Really boring football cliché’s debunked

By: Rob | May 7th, 2009

After last nights drama in the Chelsea/Barca semi final, there was a bit of an explosion of passion – which is nice don’t get me wrong. But it quickly turned into name calling, and I noted a fair few really boring cliché’s doing the rounds. So here is my attempt and trying to address them, and some others, because lets be honest, no-one really wants to hear them that often, because they mostly aren’t at all true.

You know the sort of things – Platini hates England, Chelsea bought their success, Ronaldo is a bottler, Serie A is boring etc.

You might disagree with the below anyway, and believe the cliché to be true. That’s fine, and if you can come up with a rational reason for them, then I’d be happy to hear it. Its just the mindless repeating of the same phrases with a knowing glance that I’m finding a bit boring.

Myth No. 1: UEFA fix the draw/matches in the Champions League

This is a silly one. it is linked slightly I think to Myth No. 2, but I’ll explore that one in a second. First the idea that UEFA fix the draw, which has been floating around ever since a crazy man predicted the entire draw to the CL QF’s against the odds (Except somewhere on the internet, which is filled with alot of people afterall, someone is bound to get it right, are they not?) . Basically, I don’t really understand why or how. Why would UEFA bother fixing the draw of the Champions League? To get better games? Why then do the same teams usually end up drawing one another? If you take the Liverpool/Chelsea draw from this year for example, why would any orginisation risk thier tournament by making everyone sit through another tedious stalemate? (OK, so this time it turned out to be an epic, but I defy anyone to have predicted that beforehand)

And why would UEFA bother fixing matches? Well supposedly to sell more tickets or to get the tie that they want in the final. But this is silly. Alot of this was thrown around yesterday because Chelsea had a couple of penalty calls turned away. But if the ref was told to favour Barca so much, why did he send Abidal off for watching Nicky Anelka fall over his own feet? I just think its a bit paranoid to suggest that there is some kind of massive conspricy going on. I doubt UEFA could be bothered to organise it to be honest.

Myth No. 2: Michel Platini hates England, The English, English Football and Fish and Chips.

This one is spread throughout the English press, and seems to be believed by a remarkable number of English people. Basically Platini likes to have a moan if there are too many English teams at the latter stages of the tournament. But basically what he’s getting at is the fact that there are too many clubs from one country at the end of the tournament. And he’s sort of right*. You don’t put the CL on because you want to see a Premier League game – you do it to watch something out of the ordinary. England is dominating in Europe at the moment, and to Platini’s mind – and its his job to protect this thing remember – its devaluing the tournament. I’m sure if the Semi Final was 3 Italian teams, or 3 French or Spanish teams, he’d be saying the same sort of things about them. Its also worth noting, that those of an Italian, or Spanish bias tend to perceive Platini and UEFA as always going against them – its just the nature of the beast.

*Though if he really wanted to fix it, he could just make it so that the Champions League became that again, a league of champions. But that would be less lucrative.

Myth No. 3: ” Player X is Overated” is a legit argument

It’s just lazy. I’m sure I’ve done it more than my fair share of times, but it is getting a bit boring. The key behind the Overrated Factor is the fact that we’re using an internet blog – of which there are thousends upon thousands – to state our opinions, which means that you guys read them over and over and over and over and it probably can seem that the whole bloody world can’t stop banging on about how good Guardiola/Ronaldo/Messi/Titus Bramble is. Its just the nature of our obsessiveness I fear. The way around it is to make a good argument, and one that doesn’t fall into the trap of…

Myth No. 4: The Big Game Bottler

This isn’t a very convincing argument either. How many times have you heard that Henry, Zlatlan, Messi, Ronaldo or whoever else doesn’t ever do it in the big matches? Well there is a number of reasons for this:

i) The big games usually mean playing against the big defenders. Pele didn’t do it against Bobby Moore, but that doesn’t make him a big game bottler.
ii) You can’t perform every week. So if you catch someone having a bad game, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t actually any good.
iii) Sensible managers stick two players on the best ones.

Also, its mostly a lie anyway. Ronaldo has scored in all the knockout rounds of this years Champions League for example, they don’t come a great deal bigger than that.

Myth Number 5: Any one of the Big Leagues is better/worse than the other

One of the ralliing cries against Barca this season has been that they’ve scored 100 goals, but only against Championship/Serie B standard opposition. This is absurd. Have any of you lot seen the bottom half of the Premier League (where everyone from about 11th downward is interchangable) or Serie A? They’re all about the same as La Liga – Not amazing. There is an increasing gap between the top teams and the rest all around Europe at the moment, not just in Spain.

Let us be honest, there isn’t a great deal of difference between the leagues. At the moment the Prem is riding high, on the success of the English clubs in the Champions League, just as Spain did before, and Germany before that and Italy before that. The guard will change soon, and we’ll be thinking about someone else being the best in the world. Its all circular.

Myth Number 6: Italian Football is, like, well boring

Ah this old chesnut. I never understood it when I was growing up watching Serie A simultaionously with the Premier League, and I still don’t really get it. Season on Season Serie A produces about the same number of goals as the Premier League, and indeed, there are some absolutely cracking games in both. I can only assume this myth comes from the fact that Italy has produced some great defenders.

Myth Number 7: Chelsea’s Success is Entirely Bought

No-one – not even the most ardant Chelsea fan – is going to deny that Roman’s money has enabled them to be in the position they’re in, as one of the top clubs in Europe at the moment. But to dismiss all the success they have had this decade entirely as being bought is quite petulant, I think. They might not have done it without the money, but lest we forget, Chelsea qualified for the Champions League in the season before Roman arrived. Let us not also forget that Claudio Ranieri had £100m to spend in his first season, and he didn’t win the league. It took Jose Mourinho’s ability to manage a coherent team to do that. He spent money for sure, but he still had to put together a side that could play together and win, and the players still had to win the games.

Myth Number 8: Defending is not a worthwhile skill

Might sound strange after I critiqued Guus for “Parking the bus” against Barca, but I am a great admirer in defence as a skill. I think it is one of the great tragedies of modern football that Maldini will retire having never won the Balon d’Or. There’s no doubting Chelsea’s achievement in stopping Barca for almost two legs, there are few sides in Europe who could manage the same. Defenders rarely get any credit at all – indeed you are more likely to hear a superstar has bottled it than hear that a defender has been the best player on the park. Its one of the many dissapointing things about Vidic being overlooked in terms of Player of the Year in the Prem – he’s been way better than Giggs.

Myth No. 9: The Premier League is over-foreign comparative to everywhere else

No-one is going to deny that the Prem has alot of foreign players in its league. But I do think its a fact that is exaggerated by fans of other leagues to create some kind of unjustified superiority. Take a look at this study here, which takes a random weekend and notes that 40% of Serie A players (not including subs) were not from Italy – 57% of players in the Prem were not from England. The thing the poll doesn’t take into account is the inclusion of Wales, Irish and to an extent Scottish players, who arguably aren’t all that forigen at all. Ok so they can’t play for England, but have you looked at the Irish and Welsh leagues recently? No? Well they’re rubbish basically. Any Welsh or Irish player of any note has always come to England to play. Most Scottish ones too, ok so they have a league, but a league of two is a bit of a pointless league, no? (Just kidding Scots, I love your league really.)
Anyway take those out and…well I can’t be bothered doing the maths, but I bet its much closer.

Myth Number 10: Gerrard and Lampard can’t play together

A England World Cup Blog Special this. But seriously I think this is just a sum of a nation being over-analytical. The chances of two central midfielders both having really good games on the same day is really quite unlikely unless the team really really rolls someone over. For example, last night Iniesta got all the plaudits for getting a last minute goal – Xavi was quiet – but no-one will say “Oh Xavi and Iniesta can’t play together”, because we know they bloody well can. We also know Gerrard and Lampard can because back in 2005 Lampard was considered England’s best player, and Gerrard wasn’t very far behind – they came second and third in the European Footballer of the Year poll. But we’ve been blinded by what has fast become a very boring cliché.