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THE ROCKLIFFE FILES - SAME OLD MAN U, ALWAYS CHEATIN' 06-12-06
Toby Higgins
Imagine the following. A sublime turn just inside his own half from Louis Saha leaves two midfielders trailing in his wake. He drives towards the Middlesbrough backline and rolls a perfectly weighted ball between two central defenders, and into the path of the onrushing Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo's first touch takes the ball around Schwarzer, taking the goalkeeper out of the game. The Portugal star then fires in the ball into the empty net to give his side the lead. A brilliant team move and finish, fast direct and deadly. A goal only a team of champions could score.
We would, albeit begrudgingly, and probably not publicly, applaud. Yes, of course, we'd look at our own errors. Maybe a challenge should have gone in on Saha, maybe the defenders could have been positioned better, maybe Schwarzer could have stayed on his line instead of charging out to meet the attacker. But ultimately, we would acknowledge a very, very nice goal.
Of course, the first word in this article gives it away that what has been described is, of course, make believe. It didn't really happen. That's not to say Saha didn't turn athletically, or that his pass was over-hit, or that Ronaldo's touch wasn't sublime. All of this, as you will probably agree, did happen.
But Ronaldo didn't then keep his composure and tap the ball into a barely guarded net. Instead, having seen Schwarzer commit himself, Ronaldo began a sequence of moves which wouldn't have looked out of place at the diving boards at the Olympic games. Having made no contact whatsoever with the Australian stopper, Ronaldo half-pike-twisted to the ground. The result? A penalty. 1-0 Man Utd. Same old Man U, always cheatin'.
A week last Saturday (November 25th 2006) the Times newspaper ran an article about another of the least popular players in the history of the Premier League - El Hadji Diouf. During a rare press conference, Diouf admitted, according to the article, to diving in matches in order to gain an advantage and deceive the referee. He then went on to add that he 'dives' in order to prevent serious injury to himself, should he see a defender approaching him in a manner which he feels could cause himself said serious injury.
Now let's be realistic here. If you see a fourteen stone defender pounding towards you, sliding at your knee with two sets of studs brandished, it is human nature, and common sense, to get out of the way, even if it means diving on the ground and rolling away. That is something which most people will agree as being acceptable; nobody is going to let a defender break his leg if it's at all avoidable. To this extent, Diouf might have a point.
Surely such an action doesn't come under the heading 'diving', unless of course, the defender's lunge fails to connect with the player, who then behaves in a manner which suggests there was contact. Assuming he gets up and plays on, the referee will no doubt caution the opposite player for intending to injure the opposition. Sorted.
However, Schwarzer didn't make contact with Ronaldo, nor did he intend to injure the player, it was a genuine attempt to play the ball. The point here is that Ronaldo didn't even dive because avoiding Schwarzer had knocked him off balance. His dive began as soon as he realised Schwarzer had committed himself. The way he set his body up was with the sole intention of making it look like he had been fouled. Blatant, inexcusable, cheating. It's not the first time Ronaldo has been involved in cheating, and it won't be the last. World Cup winker, anyone?
Pretending that it's only foreigners who dive would be wrong though. Steven Gerrard is the leading example of an Englishman who resorts to cheating in this way, and Wayne Rooney is (according to Diouf) another one who dives.
What's so frustrating is that players like Ronaldo are so unbelievably gifted footballers that they don't need to dive. He showed on Saturday that he possesses such speed and skill that he's better than most players without cheating.
While Saturday's result wasn't what was hoped for, the game itself showed some encouraging signs. For stretches of the game, we battled and competed against a side who are on their way to becoming the Champions of England, and scored a very good goal of our own.
James Morrison has put together some neat performances of late, and rose from the substitute's bench to volley home an equaliser. Of course, the fact that most Boro fans now know he's a Man United fan won't have done much to increase his popularity, but nevertheless, he did well to keep his composer and beat Van Der Sar with his volley, after a clever Downing flick had taken Gary Neville out of the game.
As is often the case though, there were some concerns. For the second week in a row we conceded just minutes after scoring ourselves and for the second week in a row another goal came from a penalty conceded by Mark Schwarzer.
It's a serious issue. In three consecutive matches we have potentially thrown away five points because we have stopped concentrating after a goal. George Boateng, Jonny Woodgate and the other leaders in the team, including Southgate, need to make sure that we are fully switched on the second the match restarts. They are points a club in our position can ill afford to throw away. It's schoolboy defending and is the kind of stuff that gets teams relegated. Fact. Three in a row is unacceptable.
Incidentally, Boateng announced last week that he has been "playing through the pain barrier" during recent weeks, due to fluid on his knee. Boateng added "sometimes you need a few weeks out, but with our situation I couldn't afford it". It's easy to be cynical, but how many of us would rather he had just taken the weeks off, and not been out on the field putting in woeful performances? If he trusted his team mates, he'd have stepped aside and let someone like Lee Cattermole take his place, instead of trying to be the hero. Unless, of course, he feared he might never get his place back.
After what happened last night against Spurs, he shouldn't get it back. To be sent off twice before Christmas is bad enough, but when your captain's petulance has earned both reds, it's appalling. It's becoming clearer that George Boateng is a liability to this club. The sooner the armband is taken from him, and he is dropped, and therefore forced to earn his place on merit, the better. How do his performances or actions on the field make him fit to be captain? They don't.
Also, if it turns out to be true that Gareth Southgate shook Boateng's hand after the Dutchman's red card, then it demonstrates Southgate's naivety. Friend or not, Boateng should be reprimanded for his actions, not consoled. We'll find out in the next few days how big a man Southgate is by his reaction to Boateng's behaviour.
A 2-1 defeat at Spurs isn't something to be overly concerned about, they are after all a handy team, but if we don't get maximum points against Wigan on Saturday, we are in very serious trouble, considering our traditional Christmas capitulation is just around the corner.
These are worrying times.
Same time next week
Up the Boro
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