverpool, presumably having reviewed their handling of the Suarez-Evra affair, have acted swiftly and decisively. That said, it might have been better if, along with the fine, they'd decided to ban him for a number of games as clubs have done in the past. It might have taken the heat out of the matter a little.

The FA have said that he will be charged with violent conduct but that the normal three-match ban was ''clearly insufficient in these circumstances''. 

The problem is, with footballing punishments, is that comparisons make itdifficult for the FA and they can't come out of this well.

Compare Suarez's bite with Fellaini's headbutt on Shawcross? Should Suarez be punished less harshly, as harshly or more harshly than Fellaini? Fellaini was banned for three games.

Compare Suarez's bite of Ivanovic with Eden Hazard kicking a ballboy. Should Suarez be punished less harshly, as harshly or more harshly than Hazard? Hazard was banned for three games (although the FA pushed for four)

Compare Suarez's bite with John Terry's abuse of Anton Ferdinand? Should Suarez be punished less harshly, as harshly or more harshly than Terry? Terry was banned for four games. To any anti-racism campaigner a lengthier ban - regardless of the rights and wrongs of the Terry case - would suggest that the FA does not take racism as seriously as it claims.

Compare Suarez's bite with Keane's tackle on Alf-Inge Håland? ShouldSuarez be punished less harshly, as harshly or more harshly than Keane? Intotal, Keane was banned for eight games. The first suspension was for onlythree games but it was only when he admitted in his biography that it wasintentional that the FA took further action. He was subsequently charged withbringing the game into disrepute and banned for a further five games. 

Compare Suarez's bite with Ben Thatcher's assault on Pedro Mendes? Should Suarez be punished less harshly, as harshly or more harshly than Thatcher? Thatcher got an eight match ban from the FA with a further fifteen matches suspended. 

And, finally, compare Suarez's bite with the bite performed by Jermaine Defoe on Javier Mascherano. Defoe, rather fortunately for him, got a booking.

In the Defoe case, the FA didn't decide to use retrospective punishment because thereferee had seen the foul and given a booking.

People will argue that the FA can't use retrospective punishment if the referee hadseen an incident.

But, of course, The FA can use, and has used, retrospective punishment when the referee has seen an incident. Dermot Gallagher booked Ben Thatcher for his assault on Mendes but the FA did intervene. It said at the time that the challenge was sufficiently serious that had Thatcher been sent off, an additional sanction would have been merited. The FA called it an ''exceptional case''.

Given the FA can act and has acted retrospectively in exceptional cases, and given the FA has already given us a precedent that biting is not an exceptional case as they did with Defoe, it suggests to me that the ban shouldn't be much longer than a normal ban. The fact they are pushing for more suggests they have either changed their mind or, more likely, are listening to media dog whistles. It may be, though none of us knows, that what they mean by clearly insufficient is a four game ban - which is what they pushed for when Hazard kicked a child.

Others will argue that the KNVB have already set a precedent. That as Suarez has already been banned for 7 games for biting that should be the minimum he gets here. I'm not sure why the FA would, or should, be influenced by the KNVB's rulings other than to appease those hang 'em and flog 'em types. 

With all that in mind, I think Suarez could legitimately feel hard done by if he gets anything longer than a four game ban. I think a four game ban plus a fine (on top of the fine Liverpool have given him) would be a just ban.

I think there's a very strong argument, as it happens, for making punishments in football much harsher and more akin to those in rugby where players can be banned for many months. I'd support that but I think it has to happen at the start of a season when everyone in the game knows that.

The media and Suarez up a tree


Graeme Souness is a Liverpool playing legend but I'm unlikely to take lessons on footballing ethics from a man whose response to making a horror tackle was to complain to the referee about the state of his socks. 

Jamie Redknapp added Suarez's bite to the list of many things that he doesn't comprehend. This list, if one inspects it closely, includes ''the themes in Spot the Dog'' and ''Duplo''. It was, he said, an incredible act of brutality.

An incredible act of brutality, in a footballing sense, is what Ben Thatcher did to Pedro Mendes, what Roy Keane did to Alf Inge Håland or what Duncan Ferguson did to John McStay.

Whilst biting is a disgusting act, a filthy act, one which should lead to a substantial punishment for Suarez, I just don't see the it in the same league as the other acts. English football's ethical code is an odd one - it is the only place in the world where breaking a leg or headbutting a player is seen as more acceptable than spitting at someone.

The media feast on Suarez partly because Suarez puts himself on the table and hands out the knives and forks. But, equally, the media do not need to dine. 
If you are really disgusted by the behaviour of a player show it once and then move on. Don't treat it as a form of entertainment. Don't rewind, slow down, and zoom in. Complaining about ''we're not talking about the football, we're talking about Luis Suarez'' is utterly moronic. You are choosing to talk about Luis Suarez because you want to do so. Sky Sports could easily talk about Sturridge, or Rafa, or Torres or whatever else they wished to talk about from the game. (NB: I am writing about Luis Suarez because I want to do so!)

They will never ever admit it but they love Suarez's antics and misdemeanors. He gives them something to talk about. He creates storms on Twitter like no one else. He gives the phone-ins soapboxes to stand on. It drives the news cycle. He sells papers. He gives us all something to obsess over. The media would hate to see him go but they will inevitably usher him out of the English league. They will, in due course, moan that we keep losing players to the continent.

What is the worst thing that can happen on a pitch?

Whenever something bad happens on the pitch, some old blowhard will argue that it is the worst thing that can happen on a pitch. Racially abusing someone. Spitting. Diving. Biting. Getting a player sent off.

Oddly, deliberately injuring someone (like Keane) or assaulting someone with a headbutt (like Fellaini) are seen as better. It's a cultural thing, I think, but one I don't really get.

It is my rather quaint belief that the worst thing that someone can do to another player is badly injure them. Worse still is injuring someone with intent. That might count biting, admittedly, but it is unlikely that a bite - abhorrent as the act is and as deserving of punishment as the act is - will affect someone's career in the short-term never mind the long-term.

Most reading this article will not have broken a bone whilst playing football. Fewer still will have broken a bone due to a bad tackle. I have. 

So I know, thanks, exactly what it feels like to have your leg taken from underneath you in a two-footed challenge. I know what it feels like to hear the referee's whistle, a lot of commotion around you, and a weird sense of silence. I know what it feels like to look up to see the player who has tackled you in tears, various people looking down at you with bemused looks on their faces. You suddenly become very aware of your hands sinking into soft mud and, oddly, not being able to feel anything because adrenalin is pumping through you.

I am relatively lucky: I have never been, as far as I am aware, racially abused (bar some anti-English stuff in a pub in Glasgow). I have never been spat at.  I have never been bitten. However, on balance, I'd choose any of those three over another broken leg.

How do you deal with a troublesome asset?

The answer is to look to Sir Alex Ferguson. Look at how he handled Cantona, Keane, and Ferdinand. Cantona and Ferdinand both had extremely lengthy bans but, ultimately, they were worth the trouble.

Keane stayed at Manchester United for three years after he admitted that he'd deliberately injured another player.

Cantona, as well as being banned for months for kicking a fan (after being sent off), was fined for spitting at a fan, got sent off against Galatasaray (and escorted from the pitch), and got sent off in consecutive games (including stamping on John Moncur). When he was banned, Ferguson persuaded him to stay even though there was interest from abroad. When he handed in a transfer request, the request was turned down by the wily old Scot.

That isn't to say that Ferguson doesn't rule with an iron fist, That isn't to say Ferguson wouldn't ship out an unruly or disruptive player. However, what he shows is that if a player is part of his plans they stay part of his plans pretty much no matter what. The big question is: is Suarez part of Liverpool's long-term plans?

What we also need to remember is that football is different. When you hear the chap on the pub say ''if I did that in my work I'd be sacked''. Indeed. The difference, and sad fact, is that most of us are eminently replaceable. If I were sacked from my job tomorrow I'd imagine that my workplace could find someone else to do the job. It would not cost my workplace a huge amount of money to replace me. An advert in a newspaper or on a recruitment site, the cost of interview time and various other HR processes. Not a huge amount.

If Liverpool were to sack Luis Suarez what would occur? 

Firstly, they'd be releasing into the marketplace a man whose market value is likely to exceed £40m for free. Rather than recoup that money and fritter it away on young English players at inflated prices as is their want, Liverpool would just throw the £40m away and have to buy players with other funds. They'd have to replace Suarez and do so without the cushion of his transfer fee. That way lies madness.

Secondly, it is likely that a competitor - either on the European or English scene - would get that asset for free. This would mean that they could deploy their transfer warchest on other players. 

With that in mind, if I were a Manchester United or Chelsea fan, the last thing I would want is for Liverpool to sack Suarez. Yes, there would be the delight that Liverpool would fall further behind them in the short term but the likelihood is that Suarez would go to a major European competitor. Just what neither of those teams need.

It may be that Liverpool decide that the tipping point has been reached. The club may say that his goals aren't worth the damage to the club's reputation. My guess is that another club will put their reputation at risk and it is my guess that club will be in the Champions League.

It may be that Rodgers doesn't view Suarez as part of the future. That's his call. He'll need to find a lot of goals from somewhere else. I think he'll be there next season to the extent I might try some Online Betting on it. Good odds at present!



RCM

The Classified Results

Against my better judgement I clicked on a link on Twitter. I knew the moment I clicked the link that I'd be annoyed. I knew that the reason the piece was written was to annoy and to provoke comment and chatter and, glory be, hits.

The piece called for a fundamental change to the Classified Results on the BBC - to stop covering non-English results. As a child I loved hearing the results from the leagues around these isles. Many of us learnt that teams down the leagues, or around the country, existed.  We should dismiss anything which suggests that only the big clubs, or the glamorous clubs, matter. East Fife matters just as much as Manchester United. Livingston matter just as much as Liverpool. Moreover, to the avid pools gambler or inveterate coupon gambler all results matter. The classified results should cover the UK as a whole. We should ignore the idea of an English only classified results as a nonsense (I'm not linking - we shouldn't encourage them).

That said, I have heard the occasional chirrup asking ''why do we still have the Classified Results?''.

The Britain that I hold dear is falling apart. Little bits of civilisation are chipped away on a constant basis. Closing libraries. The ability to smoke a cigar after a black tie dinner. The Universities being stripped of their first class status in cricket. The broadsheets moving to tabloid format. The removal of the dining car from the train from Edinburgh to London. What fresh hell is next? 

Yes, the Classified Results aren't necessary for many. Yes, there are other ways to get the results. Equally, it is true that the further down the leagues we go, the fewer of us are directly interested. Most of us have been watching Soccer Saturday or have been updating Twitter endlessly. We know the results. We know the controversy. We know, with depressing regularity, that Liverpool have had 19 shots on target but whoever is bottom of the league has scored via their only chance on goal.

That isn't the point. Necessity isn't everything. The Classified Results - both on television and on radio - are a constant in a maddening world. James Alexander Gordon has that charming Edinburgh accent that is reminiscent of the tinkle of china in Morningside. To many of us he is the voice of the game and, listening to him, transports us back to a happy place. He is a national treasure.

There are plenty of folk who do not watch Sky Sports or have better things to do with their time than endlessly update Twitter. Some of those walk out of a game - a game they've watched and not merely attended whilst they play about on social media - and listen to the classified results on the way home. We should remember that not everything is about convenience and utility. Sometimes things exist because they should exist.

When JAG is announcing those results, with that voice rising and falling as teams win and lose, it is one of those happy moments of the week. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.
RCM

Sunday Night Treat #4: Richard Witschge

There is an argument to say Richard Witschge is the ultimate Dutch player. Not the best - that honour will forever belong to Johann Cruyff - but the one that best personifies, and typifies, the multitudes of Dutch football.

He was part of a fine Ajax vintage which blossomed under Johan Cruyff's management in the late 1980s his contemporaries were Bergkamp, Roy and the de Boer twins. From numerous accounts, Cruyff rated Witschge most highly of the group. He was the one player who followed Cruyff to Barcelona.

It wasn't only Cruyff who rated him. Zinedine Zidane, who played alongside Witschge at Bordeaux, said ''The best player I ever saw was not Johan Cruyff or Michel Platini. His name was Richard Wischge and I had the honour of playing with him in Bordeaux''.

Reading around Witschge it becomes clear that as highly rated as he was by some of the greats, no one rated him as highly as he rated himself. Cruyff, hardly short of self-confidence himself, could deal with that. Few other managers could and fewer players could. Indeed, Witschge couldn't. For an arrogant man, so supreme and confident in his ability, it must have hurt to sit on the bench at various clubs. Then, I suppose, the natural reaction is to blame other people - the limitations of other players, the rules, the manager and Lord knows what else.

Regardless, there is little doubt, though, despite his ability he underachieved over the course of his career. And boy, did he have ability! Few players have the ability to do keep ups against their hated rivals or the confidence to do so. Scots still talk about Jim Baxter doing it against England in 1967. Witschge, less famously, did it against Feyenoord - and, in my view, showed rather better technique in doing so.

That aside, he was a fine player and truly typically Dutch. Technique, insight, personality, speed - the hallmarks of Ajax players down the ages. He could play in numerous positions, understood that the game is about the manipulation of space, and had superb passing ability. There is a thought that the Ajax system means a player from the youth teams should be able to be dropped into the first team. I like to think that the continuity of the club means that a player today could drop into historic teams and teams in the future - Witschge would have been as comfortable in the 1970s or today as he was, briefly, under Cruyff and, later, Koeman.

We saw him briefly - very briefly - in England. When Jason Wilcox injured his cruciate ligament, Witschge, who had fallen out of favour with Bordeaux, was brought to Lancashire to help hold up the title challenge. In pure footballing talent terms this was a little like replacing a Ford Focus with a Maserati but, sometimes, a Ford Focus is what one needs.

For a Wirral boy there is much to love about Lancashire. The Forest of Bowland is one of Britain's most beautiful spots. It is home to some of the finest food in the land - Bury black pudding, good cheeses, butter cakes, and the incomparable hotpot. Away from football, I am a hopelessly devoted Lancashire cricket fan.

For an urbane Dutchman who was grown in the Ajax hothouse, has spent time in the finishing school of Barcelona and has settled on the banks of the Gironde, well, things must have been different.

Despite Witschge's obvious abilities, Kenny Dalglish decided that Graeme Le Saux on the left-side of midfield was a safer bet. One of the game's great talents, crowded out at Barcelona because of the three foreigners rule and competing against Laudrup, Koeman, and Stoichkov amongst others, was reduced to watching a converted left-back start ahead of him for Blackburn Rovers. It was a tale of two contrasting opinions which ultimately agreed. Dalglish didn't think he was good enough. Witschge thought he was too good. Either way, he ended up not playing in the title run in and, under a cloud, slinked back to Bordeaux.

In the sort of magnificent ''fuck you'' statements that footballers rarely utter in these PR officer dominated days, Witschge decided to turn on Blackburn when he returned to England a year later for Euro 1996. In the article, he managed to attack the tactics of Blackburn Rovers, the ability (or lack thereof) of his former colleagues (most obviously Le Saux) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the town of Blackburn. ''It is so poor and ugly. I couldn't bear to live there one more day - hte people looked so poor. I wanted to play in England but you can't do that to your family. The only place to play in England is London''.

Well, quite. Mustn't like black pudding.

As I said at the start, there's a case for saying he is the personification of Dutch football. On the one hand, an angelic player with all the ability in the world. On the other, a dark persona and presence capable of undermining all that talent. On the one hand, a player who could open up defences. On the other, a man whose opinion of himself and arrogance could start a fight with the man in the mirror.

Anyway, enjoy...



RCM

Why have Russia banned Michael Garcia?

Michael J Garcia is the Head of the FIFA Ethics Committee (some analysis here). He is a partner at a New York law firm and former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.


Michael J Garcia is heading the probe into alleged irregularities in the bidding process for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and 2022 World Cup in Qatar and has appealed for evidence to assist him and has promised whistleblower anonymity. He also announced last year that as well as looking at Russia and Qatar he may look at how Germany got the World Cup in 2006.

The USA imposed sanctions last year after Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in jail in disputed circumstances. The USA has recently published a list ''the Magnitsky List'' of individuals - mostly Russian officials and a number directly linked to the Magnitsky case - banned from entering the USA due to alleged human rights abuses. Russia did not want those names publicly.

The Russian government has retaliated banning a list of US officials including, amongst others, the controversial legal thinker John Yoo; Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, David Addington; and two former commanders of Guantanomo Bay.

Amongst that list, we find the name at number 7 on the list as presented by Reuters of Michael J Garcia, the former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Now, there may be any number of reasons that Garcia was on the list. A number of Assistant District Attorneys from the Southern District of New York have also been banned, after all, but banning someone who is conducting an investigation into allegedly corrupt practices in your country never looks good even if it you believe it to be justified.

One wonders how Garcia can perform his role properly and wonders what FIFA makes of this?

RCM

Maggie and the beautiful game

Every Briton over a certain age will have a view - and will have expressed that view this week - on Margaret Thatcher. 

To some, a woman so hated that their initial response to her death was to party in the street. To others, the greatest peacetime Prime Minister of all time (although I often wonder what ''peacetime'' means in a British context). To some, the woman who saved Britain. To others, the woman who tore it apart. To some one who achieved a lot but at a terrible price. In one memorable piece this week she was described as a ''necessary Prime Minister'' which treads the line rather nicely.

And that's before we get to the vast rump of the British public who probably think she did some good things and did some bad things and isn't it about time someone else was on the front page of the newspapers?

One thing that her supporters and detractors can acknowledge is that she was a divisive Prime Minister and that divisiveness will continue for many a long year.