Aaah, Zizou!

After that Final, I couldn't help posting on Rob Smyth's blog again...

Aaah, Zizou! Zizou! How could you do this to me? And after we rubbed shoulders, too, on that flight from Milan to Paris, back in the autumn of 1998, as you basked in the glow of what we now know was your greatest triumph! OK, you were taking an irritatingly long time putting your expensive leather jacket in the overhead locker in First Class, and I was pushing past to reach Economy, but I felt we were in some sense comrades, literally fellow-travellers…

But, after we overcome the shock of the image that will always be associated with Germany 2006, who will be judged the real villain of the piece? Whose behaviour and attitudes will be examined most forensically, whose future will be blighted the most by that one moment in Berlin? Materazzi – the Italian Cristiano Ronaldo – is the one who will ultimately hang his head in shame.

What an image, though! We can imagine how the anger erupted, flowing round the mental blocks that restrained it. You merely clenched your fists, but did not strike with them. And in that instant you wanted to smash that face. Again the censor inside your head did not permit the action. But the impulse could not be stopped entirely. What a catharsis that head-butt must have been. Until a moment later you realised what you had done…

Stop! What’s happening? The formal justice of this game, this sophisticated expression of our culture, has punished only Zidane. It may even – by referring to video evidence – have broken its own rules to do so. Yet Materazzi, like Ronaldo, will be condemned by a more natural, popular system of justice. There is a disconnect, a gaping chasm, between the procedures of the game and the form of policing its supposed owners, the fans, want to see. Shouldn’t the early shower welcome the provocateur, and not just his victim? It’s not as if, with the all-seeing eye of the camera, we have no means of detecting the crime.

I remember two incidents watching Southampton as a small boy in the 1970s. A few minutes before the end of the first game of one season, Mike Summerbee, playing for Manchester City, had had enough. He felled the notoriously robust Southampton defender Denis Hollywood with what I fondly remember as a superbly executed right uppercut. Hollywood was still on the turf receiving treatment when Summerbee finished his early bath. I remember the fans leaving the ground chuckling that Summerbee wasn’t yet ready to end his summer holiday. He wanted another week off, for that was the extent of the punishment he was likely to receive. No one condemned the City forward. The fans knew their Denis the Menace, and knew natural justice had been served.

On another occasion, Ron Davies, Southampton’s lilywhite Welsh international centre-forward, received his first ever booking. When he snapped he lashed out like a donkey at Chelsea’s Ron “Chopper” Harris. The referee knew Davies was reacting to an hour of physical abuse, and didn’t send him off. When “Chopper” eventually returned to the pitch (Chelsea had already used the one substitute they were permitted), his leg was bandaged so heavily it looked like it was in plaster. He was reduced to hobbling around in the centre-circle. How we laughed!

Yet how things have changed! Now, any retaliation, however ineffectual – think Beckham in 1998 – incurs draconian punishment. Although Materazzi’s bruised ribs, like Carvalho’s tackled tackle, have surely suffered no lasting damage, Zidane’s reputation is supposedly destroyed. Yet the behaviour that provokes retaliation, the sneaky fouls, the nipple-tweaking, the deeply wounding comments, all this simply goes unpunished! Does this reflect the values of the 21st century? Or is the policing of the game failing?

Let’s answer the question simply: the referee is the authority figure, the parent on the pitch. And he acts like a parent who is too easily deceived. What sort of children are raised by parents who punish only the child they see striking another? Continually ignoring any possible causes of retaliation, they raise self-centred sneaks and bullies. In other words, exactly what modern football is creating. A wise parent would look at the whole picture.

We love the drama, but those of us who love football more want to see a different spirit reflected in the game, and are losing patience with those who control the sport. The game no longer embodies the values of the common man. Instead, the policing of the game puts a desire to protect the authority of its administrators above popular demands for more objectivity. They try to screw down the lid ever tighter on the pressure-cooker inside the head of the Zidane, the Rooney, the Beckham. Yet they let the pressure rise ever higher, until, time after time, with all the certainty of the laws of physics, a valve inevitably gives way.

Elizondo

Elizondo getting the WC Final is an insult.

This should positively be the last football post. But I feel the same as when I buy any other product and find I've been done.

Here's my post on the Guardian blog on what's wrong with the game:

The main problems with the game for me are the influence of the officials on the game and time-wasting.

I agree with many of the ideas here. Some are no brainers, in particular using video/technology for line calls and offsides, and reviewing punishments after the game. Much as I've admired Figo over the years, he should have had more than a yellow for the head-butt.

One thing I detest is players - usually defenders - shepherding the ball out of play, sometimes for 10 yards. If you prevent another player getting to the ball, it should be treated as if you've touched it.

Another no-brainer is to give us the 90 minutes we've paid for and stop the clock when the ball is out of play. The clock should be stopped if a player is shielding the ball (usually in the corner) so that an opponent can't get to it.

Because of the role of officials, players try to influence them far too much. It's absurd that this is allowed. Football is well behind other sports in this respect: rugby referees don't tolerate Ronaldo-esque behaviour.

Football also lags in the use of technology. Photographs have been used to separate race-horses for a century! Yet we can't even get offside decisions right. Spain-Ukraine could have been quite a different game: probably about 6-3, since Spain could have got as many as they wanted against that defence. Correct calls might have told the Spanish their offside trap was pants while there was still time to do something about it. There's absolutely no reason why video replays couldn't be used when a goal has been scored to check for offside or other infringement, as is done for tries in rugby. Having said this, though, they're apparently thinking about using Hawkeye technology (as used to judge LBWs in cricket) at Wimbledon to replace the current Cyclops line call machine which gives real-time decisions. Football will be two generations of technology behind! Even boxing has addressed some of its problems by having many judges "voting" on decisions in real-time. Football could even do something like that.

These things are unlikely to happen, though, with the present structure of the game. FIFA is far too dictatorial: we're now being told we can't have a FRIENDLY with Greece, because some Greek government minister has put FIFA's nose out of joint. And Blatter is telling us the World Cup will be in Brazil in 2014. Um, are we having a vote? FIFA should just run the World Cup (and women's, U-20, U-17 etc.) - and be a bit more transparent (how are referees selected, for example? Elizondo getting the WC Final has annoyed me again, just as I thought I'd got over Sunday) - and keep its nose out of other competitions. This might also allow a bit more experimentation in national leagues etc. FIFA could then see what changes might work best for the World Cup.

Far too much that FIFA does is to preserve its own authority and the myth that the man in black can stand in the middle of the pitch and get every decision right.

There also needs to be a complete rethink of what behaviours want to be eliminated and the best way to do that. For example, professional fouls have to be picked up and punished at the time, so that a team can't gain an advantage, but violent conduct should be punished with a lengthy ban through looking at video evidence in the cold light of day - the Bowyer-Dyer fight ultimately ended up in court. And (back to the Rooney incident) you can't assume guilt. Players should only be red-carded if they're totally out of control.

Have a look at the vision on FIFA's site if you want to see what's wrong with the game.

Rooney speaks!!

As reported here and here... The boy himself has backed up my narrative. Perhaps we could now give him some support. My friends at BBC News 24 say we can watch the video evidence and make our own minds up. Seems to me they're implying he's lying. What is this, class prejudice? "Paul Doyle" - another Guardian blogger, or maybe the same one as Rob Smyth, perhaps they should use "M Yass" (reference is to "Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room") - even describes him as "brutish". Looks like a boy who wants to play football to me. And one who, unlike Maradona, for example, has (so far) resisted the dark side of the force and not started falling over at the slightest touch all the time.

Well, Mr News 24, you look at the video and get some biomechanical experts in and see where Rooney has to put his foot to keep his balance and go after the ball. I've tried to mimic his position and weight distribution and he has to put his left foot back, behind the right. He can't push off his right foot without strain on that knee. He can't put it in front of him without crumpling further. No, he has to put his foot back and push off, straightening his body. And, remember, none of this was happening in slo-mo.

If McLaren wants to break from Sven (and he should), he should back Rooney too: come out and say refs need to give players the benefit of the doubt in these sorts of situations. There was no premeditated flying tackle to stop an attack or to injure someone, in fact no real motive at all. We're supposed to believe it was a "crime of passion" - retaliation, but to what, precisely? - when instead it seems Rooney had just won out in the tussle. His incentive was to get on with the game, or if the whistle had already gone (as it might have) to see which way the free-kick was going. How would the case stand up in a court of law?

And what's more FIFA have to take away the incentive for defenders to generate foul play all the time to prevent a dangerous attack: often they're the first to foul, but end up getting the decision as the tussling escalates, sometimes spectacularly so as in this case.

Come on Steve, show some leadership! Everyone else seems to be allowed a say, even Elizondo. Yeah, of course he wasn't influenced by the winker. If he doesn't believe Rooney, why should we believe his sel-serving account? Perhaps there he is thinking: "That's looks like it hurt, don't see that very often, must have been an accident". Then someone shouts: "Foul! Red card!" and he starts to think: "Really, could it have been deliberate?". Then he decides to get the red card out.

But of course the game shouldn't depend so much on the way refs interpret the laws. It'll destroy itself eventually. I'd pay to see Rooney (even if he takes my team apart), but I've stopped going to Premiership games for, to be fair, many reasons, but partly because what you end up remembering at the end of the day is the performance of the Man in Black.

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!

I don't believe it, to coin a phrase. Every time I think it can't get any worse, but it does. We can't say we weren't forewarned... Rooney's metatarsal, Owen's cruciate, disproportionate yellow cards to Terry, Robinson and Carragher - giving the likelihood of another Gazza moment, the distraction to a key player knowing he will miss the next game. In fact, deep down, we already felt we'd read the script. And then Saturday comes.

My earliest international football memory is the 1970 World Cup. Those who write that the excitement of 2006 has been greater are talking complete tosh. Back then the country was gripped by "football fever", of an intensity not repeated in the daft competition of 1982, the worst World Cup ever, the cheat of 1986 ("Messi is the new Maradona", they say, as if we need another fat, drug-taking cheat), the tragedies of 1990 and 1998 nor the defeat by Ronaldhino in 2002. Moore, Charlton, the peerless Banks and the rest were destined to duel with Brazil like gods on the Elysian Fields. That's when it started. That sick feeling in the pit of the stomach.

Watching the old footage of Bank's save from Pele in 1970 - as kids we believed Banks had performed a back-somersault and thought Pele must possess some secret ability to hang in the air - it's hard to believe that that first match was as good as it's ever been. We lost 1-0, but no matter, there was the Final to come. But it never happened. Is that all I get?

The signs were there back then: Moore's arrest, the noise outside the team hotel before the Brazil game, the heat. We thought we could just shrug these factors off. We'd just play better football. Then came Bank's bad bottle of beer and Bonetti's nightmare, Ramsey's substitution to keep Charlton fresh...

Let's be perfectly clear, since then there's only been one clear-cut knock-out defeat in the Finals! And it was on the Elysian Fields against the Brazilians. And even then the afternoon heat was a factor. The 2002 Quarter-Final was really lost when we failed to win the group. Or maybe it was the tackle on Beckham (probably a straight red had it been in this World Cup) weeks before, or perhaps the Gerrard or Neville injuries.

And again, so close: if only we'd managed to get past Portugal and reach the cool evening games of the Semi and the Final!

And external factors and pure luck have - incredibly - played an even greater part. Those, like Terry Butcher, who claim we are just not good enough are too quick to condemn. Sure, if England had really turned it on, they might have won easily and the Rooney incident might never have happened. But let's remember: there are two teams on the pitch! And you don't win these competitions by peaking in the early stages: ask Argentina and Spain. The fact that England didn't play like Chelsea at their best against Sunderland on a bad day doesn't mean they deserved to lose. There are only prizes for winning games, not for extravagant football. If England had won on Saturday, we'd still be expecting to win this thing. And imagine what the mood there would have been in the country this week! That's what makes me feel sick about it. We have too little to celebrate in this country. Even the sun that shone as we won the right to host the 2012 Olympics was lost to a dark cloud four screwed up little f***ers thought they had a right to conjure up.

Back to Saturday. Let's look at the facts. Why didn't we win?

Martin O'Neill (BBC punditry) is right: England would have won had Rooney stayed on the field. And he was the victim of one of the worst pieces of refereeing in this or any other World Cup. The "experts" (the BBC panel) have been far too quick to rework the old narrative. Rob Smyth (who he?) is even conscious that he is looking at the present through the past: "Rooney has been giving an increasingly disquieting homage to the 1991 Paul Gascoigne". Smyth is privy to some special knowledge. He is certain that Rooney "stamped on Ricardo Carvalho deliberately and recklessly". He asks what Ronaldo supposed to do? Let the referee make a decision, that's what. Until we get away from the myth of an omniscient man in black we won't have anything like objectivity, but let's at least try. Any unsolicited approach to the referee should be carded immediately.

If the curse of 1966 is to be dispelled we have to look at what's happening with new eyes. What really happened? Rooney's view would be useful, but let's have a look at the video evidence.

[I've just heard on the radio that Frings has a one-match ban for fighting - don't want a German to miss the final do we? - Rooney is facing at least two + the punishment he's already had!].

Lamps plays the ball accurately onto Rooney's chest. He has to hold it up. Gerrard is running on. It's already clear that moments like this can win the game. Just as against Ecuador, Rooney has conserved his energy in the first half and is starting to try to seal the game. The situation is not without danger for the Portuguese (I happened to record Match of the Day so I have been able to review this). If Rooney emerges with the ball, Carvalho is out of position, Petit is also behind the play and the defence are exposed to a break by Gerrard and Rooney, two of the most dangerous players in world football. And the speedy Lennon is to Rooney's right as well.

That's why, as Rooney received the ball, Carvalho goes through the back of him. Had Rooney collapsed like he'd been shot - the Portuguese way - a yellow card would have been likely from an unbiassed referee. But our man Elizondo doesn't whistle or wave play on. No foul. Complete incompetence. Or...?

But Rooney just wants to play football. As he foxes Petit (who starts appealing for no apparent reason) and tussles with Carvalho - both are fouling at one point: Carvalho, blatantly, has our boy's shirt and Rooney is pushing Carvalho away, grabbing his shorts and thigh - the stakes are high. The Portuguese would be quite happy to give away a free-kick (itself symptomatic of the sport's problems). Carvalho goes to ground behind Rooney, and instead of rolling away or getting up he carries on (likely illegally) attempting to tackle and/or bring our man down. Back in the 1970s or 1980s, I recollect, players going to ground became a problem and the refereeing initiative at one World Cup was to try to outlaw the behaviour altogether. I guess we've forgotten. Carvalho had no business being where he was. Rooney couldn't see what was going on behind him. No wonder there was an accident.

Eventually the referee blows. As he does, Rooney appears to stand on Carvalho's privates. The Portuguese is apparently in agony. Rooney raises his arm: "Sorry, mate!". If this had been a Sunday league game, Carvalho would accept the apology, the rest of us would be a bit concerned or have a laugh and get on with the game. We'd remember it, and there'd be retribution if one player stepped on too many others. But this competition doesn't even have the ethics of pub team rivalry. Portuguese players protest and demand punishment. The referee can't think straight, maybe he even gives in to his own preconceptions of English players. We know what happened next.

The key moment of England's World Cup. Hundreds of millions of pounds spent, tens of millions of hours dedicated to the event just that afternoon, many billions more over the previous weeks and months. And for this?

Elizondo, an Argentinian known not to give England celebrity footballers the benefit of the doubt (remember David Beckham in the World Club Championship) is, according to Sven, "100% sure it was a red card". This is absurd. Only Rooney knows whether there was intent, and if there wasn't it was an accident. This is the same game, remember, where Nuno Valente pushed over Beckham - another potential match-winner - and then trod on the back of his ankle. Achilles injury: 6 weeks out. And just as likely to have been accidental as Carvalho's squashed testicles.

We have the benefit of albeit piss-poor German TV pictures, from just one angle, except for one close up sequence shown on BBC. Look closely at what Rooney is trying to do at the crucial moment. His weight is all on his right leg, he's nearly bent double, and the ball is loose. He needs to stay on his feet and go after it. You try it: you want to straighten up and start running. So Rooney puts his left foot back to push off. Does he have eyes in the back of his head? No. his eyes are on the ball and it's unclear whether he knows exactly where Carvalho is, much less what bit of him is where. Is he starting to think where this ball is going? Yes. Should Carvalho be where he is? No. So Rooney's foot attempt to find somewhere to put his foot encounters the inside of Carvalho's knee and slides up to his groin area. Ouch! This, my friends, was an accident. If anything, Carvalho was reckless. Any free kick should have gone to England.

FIFA will no doubt ban the boy Rooney for several games: they need to try to preserve the myth that some godlike man in black, can judge in an instant, under enormous pressure, with partisan suggestions interrupting his confused thoughts - can judge not just who did what, but why as well.

Let's look at it another way. Had the red mist descended? No. Rooney was just trying to play football. Why be annoyed with Ronaldo? This was the reaction of someone thinking: I didn't do anything and these guys, including my supposed "friend", are trying to get me sent off. And if anyone out there's uncertain, the shove on Ronaldo was not a sending-off offence (according to Eriksson, the referee said the punishment was for stamping). It was ignored by the ref: it wasn't even the worst shove that happened in that melee. The fact that some sources (Google them yourself) think Rooney was sent off for the shove, suggests real doubt rather than the referee's "100%" certainty about the original "offence". And we have the benefit of replays. As Lawro said on the Beeb: "The only thing he can be sent off for is a stamp" (recollected, may not be verbatim). If Rooney had really stamped on Carvalho, he would have been angry already. He'd then be wondering what he'd done, and trying to limit the damage, not shoving someone. He reacted with disbelief rather than acceptance when the card was brandished. This was just a boy trying to play football. And the game is the worse every time a player is punished for doing that and another rewarded for trying to win the game another way.

And let's try looking at it another way. If Rooney HAD stamped on the Carvalho cojones, it would be indefensible. Yet Gerrard and Lampard are defending him strongly. With the wisdom of crowds, the jury of the British public is not reacting as they did to Beckham in 1998 (because he WAS stupid, immature and petulant, though, like Alan Hansen, I still think his sending off was "harsh"). They're not convinced this time, whatever Rob Smyth might say. Instead, Ronaldo is the focus of our anger and bitter disappointment. A wink shows he has chosen the wrong father figure and that Scolari is the real villain of the piece. It's hard to believe getting Rooney off the pitch was not part of the Portuguese game-plan (those who still don't believe how good he is should go and see him play live and watch no-one else). But the stupid boy Ronaldo has not only counted his Real Madrid chickens, he's slaughtered and eaten them as well, and then pulled the wishbone with that nauseating pre-penalty kiss of the ball. The best thing Ferguson could do for football is loan him to Preston instead. Then we'd see what his fellow professionals think of him.

I accept the Carvalho castration incident looked bad, and Rooney hasn't made a statement himself yet, so I may be forced to eat my words, but for me more acid has been thrown in the face of the "beautiful game". Sepp Blatter, I think it was, said that, in this World Cup, the skilful players would be allowed to play. He has no idea how to make this happen. The game will carry on plummeting downhill until FIFA ditches its antiquated system of controlling games with its random (or worse) and disproportionate enforcement of the rules, starts punishing cheating, provocation and deception consistently and stops pretending retaliation and reckless tackling are its most serious problems. Maybe they'll suddenly wake up and find we've all discovered something better to do with our time, money and emotional energy. If they don't look out, there could be something akin to a revolution. The moment of greatest domination of the empire of football - at least as presided over by the FIFA dynasty - could be its moment of greatest weakness.

PS There's sanity out there (and also some useful footage) if you look for it...