Tuesday 30 November 2010

Messi - The Quiet Cheat

We all know how good Lionel Messi is. That’s something that’s not in any doubt. But one thing which never, and I mean never, get’s mentioned about the mercurial genius is the amount of time he spends on the deck.

Remember how much stick Ronnie got from the media during his time at United? Just ask Gareth Southgate and the personal vendetta his shoddy Middlesbrough team took against Ronaldo. The fact of the matter is that Ronnie took a lot of shit, he was always getting fouled. The amount of times he was kicked during a single Premier League match was astounding. But always labeled as a diver. Let’s take the example in El Classico last night. Clear penalty. Ronaldo nicked the ball in front of Victor Valdes, who got nothing on it and wrapped his legs round Ronaldo’s. Dive said the commentator. What fucking match was he watching?

Which brings us on to Messi. A player of his calabre takes a lot of stick, Sergio Ramos last night is a prime example of this, but too often he goes down looking for something. As soon as Carvalho’s shoulder made any contact with him he was down holding his face trying to get a fellow pro sent off. He probably learnt this one from his boss, renowned gay lord Pep GuardiolA, who felt the need to put his hand in the direction of his face after Ronaldo gave him a little love tap to the shoulder.  The Spanish ref actually booked Messi for this dive. Did Sky make any mention of this? Did they fuck. All they said was that it was a bad bit of play from Carvalho, no mention of how easily Messi went down or even that the ref booked him. Why is it impossible to offer any criticism towards the Argentine when in a Barcelona shirt?

Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez actually gave one of the better refereeing performances I have seen in a long time, the Madrid penalty aside, but never was any word of this really made during the Sky coverage. Gonzalez was wise to the darker side of the likes of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta so why can’t this be mentioned in a discussion of the game? The World Cup final was a prime showing. The Dutch have been lamented for their aggressive style, but many of the worst things in football were seen from the Spanish, most notably the media’s darling Iniesta, who probably spent as much time rolling around on the turf following a fair tackle than he did in the midst of the merry-go-round of pass, pass, pass.

The point I am making is Messi, or any of the other Barca players, does not need this in his game. He showed us enough during El Classico as to how talented he is, why throw yourself around when you can beat any player in the world with your head and feet? As much blame has to be heaped on the refs (El Classico apart) and the supposed pundits. Don’t automatically give a foul when he goes down, he may be the best player on the planet but not everything has to go his way. As for commentators and pundits, in the words of TV’s own Roy Walker “say what you see”. 

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Why do scallies fuck everything up?

I hate the met. Everyone who gets it hates it. It’s expensive, 100 quid fine if you get caught jumping it and when you try and buy a ticket from the dude at Alty station he refuses your card forcing you to call him a cunt shocking the old woman behind you. Not my finest hour.

As all good citizens of Altrincham I share in my hatred for the daily grind on the worst of public transport. Even the new yellow ones are a shit colour and fully snide. Should have made them red. Anyway all who get on before the likes of Stretford and Old Trafford shudder when the groaning beast pulls into the likes of these stops. Cos we all know what’s coming. Dicks in tracky bottoms and wong-eds, clutching phones playing the tinniest of music out of shit speakers.

It was at one of these moments on my way back from Uni the other day that a thought that’s often troubled me firmly housed itself in my mind again. Why do scallies have to latch onto something and do it to death, ruining it for the rest of us? Two biggest examples, adidas and Lacoste. Ruined by scallies insistence of covering themselves from head to toe in snide stripey Lacoste or adidas trackies.

Now these used to be favourite makes for me, but now it’s difficult to rock them in a lot of places for fear of being tarnished with the mark of the scal. The brands themselves also have a lot to answer for. They know the scally market is awash with cash and so they dive head on into it. Bringing out new stripey lines, tracky bottoms that fit perfectly into your sock, shit like that. Now I know that some adidas originals stuff is heavy, but when your bowling through Manchester on a night out in your new three stripe jacket, you’re gonna have a much harder time with bouncers than if you were rocking a river island beaut. Might be alright for me now I’m fully fro’d up but in the golden days of the zero all over it was tough times. All cos of scallies.

On the met the other day I noticed that two of the wannabe hoods had converse on their feet. Full on stripey converse!! Chuck Taylor firing out the red and blue scally line. There is no doubting the resurgence of these classic trainers in recent years, but surely this is a step too far. JD’s gonna  full of them. No more simple plain classic colours or even the random Japanese limited editions, just full on scally style.

How long will it be before this last bastion of classic style is taken away from us once and for all by the strongest of forces? Not long in my mind. These are troubling times we live in.