THE BANTAMS’ MENACE
“It’s the good thing about playing consecutive matches without many days in between,” said José Mourinho after his Chelsea side had let slip a two-goal lead
to lose 4-2 at home to Bradford City, his attention turning already to tomorrow’s Carling Cup semi-final, second leg against Liverpool. “It’s the good thing that, when you lose, you have to focus immediately on the next game.” Probably the only good thing to come out of that game then, José.
“We respected them – or at least I respected them – in the way we prepared the game,” Mourinho insisted. And therein perhaps lay the problem. At their best this season Chelsea have romped forward without a care in the world, treating their opponents as no more than a minor inconvenience, something that can perhaps slow them down but has no chance whatsoever of stopping them completely. At their best, Chelsea’s relationship with opponents is like a skydiver’s with a parachute: not to be treated with contempt, exactly – it’s fairly important, for things to go well, that it exists – but when it comes to it there’s zero chance of it stopping them getting where they’re going. It would have been interesting to see what the score might have been had Chelsea not respected them; had they treated Bradford with complete contempt.
The only contemptuous dismissal The Fiver has found from Saturday’s match at Stamford Bridge came before kick-off: “I came out of the tunnel and he started screaming my name,” reported one player, after a member of the other team’s staff accosted him on the pitch. “I was trying to get in the zone and didn’t know where to look. It was a bit awkward.” That’s not one of Chelsea’s stars shrugging off the attention of a giddy League One fanboy, though, it’s Chelsea-reject-turned-goalscoring-Bantam Felipe Morais talking about Mourinho.
But the teams that had the most humbling weekend were those at the BBC and BT Sport. Given a full draw to choose from, the FA’s partner broadcasters gave the good ones a miss and, with four of the five televised games now completed, can so far boast two goalless draws and three victories by the favourites. There was a grand total of one goal in the BBC’s two big games, while the red-card-and-goal-jamboree that was Blackeye Rovers v Swansea was only considered worthy of being shown to Welsh people.
Meanwhile, the most exciting avalanche of Cup football in living memory was played out at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. At the time, the Beeb was treating the nation to obscure Italian 1960s war thriller Suicide Commandos, in which a low-budget group of guerilla fighters attempted to sabotage the theoretically-impregnable compound of a considerably more advanced and lavishly-resourced army. It’s a shame the Fiver was too busy enjoying the football to see it, because in many ways the plot sounds rather promising. And also a little familiar …
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT
QUOTE OF THE DAY
March 2009: “It hurts me in my soul to do this, but hopefully everything will turn out well for the team and they can qualify for the World Cup without me” – Riquelme quits international football.
Again.
July 2012: “If my friends want to see me and discuss where I will play next, I will do so on my games console but I cannot play any more. Like I said, I am empty and I have nothing more to give … Now I just want to go home, have a barbecue with my friends, see my children and greet them” – Riquelme retires from football to spend more time with his grill.
Today: “It’s clear now that I’ll be on holiday, I’ll have fun, enjoy time with my children. From now on my football life ends and a new life starts. Let’s see what it holds” – Riquelme calls time on the game
once more. The Fiver’s got a pretty good guess what life holds.
FIVER LETTERS
“Does anyone at Fiver Towers have a contact address for Luis Enrique at Barcelona? I think I’ve stumbled across
the magic formula he mentioned for scoring goals. Unfortunately, as this refers to 1967-68 season, he will also need to sell Luis Suárez and buy George Best, Bobby Charlton and Rodney Marsh (according to my personal football sticker collection) hint … hint …” – Dave Gill.
“If The Fiver is now doing versions of MTV shows (Friday’s Fiver letters), shouldn’t it pay a visit to Xzibit? ‘Yo dawg, I heard you like jokes in your email, so I put jokes in your email.’ 1,057 readers might think this a good idea” – Richard Winchell.
JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES
Chances are that if you’re reading this tea-timely football email, you’re almost certainly single. But fear not – if you’d like to find companionship or love,
sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly folk who would never normally dream of going out with you. And don’t forget, it’s not the rejection that kills you, it’s the hope.
BITS AND BOBS
Despite not being good enough to get into one of the worst Brazil defences of all time, Gabriel Paulista
has been granted a work permit for his £11.3m move to Arsenal by Home Office bods, which means the whole sorry farrago of people referring to him as ‘Paulista’ is just going to run and effing run.
Standard Liège fans could face five-year stadium bans
for their banner of a beheaded Steven Defour at yesterday’s match with Anderlecht. The midfielder, who used to play for Standard, lost his head on the field instead, booting the ball at fans and getting sent off, as his team lost 2-0.
Mario Balotelli’s Liverpool career is not over,
according to Brendan Rodgers. “We will give Mario every chance,” he promised of a player he last offered a starting chance to in November.
Cambridge United suit Dave Doggett says the cash earned from their FA Cup replay at Manchester United will be spent on much needed upgrades to their ground. “Hopefully we can get the stadium done and start putting in some proper toilets,” he whimpered, crossing his legs.
Didier Drogba wants to remain part of the Chelsea family
past the end of this season. “When you have achieved so much and won so many trophies like we have done in the past 10 years, that creates something special,” crooned the forward.
Like some kind of footballing Don Draper, Pep Guardiola is in no rush to sign a contract tying him to Bayern Munich. “He does not need a five-year deal to know how much he earns at Bayern,”
parped chief suit Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who presumably does know how much he earns.
STILL WANT MORE?
Either Paolo Bandini has written about an iconic British piece of confectionary, or the reference to Parma Violets in the headline
of his latest Serie A column is actually about the down-at-heel Italian club.
Sid Lowe on La Liga.
Read.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW!
Or now.
SIGN UP TO THE FIVER
Want your very own copy of our free tea-timely(ish) email sent direct to your inbox? Has your regular copy stopped arriving?
Click here to sign up.
‘WEE-A-BOO! WEE-A-BOO!’
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기