Last Chance Saloon

They say the leopard never changes its spots, but it seems the madman does shed his stripes! What on earth is Brendan Rodgers thinking? Certainly the departure of Luis Suarez cast some gloom across Anfield, but isn’t this choice of replacement taking a joke too far?

In Rodgers, Liverpool has rediscovered its roots. Hard graft and a flat structure, with players who meet the philosophy of constant lightning attacks. No more Spice Boys, no more semi-retired marquee buys, no more cowboy owners. Results on the field have been all that matters, which have been achieved by a squad with a roaring hunger in its belly, that runs for 90 minutes and gives no quarter. Incredibly, matters also appear to have been resolved in the boardroom. Overall a state of affairs which even tempted the likes of Shaqiri and Falcao to wear the famous red. Then they go ahead and sign Mario. A player – if reports are to be believed – that Arsene Wenger (who does not exactly boast your glut of strikers) snubbed twice this summer.

 

There’s no betting that this will end up in disaster. Once you slag the Kop - and you CAN bet that Mario will mouth off at the Kop, sooner or later – it will be the end. He’ll be out of the club quicker than you can say ‘Woy Hodgson’. I hope I’m wrong, but Liverpool is a working man’s club. The Kopites may forgive you for biting an opponent’s head off, but what they will not forgive is a lack of effort. And as everyone knows, Mario can be Mr MIA.

So that’s the end of this blogpost. Verdict passed.

Verdict passed?

 

Not if I wear my roaring red tinted glasses.

Mesut Ozil sometimes goes missing in action, as does Sami Khedira. All players have bad games. But Mario is Supermario, and attracts captions like moths to a flame. Even my wife knows who he is, just from seeing headlines about his antics in the tabloids, and she couldn’t give a dried fig about football.

He’s famous for lighting fires in toilets, as well as so many other capers that it sometimes seems like Mario’s been around for ages, ever since he reached prominence as a raw teenager with Inter’s treble-winning side. Back when big bad Materazzi used to smack him about in the dressing room in the hope of punching some sense into his head. Everyone at work today figured that Mario must be at least 26 years old, yet he’s only just turned 24 right this month!  And young and loopy as he is, he already boasts four league titles, a clutch of cups and the Champions League, all club trophies that players with 100 times his commitment and focus never won during their lifetime (Maradona included).

For Mario is unlike other players. Other pros score goals in some games, and don’t in others. But the point is that they’re trying at least 150% all the time! Mario is so ridiculously talented, that when he decides to put in half a shift the results can be earth-shudderingly devastating, with shots ripping the goal like a whiplash. This coupled with the hulking physique of a colossus, which makes him unplayable in a football world currently short of real defenders.  His pecs are each the size of Steven Gerrard, and taking him on is akin to facing a brisk velociraptor who can also serve delicious assists to fellow team members.

 

He is easily the best striker of his generation, in a time when Spanish then German tiki taka was meant to have killed the need for an out and out centre forward (what the Italians also refer to as ‘il bomber’).

But rolled into that prospect is also ‘looney Mario’, and I’m not just talking bad haircuts. There has never been a player more similar to Three Lions legend and lunatic Paul Gascoigne, whom the late England gaffer Sir Bobby Robson once described as ‘daft as a brush’. In fact I just had to laugh upon reading that AC Milan were baulking on allowing Liverpool to include ‘good behaviour’ clauses in the contract of sale.

All too often during Mario’s short career, have moments of acute brilliance been followed by the sight of him trudging along the side of the pitch like a reluctant schoolboy. The head is downcast as the eyes become glazed over, and he is shut off to everyone around him, until one wonders whether the matter between his ears has turned into the contents of a hardboiled egg. Oh and don’t forget the occasional tendency to lose his head and lash out at opponents (although he’s yet to bite someone).

So what could Rodgers possibly have been thinking?

Well for one, there’s Mario’s past at club level.

His first squad were renowned for the revival of Helenio Herrera’s once famous ‘catenaccio’, with Inter Milan finding themselves proponents of Mourinho’s famous ‘anti-football’. Hardly inspiring environs for a striker, as confirmed by Eden Hazard towards the end of last season. This was followed by Mancini’s City, where the football was only lit up by Silva’s brilliance and the dressing room was an absolute riot.

Thereafter Mario secured his long-desired move to AC Milan at the start of 2013. After a promising second half to the 2012/2013 season, the club became mired in a desperate civil war between Galliani and Berlusconi’s daughter, which totally unsettled the whole dressing room. Despite this, Mario ended a drab 2013/2014 season for AC Milan as their top scorer. It’s fair to say that during this time he enjoyed his best relationship with a manager, in the form of Clarence Seedorf, who was the youngest of his four top level managers to date (and only three years younger than Brendan Rodgers).

 

Rodgers strikes me as a guy whose emotional intelligence (a quality often underrated by managers in all industries) is high. This is something that does not appear the case with either of Mourinho, Mancini or Allegri (as confirmed by other players), despite them being first class tacticians. It was always a bit weird how Mancini often claimed to be a father figure to Mario, whilst in the same breath berating him publically and scapegoating him.

Although Rodgers has a steely glint in his eye that suggests a fair level of ruthlessness, he is also said to possess a great degree of humanity. This quality was often and successfully used to rein in unruly members of Chelsea’s youth team during the days he spent managing them, giving his unruly players a large degree of security which allowed them to perform consistently.

And whilst Rodgers is seen as a beacon of level-headedness, this in truth masks a huge gambler. He has taken gambles throughout his career: moving to Wales to manage after disaster with Reading, taking a punt on both Sturridge and Coutinho, holding onto an unsettled Suarez for another season, throwing Sterling into the fray (lest we forget: after also reining him in), and sticking with Brad Jones as understudy to Mignolet.

And the scenarios at AC Milan and Pool are entirely different. Milan are at a stage where they are (at least until the next Italian election year) rebuilding from the ground up, whilst the Reds are at a later stage of rebuilding, also deciding to take a punt on some cheap X factor. AC Milan have already declared that they are aiming to make the Serie A’s top three, yet Liverpool are seeking to win the league and go far in the Champs League. And if Mario weren’t mad, he’d be worth at least 60 million, especially given his age.

In short, Mario is a trump card, and this buy is nothing short of a gamble. Everybody knows it, and Rodgers knows that Mario knows it. Respected pundit Gab Marcotti recently said that Mario would fetch the same resale value if Liverpool eventually decide to sell him on, but I greatly doubt it. This is the last chance saloon, as already confirmed by Balotelli’s agent Mino Raiola. If Mario flunks this one, then the big time is practically hanging by a thread.

His move to Liverpool is but confirmation of this. Despite last year’s heroics, the Reds’ title ambitions are still seen regarded with a fair slice of doubt. To date Liverpool remains that most enigmatic of clubs, one which has refused to pass into ‘regional’ obscurity like a Nottingham Forest (winner of two European Cups), yet one that has until recently struggled to consistently get its act together long enough to be a true force in English football, let alone fit into the Bayern, Real and Barca category.

 

The cold truth is that both Liverpool and Mario reluctantly need each other. My guess is that Rodgers will be quick to present the club to the striker as a persecuted, downtrodden underdog that needs him, before playing on Mario’s paranoia until the mad dog starts to see the Reds as a mirror of himself. Sport’s all about psychology, and Liverpool’s ingrained ‘persecution complex’ might very well appeal to Suarez’s heir. In this regard, the club’s much celebrated psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters should have his work cut out!

Mario might even like Liverpool, since the jovial, exuberant nature of the Scouser is at direct odds with the dry, tight lipped nature of the Mancunian. Plus the Kopites revel over any scrap of world class quality they can get in a red shirt, as if they’ve just been sent into la-la-land. They are also renowned for sticking by their idols through thick and thin (so long as they don’t slag off the Kop). Rewind to the Champs League final of 2005, when Milan and Liverpool last sent ripples through the football world. The Ataturk stadium in Istanbul resounded to a deafening chorus of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ at half time, even though the Reds were 3-0 down to the Rossoneri! Who knows if this unique loyalty might serve to calm Mario? Might Anfield prove to be the home that propels him into superstardom, just like Old Trafford was for Eric Cantona?

Our only certainty is that we can expect the unexpected. And before a ball has even been kicked in anger, Mario has already rendered the wearyingly predictable unpredictable. For in an age where transfer fees have gone through the stratosphere, who would have said that the most sensational signing of the World Cup summer would cost a paltry 16 million?!!! ‘Brilliant’, I say, as we get the popcorn ready, ‘let the next Mario show begin’. As if Liverpool’s title tilt this year were not already fraught with expectation, the pressure has now been cranked up a fair few notches more, with the Reds charge to be fronted by a crazy diamond.

 

 

Jamie Revisited

As a lifelong Liverpool supporter, I only have admiration for Jamie Carragher. His was not the silkiest of skill, but he was an effective squad player and one-club man, which is as rare as hen's teeth these days. A bloke fully deserving, therefore, of the famous Liverpool chant ripped right out of The Beatles' ‘Yellow Submarine’, in which Reds supporters ‘dream of a team of Carraghers’

I’ll admit I still can’t understand a single word he says, given that he speaks in pure Scouse. Which might be why Carra still complains that Spanish left back Jose Enrique never listened to him on the field when they played together. I sometimes wonder whether an interpreter would have been assigned to Carra had he moved to another club in England, given that his natterings are as unintelligible as the speech of Sir Alex Ferguson. And let’s face it, we still can’t understand the old Glaswegian goat either, even after a quarter of a century spent listening to his ramblings.

It’s hard to get over the unnatural ways in which Carra’s lips twist whenever he talks. It’s like you’re watching the wings of a hummingbird batting at the speed of light! Little wonder then, that you can’t understand a damn thing whenever he speaks. It’s not that I’m complaining. for I actually find these heavy British dialects to be an important part of football’s character, reminding us of the humble origins from which countless footballing legends are born.

I also don’t think there’s two better pundits in the English game right now than our Jamie and his old nemesis Gary Neville. And few may recall Carra’s analysis of Euro 2012, the last major football tournament that preceded this year’s World Cup. Our Jamie raised a few eyebrows after that tournament – not least mine – when he said that the English Premier League (EPL) needs to sign more world class players.

Hold on. The EPL (always THE HIVE of transfer activity in world football) needs to sign more world class players?! To emphasise his point, Carra said that not one of the players picked in his Euro 2012 team of the tournament plied their trade in the EPL. A team of the tournament, incidentally, which looked like this:

Goalkeeper:                      
Iker Casillas (Spain – a lot can change in 2 years eh?)

Defenders:                        
Jordi Alba (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Pique (Spain), Philipp Lahm (Germany)

Midfielders:                      
Xabi Alonso (Spain), Andrea Pirlo (Italy), Moutinho (Portugal), Andres Iniesta (Spain)

Strikers:                              
Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Cesc Fabregas (Spain)

 

 

 

Coincidence perhaps? I decided to take a look at the World Cup 2014 team of the tournament, just to see whether this was the case. Unfortunately our Jamie did not pick a side this time around, so to add some objectivity to the exercise, I took a look at the first eleven that were selected based on the Castrol Performance Index. For the uninitiated, the Castrol Index:

‘uses mathematical formulas which evaluate various player performances in terms of how individual actions either assist or prevent goals. The system takes into account the strength of the opposition and the time in a game the player's actions occurred’

Sheesh, that sounds quite scientific! Castrol’s first 11 were the following:

Goalkeeper:                      
Manuel Neuer (Germany)

Defenders:                        
Stefan de Vrij (Holland), Mats Hummels (Germany), Thiago Silva (Brazil), Marcos Rojo (Argentina)

Midfielders:                      
Toni Kroos (Germany), Oscar (Brazil), Philipp Lahm (Germany), James Rodriguez (Colombia)

Strikers:                              
Arjen Robben (Holland), Thomas Mueller (Germany)

One player from the EPL? Now that’s an improvement in two years! Hold on, Rojo just signed for Manchester United yesterday. So that’s Oscar at Chelsea and Rojo (post-World Cup) at Manyoo. But two out of eleven is hardly an overwhelming ratio!

I recently told my Spanish mate Jorge over a cheeky pint, that if you had to squeeze the EPL like a wet rag, the only drops of world class quality that would fall out of it would be Yaya Toure, Luis Suarez (since departed to Barcelona), Oscar, David Silva and Ozil (despite recent criticism of his ‘hot and cold’ form). My amigo nodded his head in slow agreement, since by world class quality we meant players who could turn a game at the highest level, and whose all round game was peerless.

And as excited as I’ve been about the start of the EPL, the current transfer window doesn’t seem to be doing much to improve the quality of foreign imports, despite the zillions being forked out. Some might protest that Arsenal have brought in Alexis Sanchez and claim that Chelsea (who presently seem to be the only English club capable of attracting genuine world class quality) recently secured Fabregas, Costa, Luis and Courtois. Be that as it may, but what about clubs outside of London? Why do they never seem to land any of the world’s top top stars, despite the large amounts of cash at their disposal?

 

Manchester United have long been talking about their hundreds of millions, but it remains to be seen whether or not they finally manage to land a star that’s white hot property, in the form of a Mats Hummels or an Arturo Vidal. Personally, I’d be bowled over if that happens, for why should Hummels or Vidal trade clubs like Borussia Dortmund or Juventus for one that’s not even in the Champions League, and whose overall quality is still highly questionable?

True, Man United have brought in Van Gaal. But if you were Mats Hummels, why would you play for a side that still trails the big three (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich) when you’re currently viewed as the world’s best central defender and you can pick and choose as you please? Mats Hummels wants both European and domestic silverware, not an FA Cup or a Premier League trophy. He would walk into any team of his choice right now, and I’ll be stunned if a United deal is sealed before deadline day.

Even more shocking is the case of De Vrij (rated by Castrol as the World Cup’s best defender)! Also a player who reached the semis of the last World Cup actually playing for Van Gaal himself, and who traded Feyenoord for Lazio in the Serie A, thereby ignoring Man United’s overtures! If there was ever proof that most top class players cannot be secured by Man United, look no further than this Dutch youth. And it’s not as if the United hierarchy can claim that De Vrij’s decision to head to Rome was the fact that Man United were not in this season’s Champions League, because Lazio are not in any European competition either! All of which makes United’s acquisition of Rojo yesterday all the more surprising, even though they did huff and puff all summer to finally clinch the deal.

United’s remaining targets Vidal and Pogba also fit the top notch category, but I’ll also be amazed if they trade Juventus for United. You’d think that the only thing that would lure them to a Manchester without European nights is a truckload of ridiculous cash, but even this hasn’t given them itchy feet. Come to think of it, if players only moved for the money, then Man City should already boast Messi and Schweinsteiger, with Neuer in goal instead of Joe Hart, and Chelsea would have signed half the Spanish and Portuguese national team by now. But it doesn’t happen. Why?

My uncle (also a raving football tragic) and I were trying to work it out a couple of weeks back over lunch. We’ve both watched loads of football throughout the years, but we could not find an answer. My uncle reckons that England is not an attractive destination when compared to the likes of Italy or Spain, or even Bavaria. I’m somewhat inclined to agree, especially after gnashing my teeth in frustration when Alexis Sanchez chose to move to Arsenal instead of Liverpool because he’d rather live in London.

But perhaps another less-trumpeted cause might be that although the EPL’s marketing is extremely well-packaged, its quality is in fact not the best in the world. It is true that the odd foreign star sometimes appears in it as a manager (Laudrup, Koeman) or player (Klinsmann, Zola, Torres), yet the veneer of respectability they give it does not seem to increase its standing with players at the very top level of the game.

 

 

 

Perhaps the constant headlines about EPL transfer activity might give a perception of too much glitz and bling, leaving top players to turn numb to it as they question its substance. These are after all players who are serious about their profession, who want to play at the very top and win things domestically and internationally. No one can tell me that a player like De Vrij was without an abundance of suitors in the Premiership. Yet he chose Lazio, in the much derided Serie A which is supposed to have lost its pulling power and yet still attracts the likes of Miroslav Klose and Cuadrado. A league that has developed legends like Ibrahimovic and Cavani, who are both players that never considered England as a viable career option and even preferred a move to France instead.

I think another problem afflicting the EPL is that there hasn’t been a world class English side for a few years now. Man Utd’s nosedive last year didn’t help matters, although they have always been seen as a team that runs riot in England due to the lack of quality in the EPL rather than their own strength, a fact constantly underlined by their failings in the Champions League. Chelsea are perceived to have won the Champions League in 2011 – 2012 more by default than by merit, and are more famous for their owner than for their brand of anti-football. Arsenal and Liverpool are disjointed and consistently inconsistent. Spurs are never going to be a serious destination of choice for a top player, whilst Man City, for all their money, are still regarded as a bit of an aberration in European competition.

Add the fact that the only English city seen as an attractive destination to foreign players is London, and the decision of many top stars becomes even more understandable. Which is not to say that every foreign player ignores the EPL. Young foreign players see it as a solid phase of their development, as well as a shop window for La Liga. It’s also a place where they can earn crazy money. Foreign stars past their peak seem to view the EPL as a pre-MLS retirement stop to earn crazy money, like Yaya Toure. Another disadvantage faced by the EPL is the interminable and uninterrupted length of its calendar, which leaves top players to ask why they should bother playing in English club football if they want to be fresh for international tournaments with their national sides.

So in truth a closer look at the EPL leaves us with a fair few hints as to why a world class player prefers Continental shores to English ones, despite the ridiculous amounts of money offered by the foreign owners of EPL sides. Instead of splashing this cash, English clubs would in fact be better off going down the route followed by German clubs, and give up signing a big wet pile of foreign mediocrity to instead funnel their money into their youth systems. That is if they are truly serious about dominating Europe, instead of lining the pockets of football agents instead.

The EPL has a feel about it that is just too mercenary, no matter how often jingos like Harry Redknapp beat their chest and shout that it is ‘the best league in the world’. This is not to say that it is not exciting - or one of Europe’s top four leagues - but it remains both astonishing and amusing how the world’s highest earning league (EPL sides earned a combined $4.19 billion in the 2012-2013 season) struggles so much to attract top bracket stars to English shores.

Despite the early-90s conversion from the old English first division to the supposedly ‘sexier’ EPL, the world’s top players still seem to prefer spending their peak years in Spain, Germany and Italy. And given that the EPL  already makes a greater profit than other national leagues, any marked improvement in the quality of foreign imports seems quite far off at present. Until any change occurs (if indeed it ever does), EPL fans will continue to be splashed with the cold water of stark realisation at each Euro and World Cup, undergoing what our Jamie describes (in English) as:

‘a process of self-revelation where everyone realises how insular English football can be and how much further we have to go’

Couldn’t have put it better myself, but sod all the pundits and scientific experts! The game is as much about fun as it is about quality, and like everyone else, I’m just delighted that the EPL is back!