Call The Doctor

Jose Mourinho is sick. Read that sentence with whatever inflection best pleases you – your own take on the pliability of the English language may subconsciously reveal much about just how special you think The Special One really is.

Rarely has one man been so equally lusted after and despised (apart from David Cameron, apparently). Mourinho truly provides that rare, heady cocktail of desire and disgust. On the surface he's still the same old charmer he's always been – the brooding, exotic provocateur; a sharp mouth in an even sharper suit. He remains the pouting embodiment of an age-old maxim with a decidedly modern twist – women want to be with him; men want to be him, and can do so via the medium of Football Manager.

And as surely as the waves will rise and fall, so Jose will occupy our hearts and minds. He is the perpetual centre of attention, the spinning top that won't fall unless wrestled to the ground. I pretend not to care, but I do. I love his presence, but pine for the day his oligarch overlord sends him for the long walk once more. The press are as obsessed as before. My friends are too. He makes for great copy – reams and reams of copy (look, I'm adding more this very second!). He is, in the parlance of these lesser times, 'box office'.

But recently we've been offered a glimpse of something rotten at the core of the nation’s favourite exotic one-man show. The season's opening day saw Mourinho raging very publicly against his own medical stuff, who, as their match with Swansea drew to a close, rushed the pitch to help a stricken Eden Hazard. Despite learning post-match that referee Michael Oliver had waved his medics on to the field, Mourinho refused to move on, using the press to admonish his staff and subsequently exiling first team doctor Eva Carneiro and physiotherapist Jon Fearn to the stands for his side's ensuing ransacking at Manchester City eight days later. It's true that Mourinho has always trodden a fine line when in comes to matters of in-house discipline, at times almost daring his players to crack and break ranks. But there's something about his most recent fit of pique which has been bothering me, both as a football fan and on a more personal level too.

To begin with, the vitriol tossed at his own medical staff undermines a key component of his managerial armoury, one which, for me, always elevated him above his peers. As a Manchester United fan I naturally compare all mangers to Sir Alex Ferguson, for whom one particular aspect of his career always pleased me more than any other, namely his determination to defend his players in public. Whatever their discretions, Ferguson remained steadfast in his refusal to hang his players out to dry. Of course there were moments when things crept out of his control (David Beckham's infamous boot wound springs to mind) but when the narrative remained his to shape, he would keep things tightly scripted. When Eric Cantona picked a fight with a full back, or Roy Keane with an empty room, the message was always the same – we'll deal with it internally. The press and the public hated him for it, painting him as a myopic champion of a brand of ill-discipline which occasionally toppled over the line.

But that would be misreading the point. Fergie couldn't have cared less, because his determination to keep such matters in the bedroom – even if he'd privately decided to end the affair – did what he needed it to do: produce a winning team. This stance has admittedly been a little posthumously soured by subsequent autobiography 'revelations', but for Ferguson the job was done years ago. And the books wouldn't have made the shelves without him doing it pretty bloody well. Mourinho has – or perhaps 'had' – always been good at this style of man-management. There are many players out there who would happily give him five knuckles to the face if offered the chance, but there are at least as many more who would die for him. It's the latter which he keeps close; it's the latter for whom he professes undying love and defends to the hilt. It's the latter which keep him winning.

But the more nagging part of all this is decidedly closer to my heart. As someone responsible for a small but loyal band of employees, the very idea of feeding a member or two to the hounds after a (supposed) error would be viewed as an awful act of betrayal. It would undermine the trust of my staff and those who gave me such responsibility in the first place. Who would want to work for someone content to offer you up as a sacrifice? A vorarephile perhaps, but that's beside the point (editor's note: don't Google that at work. Or ever.)

I mentioned earlier how Mourinho is prone to pushing his players perilously close to the edge, attempting to provoke a positive response or a bite, which will either way tell him something about that player, however risky such a tactic might be. But non-playing staff are different. And whilst ignoring injuries is pretty trendy these days, Mourinho would do well to remember that these aren't gazillionaire playboys, pampered mega stars buying their agents Greek islands and strutting about the place like a cross between Thriller-era Michael Jackson and a randy bellboy. These are the unsung pillars of football clubs, the humble cogs in the machine, sheltering from the limelight amidst a choking cloud of Deep Heat and magic spray. These are highly qualified medical professionals; folk who have elected to spend their days massaging John Terry's groin so that we don't have to. These people deserve our respect. As someone who works alongside doctors and nurses every day, seeing a man in a position of such adoration calling medical professionals “naïve” for attending to an injured individual because it might hinder his team's chances of scoring strikes me as quite the galling act of hypocrisy. Better to be naïve to the ways of football than to the ways of human health, even if it might cost you two points. The sickness here is Jose's alone.

Perhaps Mourinho is again falling victim to his curious susceptibility to what we might term 'third season strain'. The third term of his first spell at Stamford Bridge was the only time he didn't bring home the title come May. He didn't make it to October. At Real Madrid his third and final season (which he entered as reigning champion, much as he does now) was a passive-aggressive clusterfuck of press baitings, club legend humiliations, face-pokings (not like that), and rumoured dressing room tête-à-têtes. At one point he even challenged the club's notoriously fickle supporters to love him more. That takes some ego. And the bigger they come, the more spectacularly they burst. He'd probably need a doctor for his.

~ Matt

@mattawaynow

Sunday Heroes

Sunday morning is, according to the Velvet Underground, just a restless feeling by my side. Lou Reed declined to offer up specific reasons for why – like “because I'm hungover” – but essentially I can't help but agree. Sundays have certainly been restless for as long as I can remember them (and hungover for as long as I can forget) but that itchy, vaguely existential seventh day discomfort, those serene early dawning blues, always seems to take hold, whether you're a shower-defying, football obsessed teenager (as I was), a leather-clad, junk-guzzling drone rock pioneer (as I was not) or a late twenty-something adult with facial hair, neuroses and an overdraft (as I am).

Back in the day I had Channel 4's excellent Football Italia programming to keep the demons at bay. Fronted by the pun-addled James Richardson, their equally informative and irreverent magazine show, Gazetta, was all the motivation required for my adolescent self to be up by 10:00am on a Saturday, whilst Sunday's guaranteed live helping provided a rich portal into the long-hair-and-possession milieu that was '90s Italian football.

Two Sundays ago I awoke to contemplate the day's footballing menu. Stoke v Norwich? No ta. Sunderland v Liverpool? Maybe – Luis Suarez was back from self-inflicted exile (and a bit of potential tea time cannibalism should never be dismissed out of, er, hand), but with Paulo Di Canio goose-stepping his way back to Rome some of the intrigue was gone. It tasted like flavourless fare, and left me pining for the good old days of free-to-air Italian coverage. I remember it well: the thick, rain-sodden pitches, the flare-lit ultras stashed away behind thick safety netting, the Lotto boots – a glorious, dangerous, alien spectacle which cemented my love for football beyond our shores. As I contemplated this bygone age, I was reminded of one of my favourite ever sporting moments: the unlikely, unpredictable entrance onto the grander sporting stage of an extraordinarily talented but largely forgotten and under-appreciated footballing talent. The story begins thusly...

The year was 1997, and as late summer began to fade the UK was in a moment of upheaval: the New Labour honeymoon period, the arse end of Britpop, the public anguish at Princess Diana's passing, some other stuff too probably. Over in Italy, meanwhile, Serie A's biggest ever close season recruitment drive was in full swing, as F. C. Internazionale Milano looked to mount their first serious title challenge for several years, having not held aloft lo scudetto since 1989. Despite weathering periods of up to nine seasons without a title triumph in the past, Inter had still topped the league at least once in each of the preceding eight decades. With only a couple of years of the '90s remaining, and having spent the recent past in the shadow of their all-conquering city rivals AC, their chances of maintaining that impressive record were swiftly diminishing.

To this end Inter president Massimo Moratti was busy taking a scythe to the club, removing manager Roy Hodgson after one full season in charge and overhauling the first team squad, dispensing with talents like England's Paul Ince, the imposing French right-back Jocelyn Angloma and Swiss playmaker Ciriaco Sforza, having already shipped off Benito Carbone, Gianluca Festa and ageing journeyman Andreas Seno during the previous season. In their places came ten new faces, including veteran Portuguese schemer Paolo Sousa, “21-year old” defender Taribo West, Levekusen's Brazilian holding talent Zé Elias, rough and ready, soon-to-be-friend-of-the-English Diego Simeone, Roma's talented, tricky but inconsistent Francesco Moriero and Paris St-Germain midfielder Benoît Cauet.

The cherry on top of Moratti's restyled torta was of course Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima: The Original Ronaldo, recruited from Barcelona for a then-world record £19m fee from, following a stellar return of 47 goals in 49 appearances for Bobby Robson's Barcelona. His arrival had Serie A fans, not to mention a global audience, on the edge of their seats. His debut came on the season's opening day – August 31^st 1997 to be exact, and a home tie with newly promoted Brescia covered live by Richardson and co. Events, however, were not going exactly according to script. Deep into the second half, Inter found themselves trailing to a Dario Hubner goal, Moratti's grand plan seemingly crumbling in his hands. Ronaldo had cut a frustrated figure – a couple of half chances gone begging, glimpses of his ridiculous touch-and-turn free running, but with various new additions bedding in alongside him, Inter struggled to gel into a functioning, convincing whole. The club's big statement to the footballing world was veering dangerously off message, but no one had reckoned on the what was about to transpire.

Moments before the hosts fell behind, newly-installed coach Luigi Simoni withdrew striker Maurizio Ganz, summoning in his place from his bench Inter's tenth and least heralded signing of the summer, a floppy-locked, baby-faced Benicio Del Toro-a-like Uruguayan forward in an oversized jersey, named Álvaro Recoba.

With ten minutes remaining Recoba, a mere few touches into his top-flight career, found himself in space midway inside the visitors half. As fellow substitute Cauet rolled the ball square, what followed next was a spontaneous masterclass in touch, vision and execution. Head already raised, sizing up the battlefield ahead, Recoba's deft first touch repositioned the ball onto his left side, one perfect, teasing stride ahead. With no opponent rushing to close him down, Recoba, arm extended for poise, unleashed in one fluid, seamless motion a punishing strike. The technique was simply something else: an elastic, ecstatic swing of the left leg; a Catherine wheel snapback of limbs, a missile-locked simulacrum of perfection. Recoba's shot didn't so much travel through the air as tear the atmosphere around it apart, moving, meteorite-steady, towards the Brescia goal. The ball was around thirty-five yards out when it left Recoba's boot. It passed Brescia keeper Giovanni Cervone with a velocity that near straightened his magnificent perm in the process; by the time he had hit the deck in vain, Recoba's team mates were already rushing to embrace him. The Uruguayan reeled away in celebration, his face a picture of pure joy, but also betraying a flicker of self-consciousness. Perhaps he was, on some basic, humanist level, embarrassed at what he had just done – “did I really make it look that easy?”

That one moment alone should have been enough to cement his name in nerazzurri legend, but Recoba wasn't finished yet. Moments later Inter won a free kick thirty yards from goal, right of centre this time. Recoba stepped forward and deigned, impossibly, to repeat the trick, this time launching the kind of strike which appeared to defy common physics, its ludicrous up-down trajectory – looping like a skimmed pebble or a pitcher's favourite changeup – claiming its own dynamic orbit; a sweeping, arching, dipping grand statement of a shot which passed Cervone in little over an instant, kissing the crossbar for luck as it found its way home. For a second time the Inter faithful surged as one towards the stand's guardrail: an amassed, gleeful force of nature, flocking as disciples to be within reach of their new hero. Teammate Moriero's gesture of worship was simply to kneel before Recoba, offer him his knee, and mime the polishing of his left boot. Again Recoba looked bashful. He shouldn't have – it was perfectly fitting.

As the final whistle sounded and the home supporters danced their relieved dance – their championship campaign somehow off and running – footage shows the amassed TV cameras swarming not around Ronaldo but Recoba, eager to claim a close-up of this odd sorcerer, at once noble-looking and endearingly dishevelled, who had dared to use Ronaldo – Ronaldo! – as his own personal Trojan horse onto the world stage. It was an entrance not of pomp and circumstance but of streetsmarts and close magic, a manifestation born of pure audacity and sleight of hand. It was his big moment in the spotlight. It was, ruefully, to be his biggest.

As Ronaldo found his feet and Inter's season pushed on, Recoba, despite his heroics, found himself curiously overlooked – this outrageous halfway line equaliser several months later was, amazingly, his first league strike since that opening day salvo. The wheels eventually fell off of Inter's challenge and their decade was to ultimately end scudetto-less. The following season's winter break saw Recoba depart for a six month loan at relegation-threatened Venezia, and while his 12 goals in 18 appearances ensured their survival, he returned to a San Siro which had moved on in his absence, and now boasted, amongst others, Christian Vieri and Roberto Baggio ahead of him in the pecking order.

As Recoba's career arc plateaued post-Venezia, he found himself embroiled in controversy, namely a fake passport scandal which resulted in his Italian citizenship being revoked. He received a twelve month ban (reduced to four months on appeal) and, although he inked a new contract during this time, his career never really recovered. Despite clocking up almost 250 games over eleven years, Recoba didn't ever manage to become the man around which teams were built: he was – cliché alert! – a scorer of great goals rather than a great goal scorer, a double-edged sword of a gift which left him marginalised by more consistent teammates. Recoba's time at the San Siro ended in bittersweet fashion too. He departed with a Serie A title to his name when Juventus' demotion for their part in the calciopoli scandal allowed Inter to walk the 2006/07 scudetto (they were eventually awarded Juve's crown from the previous season too, the fall-out from which still rumbles on today), but by this time he was little more than a bit-part player. Recoba had hung around long enough to see the project started a decade previously in that heady summer of '97 finally come to fruition, contributing intermittently but memorably, and yet never quite playing the starring role he should have.

His Inter career over Recoba drifted, initially turning up at Torino, moving onto a spell in the Greek leagues before eventually finding his way home to his first two professional clubs in Montevideo, a pleasing completion of his career circle. Despite his failure to stake a claim as a true great, Recoba is still something of a national treasure in Uruguay. Capped 67 times, a cursory glance at any one of his myriad You Tube compilations will show you what a rare, rugged (some might even say Maradona-esque) talent Recoba was considered to be .

In one of those curious, synchronistic quirks of life, the fates decided to drop a fitting postscript to this blog into my lap in the form of Adnan Januzaj, the Manchester United winger with more international suitors than James Bond, who last weekend essentially replicated Recoba's feat, using his full Manchester United debut to produce a brace of fine, momentum-shifting strikes and turn a one goal deficit into a much-needed victory. His two clinical, composed finishes could signal the start of a special career. Sadly, Recoba ultimately became a nearly man: a could've-been, an almost-was. He won caps, trophies, a title eventually, played at World Cups, and yet couldn't elevate himself to level of the greats. To this day he remains more of a cult hero; an exceptional talent who inhabited the rough fringes of true glory's fairway. He also stands as my own personal by-word for Italian football's late century glamour period.

Recoba's peak years are now close behind; Januzaj's are still, hopefully, way ahead of him. And even if his talents never amount to anything more than that one whirlwind debut, I'd like him to know that, if nothing else, he made last Sunday morning feel just a little less restless than usual.

~ Matt

https://twitter.com/MattAwayNow

Great Expectations

Here it comes again – predictably, unavoidably, inevitably. A grey autumn and bleak winter poisoned by greed, heartlessness and bitter feuds. Long, inescapable months of false hope, dashed dreams and cruel blows dealt swiftly and without mercy to even our most modest ambitions.

Luckily there's still eight days until the House of Commons sits once again, so in the meantime we can spend all our energy focusing on the return of that most chronic of sporting obsessions, the Premier League. We may be but a week into the new term, but already, after a mere handful of results, all around the country supporters are beginning to fall in line with the apparent path of their clubs’ seasons. Some will have realised that a long, troubled nine months lies in wait. Others will have been pleasantly surprised by their club's opening results, and are only now daring to dream of what might be in store come next May. For all concerned, the new season brings renewed optimism, even if it is only for a few fleeting hours.

Now that Andy Murray has cured seventy-seven years of British hurt (albeit tennis-hurt, which is admittedly a milder strain than football-hurt, closer in threshold to a nagging hangnail than, say, five days trapped under earthquake debris with a scant ration of bugs and your own urine for sustenance) perhaps it's time one of our great footballing institutions wiped away the tears and started winning stuff again. I am talking of course about Liverpool, who, under the leadership of David Bren- sorry, Brendan Rogers, have started to recapture some of their lost swagger of yore. Indeed, rarely do expectations of success weigh heavier than at Anfield, starved as they are of a league title for so long now that the mere effort of counting the barren years, and repeating the sad total, feels more of a chore with each changing of the calendar.

Of course in some ways the nature of expectations at Anfield have been tempered with the passing years, with a top four place essentially as good as a title triumph these days, certainly when competing with the financial clout and Premier League pedigree of the teams in their way. In that spirit, Liverpool have gone about their summer shopping with the bare minimum of fuss, trading up on talent whilst splurging only a modest gross outlay. They've raided La Liga for Sevilla's Luis Alberto and Celta Vigo's Iago Aspas, swapped the fading Pepe Reina for Belgium's sprightly Simon Mingolet and replaced Sky Sports-bound Jamie Carragher with Kolo Toure, an experienced, title-winning campaigner. More arrivals may still be on the cards, but the succinctness with which they've gone about their business bares sharp contrast to some of their more warchest-beating rivals.

Arsenal's grim, ultimately fruitless pursuit of Liverpool striker/bogeyman Luis Suárez had threatened to overshadow both sides’ summers, yet the contrasting handling of the resultant deadlock speaks volumes about each side’s comprehension of their current reach. Whilst Liverpool rejected all approaches and seem to have made peace with Suárez (and, vitally, his agent), Arsenal continue to throw big, wet splodges of cash at unrealistic targets in the hope that, sooner or later, one sticks.

In truth, their failure to land Suárez is probably a blessing in disguise. As undoubtedly talented as he is, Suárez would have represented the most un-Wengerlike of Arsène Wenger signings. When a docile kitten like Cesc Fabregas can cause such protracted ructions, one can only imagine the carnage Suarez would have brought: picture the monthly sight of a flustered Wenger rushing about the Emirates shielding reporters’ ears from racial slurs while a frustrated Steve Bould quietly sweeps bits of opposition skin and bone into the corner. Arsenal's only summer recruit at time of writing is Yaya Sanogo, a 20-year-old forward released by Auxerre with a grand total of 21 professional games to his name. And they say satire is dead.

Anyway, back to Anfield. Liverpool had the honour of opening the new season in front of the TV cameras and an amassed audience, most of whom were emerging bleary-eyed from ten weeks of hibernation. But even they will have struggled to miss the biggest recruitment drive of the summer. I'm not talking about Spurs or Monaco but rather BT Sport, the new broadcasting kids on the block for whom the season's curtain-raiser represented their bow as a Premier League power-player.

Having greased the Premier League's hands with £3bn for 38 matches per season for the next three years, BT Sport have spent the summer amping up the rhetoric in their battle to cement the number two slot in the domestic football broadcasting stakes. Their advertising campaign has been modern, ambitious and slick, led by a series of punchy TV slots fronted by sixth form prefect-cum-anchor Jake Humphrey (for whom a bit of Twitter rabble-rousing didn't go amiss either) and a plethora of media fanfare. As such, the expectation – see what I did there? – on them to hit the ground running has swelled as the season has made its groggy approach. Come 12:45pm last Saturday the stage was set for Anfield to host the next chapter in two grand footballing narratives – twin forces of ambition striding into the dark, cold unknown. The grand old bruiser and the fresh young whipper-snapper. A starting gun for twin contenders. A tale of two cities. Well, one city. And a TV station. Let's move on.

As Liverpool and Stoke got the new season under way, all eyes were on the new signings on display – namely BT's commentary due of Ian Darke and Michael Owen, alongside former league referee Mark Halsey, whose presence felt like one of those mysteries of the Earth whose meaning we can only really ever hope to understand with the fullness of time, like Stonehenge or Mumford & Sons’ popularity. During the early exchanges Darke and Owen did their best to form a combative frontline, pairing the former's commentary box experience with the latter's on-pitch pedigree – who better, frankly, to evaluate the unfolding action than a man with 158 goals in Liverpool red and upwards of three hours playing time for Stoke?

But, as with all revamped squads, the new signings didn’t gel straight away, with Owen finding certain moments particularly uncomfortable. Within the opening half an hour, Darke had drawn our attention to some vital statistics, reminding viewers with no appetite for numbers that, “Stoke failed to score in 15 of their 38 matches last season”. A sly dig, if ever I've heard one. “In fact, wasn't that the season you played for Stoke, Michael? Do you remember that, Michael? Michael?”, he might as well have added. A few minutes later, having sat through a rather dry summary of the visitors’ limited summer transfer spend, we were informed that Stoke were still in the market for “a pacey striker” – you know, the kind you used to be Michael. Before it all went south. You remember that don't you Michael? Michael? Michael...?

As the half wore on, Darke tried to add a dash of post-modern commentarial flair – throwing in pop culture-referencing quips, trotting out researched fluff about some Ligue 1 transfer target or another – but generally came a cropper, too often sounding like a sixty-year old dad attempting a conversation with his teenage daughter about chart music only to end up sad and frustrated that she doesn't know who Hall & Oates are. Halsey chipped in every now again too, basically to praise the referee and to the remind viewers that the Premier League has “the best officials in the game”, a brazenly sycophantic touch that will no doubt reap handsome rewards for the station come contract renewal time.

As for Owen, his post-retirement plan may well be to fashion himself into a kind of Gary Neville 2.0 (a real blow for Phil Neville, that) but he is quickly learning that there's more to the modern football pundit than a new suit and a smart turn of phrase. As Liverpool were awarded a set piece on the corner of Stoke’s box, Owen pointed to the height mismatch between the two sides, noting that apart from the centre-halves, the visitors towered above their Merseyside counterparts. Within seconds, Steven Gerrard's whipped delivery was headed in by Daniel Sturridge, only for the flag to go up. Owen was reprieved – for about 45 seconds, when Kolo Toure headed a corner against the bar. Stoke's behemoth backline had been left reaching skywards scratching their heads and Owen was receiving a very public lesson in the pitfalls of punditry.

Still, he wasn't alone when it came to learning on the job. At half time, with Liverpool 1-0 ahead, the still marvellously-coiffured David James – the channel's matchday goalkeeping specialist – pointed out that new Anfield number one Mingolet – sporting the number twenty-two jersey – had shown “a bit of nerves” on his debut. As it turned out, Mingolet's last minute penalty save ensured Liverpool's victory, his bit of nerves calmly extinguished. Somewhere, in a custom made, future-proof, eco-sustainable land-pod, G-Nev was resting easy.

There was of course plenty to keep us entertained on the pitch too, not least the mere presence of Philippe Coutinho, who is rapidly becoming one of those players that everyone says Liverpool fans deserve to see – a sharp, shuffling, hip-swivelling box of tricks, brimming with intelligent passes and nimble link-up play, an heir to the creative Anfield lineage of days gone by – think Barnes, Kennedy, Dalglish. Kuyt.

Rogers has the makings of a vibrant, entertaining side on his hands, and is slowly solidifying them into a team capable of challenging for, if not the title, then certainly the top four. But if Liverpool are settling into a decent rhythm on the pitch, back in BT towers things were about to take a turn for the weird, with Humphrey – looking about as comfortable as a man sat next to Tony Pulis for three hours physically can – linked post-game to a Big-Match-Live-meets-Top-Of-The-Pops performance/montage mash-up of the new single from Primal Scream. It was an odd, awkward moment. I couldn't quite tell if the Scream were live in the studio or whether this was a pre-recorded segment, but when you consider that Bobby Gillespie probably didn't know either I guess it doesn't really matter. In fact, with the band's 1990 hit 'Come Together' featuring heavily as the ad break sting music throughout, my sole earthly hope now is that Gillespie and co have been recruited as some kind of BT Sport house band, so that come May, as Humphrey auto-cues himself into an early grave over the season's seventy-fourth live take of 'Swastika Eyes', the whole thing will resemble the aftermath of an early 90s acid-house party; the season’s final broadcast drawing to a close as co-analysts Steve McManaman and Owen Hargreaves frantically chew their lips and gaze at the studio lights while Kate Moss slides a powdery mirror across the desk to a clearly tired and emotional Pulis. Now that would be worth changing your broadband provider for.

But that scenario, regretfully, will have to wait until another day. In the meantime this exciting Liverpool side would do well to remember that it took Manchester United twenty-six years to bridge the gap between Sir Matt Busby's championship side of 1967 and the team which took the inaugural Premier League title in 1993 – that is to say, marathon dry spells can spring life once more. It's been twenty-three years this summer since Liverpool last held the league trophy aloft – so long, in fact, that it's not even the same trophy any more, just as it wasn't for United either. Returning to the very top might be a bit of a stretch right now, but let's not forget that this season signals a new era for United and for the Premier League. Who's to say it won't for Liverpool too?

~ Matt

https://twitter.com/MattAwayNow

The Big Sensations

They say that every end is a new beginning, and all this recent talk of retirement – of boots hung up, of whiteboards tucked away in dusty cupboards – probably goes to show just how much of an honest, painful and ultimately befuddling truth that may be. As David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen – the familiar faces of our footballing youth – pack in the day jobs and head for the golf course, the rest of us are in essence only just starting out on that rocky road know as a 'career', which is an odd dichotomy to consider. It's easy to forget just how intertwined the professional lives of these stomping football behemoths of the Premier League are with our own private timelines of failure and fortune. Today we find ourselves mourning an era which began in our adolescence, gathered steam during those pesky hormone-fuelled wonder years, and now emits the final flares of it's dying light as we stare down the barrel of thirtysomethingness, worrying about mortgages and filling out our suits a little more snugly than before. Never mind ascending career ladders and diminishing sexual peaks: where the hell did the last fifteen years of football go?

Take, for example, Scholes, a man whose entire professional career I have now lived through. I have a weak memory of sitting close to a radio somewhere, ear pressed to the speaker, transfixed by a crackly, medium-wave description of his two-goal debut against Port Vale, wondering with youthful inquisitiveness as to the identity of this ginger Cantona. Now, as I watch his typically no-frills disappearance down the Hawthorns tunnel, I feel provided with an odd sense of perspective. I used to wonder what it must have been like to have watched a great like George Best light up English football then disappear to be replaced by a new breed. How it was to be there at his emergence, to see him dazzle defences across the land, to witness the very public spectacle of his slide toward A-list decadence, to scrutinize the gradual, sad tapering-off, to experience – from a sporting shelf-life point of view – a whole existence flicker, fire and fade before my eyes. Today I feel like I've watched Paul Scholes grow from boy to man. I've packed him off on his first day at school, endured by proxy his growing pains and his rise to the top, and now I gaze on misty-eyed as he trots off into the great sporting beyond. Off the pitch Scholes and Best couldn't have been more different of course – not so much chalk and cheese as champagne and Lucozade – but the departure of such talents brings with it a curious sense of loss, and certainly feels more like the end of something that the start.

Beckham's departure from the beautiful game is a bigger headline grabber for sure, such is the basic transcendence of the man's very being from sporting icon to cultural superthing. His farewell to the game came replete with grandiose – if undoubtedly sincere – tearful farewell, the final music-swell of the meta-soap opera that has been his life for the past two decades. As the most discussed, dissected, despised (for a while at least) and defied player of his generation, Beckham has, for the longest time, been so much more than a mere ball-manipulator. Rest assured, Brand Beckham will live on long after his studs leave the turf for the final time.

Meanwhile, Carragher's final day on the pitch appeared to be everything you'd expect from abdicating Anfield royalty: captain's armband neatly pinned, waterworks stoically plugged, hand no doubt a-quiver as he reached for the This Is Anfield sign one final time. And all of this against the backdrop of a thankful and devoted Kop – if that post-bound shot had gone in I think the city might have imploded in a heartswell of pure valedictorian ecstasy.

As for Carrahger's former Liverpool team-mate Michael Owen, his departure felt a little sadder, a little greyer, a little less fairytale. His stock having fallen so far, his retirement ultimately sat as a rueful sidebar to the sacking of Tony Pulis and various salty pork-based dressing room tomfooleries (all very un-Owen, for he was a man who always played by the book). Stoke was an odd choice of venue for Owen's career to play out. For a man who spent the vast majority of his professional life performing (injury permitting) on the grandest of stages, his decision to while away its twilight hours as a Brittania bit-part always felt judderingly incongruous, like a hitherto wholesome Richard Curtis romcom plunging skew-whiff into a nightmarish and confusing final act of giallo-tinged psychosexual depravity, replete with smashed glass, severed porcine craniums and naked, head-charging men-folk. The BT Sport sofa's gain is, if nothing else, the strained analogy's loss.

And then of course there's the biggest retirement of the lot. Much ink and paper has already been spent trying to accurately discern the value of Sir Alex Ferguson's legacy to British football, but that's no reason to stop me having a go too. Some will see him as a hyper-skilled management alien, arriving from a distant land (or “Govan”) to impart wisdom and a skill set previously unknowable to mere earth-bound footballing simpletons, that unceasing desire to win – to give the people of Manchester and beyond the triumph they so desired – feeding not only his own appetite for distinction, but that of all those he managed too. Others, however, will point to a fierce culture of sharp-tongued anti-officialdom, brutal and brutish, ruling his manor with a clenched iron fist, one forever upturned to enable a better view of that oft-checked watch of his. We never really got too many slow motion close-ups of Sir's notorious timepiece – it never featured on Player Cam, as far as I'm aware – but it did become as synonymous with it's owners peccadilloes as the man himself.

To that end I feel it might be the idiosyncrasies and the neat phraseology which we'll miss the most – the small touches which have filtered almost unnoticed into the footballing lexicon, so entwined are they in the hive-memory of United's dominant years. Beyond the much-debated “Fergie time” there were the passive-aggressive (emphasis on the latter) press conference smackdowns and the fear of God he put up countless microphone-brandishing comment-seekers. Then there was Liverpool and their “fucking perch”. The 'noisy neighbours'. Squeaky-bum time. The endless, endless gum chewing. Those are the things which he should be remembered for, and that's by no means a glib dismissal, but rather a very British tribute to just how completely one man can infiltrate and effect a stand-alone culture as far-reaching and deeply-loved as football.

It'll stand him in good stead too, as there's probably a lucrative post-management gum advert in there somewhere – Sir outside tending to his allotment, planting hydrangeas, or indoors trying his hand at watercolours, forlorn and forgotten. He checks his watch. Don't we all wish we had just a little more time? And then, before it all gets too Alan Bennett, he reaches for the gum and all that masticated minty-freshness imbues in him a renewed sense of purpose. Casting aside his easel, thundering past a bewildered Cathy, he strides out the door, down the garden path and away to take on some new quest or another. A sideways turn to camera – Retirement? Bloody hell!

His successor, David Moyes, will of course require time to develop his own global spotlight character ticks. Who knows, in twenty years time we may be sat around discussing the cultural relevance of the Moyes touchline-chicken-wing-flap, or the Moyes imaginary-dressing-room-horseplay-towel-swipe. Perhaps he'll start dipping into a snuffbox as he paces the Old Trafford touchline or begin referring to journalists by their pornstar names. One can only dream.

In the meantime, and after a lifespan of United fandom without first-hand experience of managerial change, the efficiency with which Moyes was appointed was almost a touch disappointing, perversely excited as I was by the chance to drink in the replacement speculation, to repeat those rumours of clandestine top brass meetings with succession contenders held in darkened car parks on the edge of town. Not for United supporters the dizzying ride of the managerial merry-go-round. All of this is to the club's credit of course, and upon reflection I realise it did spare me one gruesome right of passage for supporters of manager-less clubs – namely, that dark weekend of the soul spent burning candles and kneeling in quiet prayer in the hope that the reported approach for Alex McLeish turns out to be nothing but baseless rumour. Small blessings, I suppose.

In the greater context of his managerial magic, perhaps the timing of Ferguson's retirement was his greatest trick of all. Having wrestled the league crown back from across the garden fence, perhaps Ferguson could feel the wind of change rustling the conifers in the near distance. With Mourinho's imminent return, City's huge investments, Spurs' careful growth, Liverpool's gradual re-emergence and the apparent rise of the modern German supermachines of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, the moment may have felt right to go before the challenges exceeded his strength.

It's easy to forget just how life has changed on and off the pitch since he took the Old Trafford reins. He steered United out of the darkness of the 1980s, through the brave new world of the BSkyB era and successfully into the post-oligarch landscape of now, collecting trophy upon trophy along the way. Yet arguably Ferguson was at his bullish zenith around ten-to-fifteen years ago. This was his classic period – a more aggressive creature then, his sides infamous for their ruthless goal-hungry efficiency and a disciplinary balance which occasionally toppled over the line. In recent years he has mellowed somewhat, elevated to the position of respected elder statesman, the hairdryer set to mid-range gust rather than ferocious roar, as better befits a man of advancing years. Ever the manager two moves ahead of the rest, he chose to leave before the enemy regrouped once more, and as such left behind a legacy which stands almost without equal. As ever, the timing was all important – he never burned out, but he chose not to fade away either.

British football probably won't know Ferguson's like again, and the same could be said of Beckham, Scholes, Carragher and Owen too. Each transfer a headline, each goal an exact piece of history, these were the original Premier League baby boomers, making hey in the golden light of English football's post-Sky recruitment drive; the great inventors in a time of new ideas, accumulating their returns and retreating – decorated and divined – into the shade of mid-life before the entire thing eats itself whole. Football will go on, propelled forward by far flung cash injections and mysterious handshakes, but we now inescapably see top-flight football as a breeding ground for pretty millionaires and noxious playboys. It wasn't quite like that when the aforementioned stars began their journeys to the top.

Of course Beckham is perhaps the prettiest millionaire of them all, but everything that made him him – the rags to riches rise, the graceless falls and the hard-won recoveries, coupled with his sporting talents – had such a deep impact the world over that it birthed and ultimately preserved a legend that few players will ever better. I wonder if another will ever rise to straddle the globe quite like Beckham? I wonder if English football's next generation of superstars will provide us with the same memorably etched, era-defining personalities and traits as Becks and his departing peers did, or a manager as charismatic, infuriating, divisive and as downright all-conquering as Ferguson? I wonder what new beginnings these endings will bring? These are probably questions for another day. For now, tip your hats – these men mattered to us, and probably more than we'll ever know.

~ Matt

https://twitter.com/MattAwayNow

Let's Stay Together

I'm going to begin with a confession. I've been a little bit down on football recently. It's still been there – still happening, still occurring in front of my eyes – but over the past few months I've become increasingly concerned that the spark has, if not gone, then certainly faded. I think routine has bred contempt. Saturday night comes and goes and there I slump in front of Match Of The Day and it's all very familiar – Lineker punning away, Hansen immaculately trousered, Lawro staring mournfully off into the middle distance like a man in his dotage failing to recall a cherished childhood memory. Alan Shearer might've been there too but I didn't really notice.

And there I would remain for the duration, watching but only half watching, listening but with an ear on other things. As recent weeks passed, I'd found that football and myself had stopped communicating – we'd pass each other in the doorway, enquire about each other's day, but in my heart I could feel a coldness setting in. Then, one lonely Sunday afternoon while the football was out seeing friends (no doubt complaining about my recent lack of attentiveness) I found myself giving in to a dark temptation. Reader, I watched the rugby. I can only apologise – it was a mistake, a moment of weakness. And while I want to say it didn't mean anything, I just can't stand the lies any more – in my heart of hearts, I feel that maybe it did. Football, I think we need to talk.

It wasn't just televised football that had left me treading water. Each time I clicked on a website or opened a paper (old school, I know) it felt like I was just going through the same old motions, finding myself gripped with a sense of grim inevitability. Everywhere I looked it was all racism this and fascism that, diving and cheating, match-fixing and hand-wringing, anger and administration. You name them, there they were – the grand, ominous signifiers of a game sliding towards soft oblivion and a fan slipping towards discontent.

Speaking of fascism (or not, whatever), what Paolo Di Canio's appointment as Sunderland boss stirred in me more than politico-outrage was a sense of sadness for his predecessor Martin O'Neill. I've always been a big fan of O'Neill. He comes across as a man of integrity, one who appealed to my fondness for an outsider, a decent gent with the aura of a slightly distant, dough-hearted nerd – the kind of man who might spend the post-Queen's speech hours of Christmas Day completing his nephew's Rubik's cube before retreating to the garage to continue work on that radio-controlled mechanism thingy for the cat flap. Sure he can be blinkered when things aren't going his team's way, but then which manager isn't? I hope he isn't away for long.

Even the furore surrounding Di Canio's appointment felt, to me, forced and somewhat puffed up – not quite manufactured, but still twisted out of all logical shape. Di Canio's (re)elevation to the status of footballing controversy de jour seemed fair enough on the surface. No one doubts he made signals to Lazio's ultras. It's irrefutable that he's made pretty blunt statements in the past, laying his political allegiances bare for all to see. We all know his history. But this all seemed to be OK as long as he was managing Swindon Town. Little old Swindon! With their lower league pluck and their “oh isn't the manager just nutty!” charm. But now he's in the Premier League and it's Big News. Whether his self-confessed fascination with Mussolini is similar to the “say what you like about Hitler, but he knew how to get results” pseud-bellendery that gets thrown around from time to time, or something deeper-rooted altogether, we will probably never know for sure, as it's his life and his politics, whether we agree with them or not.

His appointment has been framed as an affront to the good, working people of Sunderland. I wouldn't dare speak for the club's supporters, but I do wonder, if he keeps them in the top flight, whether he'll be lowered back down to the level of “lol, crazy foreign guy!” and the political fancies will be put on the backburner until the first time results start to dip? I guess it might be helpful if he took the time to really clarify his worldviews, but that's his choice – and we wouldn't want to get all fascist about it, would we?

Anyway, the coverage of the “mess” at Sunderland had only served to heighten my angst, and it was becoming increasingly clear that my relationship with football was reaching a critical impasse. Cohabiting but not communicating – the river of passion running cruelly dry before my very eyes – something had to give. Indeed, it was almost through force of habit that I tuned into Borussia Dortmund's Champions League quarter final second leg against Malaga earlier this week. Dortmund – very much this season's football hipster's team of choice (see Athletic Bilbao, 2011/12) – will always hold a special place in the hearts of my generation, their glorious 1997 Champion's League victory coming at the expense of a star-studded Juventus team and rounded off by Lars Ricken's iconic instant-impact strike. And that kit! Lovely wasn't it?

Dortmund's victory in '97, ironically enough, owed much to a squad assembled in no small part from ex-Bundesliga players returning home from Serie A, the league which had dominated European club football for the first half of the decade. The team that night included former Juve team-mates Jurgen Kohler, Paulo Sousa, Andreas Moller and Stefan Reuter, whilst two-goal hero Karl-Heinze Riedle and the great Matthias Sammer were recruited from Lazio and Sampdoria respectively. Their triumphant homecoming provided a slap in the face to Serie A's presumed (although probably correctly so) status as the best league in the world. Today many would argue that the Bundesliga stands above its Italian counterpart, but to see this current Dortmund team go all the way would be something to savour for sure.

Their current line-up gives off a comforting, home-spun feel. Robert Lewandowski, brought in for a snip at a reported 4.5m euros, is the envy of European football's nouveau riche, Mario Götze and Marco Reus are proper homegrown heroes, whilst Mats Hummels was pilfered from rivals Bayern Munich as a youngster and has come of age at the Westfalenstadion. It's a state of affairs which brings to mind the great pre-Bosman Ajax squad of 1995, a ridiculously talented collective which still reads like a who's-who of 90s European football: Davids, Kluivert, Van Der Sar, Seedorf, the de Boer twins, to mention but a handful.

The immediate close-season shade which followed that Ajax side's moment in the sun saw the team begin to splinter, its young talents lured away to – you guessed it – Italy (a couple, in fact, to Milan, the team they defeated to conquer Europe). With the continent's new transfer regulations allowing many to leave for no fee at all, Ajax's well-worn modus operandi was thrown into a tailspin, its side ransacked, the club's walls stripped for copper. For a club built on producing great players, leading them to glory, then selling for a handsome profit, it remains concerning that Ajax still haven't completely recovered from the exodus of their last great side. Players such as Shinji Kagawa and Nuri Sahin have already moved on from Dortmund in recent years and I imagine similar departures will occur this coming summer, but perhaps the Bundesliga's growing reputation will help keep them together for a little while longer yet.

But where was I? Ah yes, Tuesday night. With Dortmund on the brink of premature ejection thanks to a dubious offside call (and, to be fair, 180 rather underwhelming minutes' play) something great occurred. Trickiness was given the old heave-ho and in its place came the kind of route-one, long-range ballistics operation North Korea can (we hope) only dream of. The resultant injury time goal-explosion was a joy to behold; the celebrations at the final whistle a simple portrait of joy unconfined.

Facing the media post-match, Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp could barely contain his delight, looking as disheveled as a city banker who just left his bonus behind the local bar, and so overcome with raw emotion that he even seemed to forget that he wears glasses. Grinning from ear-to-ear, mugging to camera, laughing uproariously and swaying back and forth, you got the feeling that at any moment he could have reached for his top hat and cane, twirled himself around the nearest lamppost and gone full-on Fred Astaire on us. Lord knows what he'll be like if they win the thing.

Chief executives of the Premier League, let's bring this man over here. On second thought, let's not. We'll only contrive to break his spirit and squeeze from him the zeal and childlike efflorescence he so exudes. It's what we do best.

Before heading back out the tunnel to gather his thoughts (which I assume remain scattered across all four corners of the ground – he's probably still got some stuck to his shoe) Klopp looked to the camera one final time and declared that this was “one of the best things I've ever felt,” before turning and disappearing into the cool German night. As I sat and watched, I realised that any man who failed to be moved by such an outpouring is truly no friend of mine. In that instant it occurred to me that football, for all its dark arts and cheap attire, maybe isn't so bad after all. The little things I fell in love with – the madcap managers; the late, great comebacks; the simple pleasure of triumph over adversity – are still there, still speaking to me, still singing me to sleep as the night draws in. I think the beautiful game and I are going to give it another go.

~ Matt

https://twitter.com/MattAwayNow