It’s all been happening this week in football. The world’s most anticipated game (Manchester United v Barcelona), the Football League playoffs which included the most lucrative match in world sport (apparently), allegations of corruption in FIFA (shock), and a footballing legend retiring (not Robbie Savage).
A joke has been circulating since Saturday that Man Utd are creating a ’19 times’ banner to go up at Old Trafford, signifying the amount of times they touched the ball against Barcelona. Funny whilst this may be, it isn’t a massive deviation from the truth. The simple fact is that Derby fans are going to have to stop singing “We’re by far the greatest team, the world has ever seen”, because Barcelona have taken that accolade, and most people tend to share this view. My dad however, puts up an argument that he used to see teams play like that in the 60’s and 70’s, with “inside forwards”, but I’m not sure he saw anyone as good as Lionel Messi at the Baseball Ground. He did concede however that play wasn’t quite as quick back then as it is now, and deep down, I think he knows this current crop of Barcelona players are the best team to have played the game. At the time I was highly critical of United’s tactics as they appeared to sit back and try and hold on for a draw. In hindsight it appears that this approach kept the scoreline credible. A £25 victory for me on the ‘draw half time, Barcelona full time’ market had me dreaming of 6 months travelling in Australia, but a few more victories will be needed for that.
Earlier today, United legend Paul Scholes announced he has retired from playing football. On this occasion the word legend is not being overused, unlike 93% of the time when it is overused. His retirement led to outpours of emotions from fans and players, eulogising about the ginger wizards’s (a name only usually reserved for my cat) abilities. Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen, Zinedine Zidane, Andres Iniesta, Patrick Vieira and Alan Shearer have all gushed about him. Some people, including the names above, believe he was the best midfielder of his generation. If he could tackle, that wouldn’t be in doubt. It’s at times like these though you should remind yourself he is not actually dead. Written articles entitled ‘Scholes will be sadly missed’ and a Manchester United blog post of 'Leave your tributes to Paul Scholes here' give the impression that he is no longer with us. The reality is we’ll see him in a testimonial and then most likely on Sunday afternoons (once upon a time Man Utd played at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon) at Old Trafford as part of the coaching staff. As tends to be the norm these days, Dwight Yorke was consulted for all things concerning Man Utd, and he was another to praise Paul Scholes, especially his attitude in the dressing room. Apparently Scholesy is a bit of a mischief maker behind the scenes, and not as dull as he appears to be at face value. As a footballer, he will definitely be missed.
The weekend of playoffs started off slow, and worked its way to a fantastic climax. Stevenage v Torquay on Saturday was a very dull and tense affair in front of a relatively empty Old Trafford. Stevenage sneaked it 1-0 but more information will not be forthcoming in this blog as it was dull enough to send me to sleep in the second half. Huddersfield v Peterborough was a match that promised much. The Lionel Messi of League 1, Craig Mackail-Smith, hit the post early on and it looked as if it would be going to extra time, until 3 Peterborough goals in 7 minutes late in the second half ensured they would be trying to survive in the Championship next season. The owners have admitted that their best players will not be with them next season, so it could be a less than enjoyable season for them. If I hadn’t lost £50 in the last 2 seasons trying to predict teams to get relegated, I’d stick 50p on Peterborough to go down from the Championship next season. Thankfully, the Championship playoff final at Wembley was very entertaining. I had a bet on it to be 1-0 to Swansea, so naturally it turned out to be a goal-fest. A fantastic Stephen Dobbie goal earnt me a life-changing £3 though so all was not lost. A spirited Reading fightback made the game what it was, until Andy Griffin decided to hand Swansea a place in the Premier League. Brendan Rogers was fantastic after the match; very gracious in victory and clearly emotional after what has been a difficult year for him personally (his mother died and his father is suffering from cancer). Swansea play football the right way, and despite it not being to a lot of peoples taste, they will be representing Wales for the first time in the top flight.
In earth-shatteringly unsurprising news, FIFA have come under scrutiny this week for being corrupt. There have been more claims recently about corruption in FIFA than I’ve had hot dinners, although it should be noted when my mother goes away on holiday the number of hot meals I consume goes down drastically. It makes no sense to me where these corruption allegations come from though. A country such as Qatar, with its rich footballing history, tradition and fantastic footballing weather was always going to get the World Cup. Not a thing to do with money. Seriously though, if you believe that you are either Sepp Blatter, Sepp Blatter’s best mate, or one of Sepp Blatter’s employee’s. Former vice-president Jack Warner was suspended and spat his dummy out in a move that stunk of ‘well if I’m going down, you’re coming with me’. Today though he came out and said that Blatter should be supported. To coin a well known Derbyshire phrase, “are we rate or what?”. FIFA definitely aren’t ‘rate’. Mr Blatter will be standing for re-election this week. Much like the X-Factor, you can ring a number to vote*, but whatever 2 digit number you put at the end it doesn’t really make a difference, because Sepp is the only one standing for election. His news conference yesterday was quite a telling one because he basically lost the plot. Mr Blatter decided his trick was to go down the line of ‘you have asked me two questions, which one would you like me to answer?’, before turning on the journalists for an apparent lack of respect. At the end of the day though, a man who would rather employ two extra officials in a match than put a camera on the goal-line, does not deserve respect. Go to Argos Sepp, camera’s are quite small and cheap these days, and you’d save a fortune on 5th and 6th official’s wages. After you have been to Argos though, pack your bags and get out of FIFA, please.
*you can’t actually ring to vote, so please don’t ask me for the number
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