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.