"Truly, he is a Superman"

The big match previews continue today, but first let's start with the positive.

The Telegraph has a very good interview with Carlos Queiroz who eloquently talks on the protection of players issue, and which is worth quoting at length:

"Coming from abroad," said Queiroz, "it is my opinion that there is something special about the English game. It is the fighting spirit, the aggression of the players - they fight for everything and it is great. All over the world, it is recognised. Its positive aspects are coveted. We try to build it into our teams. So there is nothing wrong with that. But there is an issue that no one addresses. I've been here five years and I've listened countless times to fans, to coaches and to players who complain about diving. And they are right to do so. But I must invite them to think about the chicken and the egg - which comes first?
"What we see here is a lot of intimidatory tackles. And sometimes, when you fly in, the skilful player has to jump. If he doesn't lift a leg at the right moment, something terrible can happen. So when you make those tackles you are trying to take an advantage out of violence, or the threat of violence, in order to persuade the best players not to perform their skills. That is exactly what I was concerned about after the Portsmouth game.
"You don't want players to dive, to cheat on the game - but you must have the same attitude to those who try to intimidate. There are various ways of doing this and certain players who have their methods. I don't have to name them - you can tell from the blood dripping from their opponents' noses after they have used their arms in a certain way. They know how to do it. And they are cheating on the game too. I just cannot understand why it is not recognised by the fans, the players - and the referees. I see them sometimes on the television laughing and having a go at players who dive. But no one is concerned about intimidation, which, for me, is just as bad as diving. No one is concerned, when a wild tackler gets the ball, that he gets it only because the skilful player lifts his leg out of fear.
...I'm just against this anti-football atmosphere. Let me put it this way. Say you are Arsenal or Manchester United and you're playing - it doesn't matter - let's say Portsmouth. What is one of our ways to win the game? Move the ball quickly, dribble, try to keep a high tempo. So what happens? First 10 minutes, 11 fouls - the same player commits five fouls in 17 minutes. My friend, this is negative football. This is an offence against - and I have never used this expression before - the ethics of the game. We have to protect and, if the FA want me to explain why I said what I said, I'll be happy to do so."

This is a brilliant exposition of the argument, presented in an unbiased way, no longer just from a Man Utd perspective (in another section he suggests that Man Utd players can have problems with this in Europe), which in the immediate aftermath of the Portsmouth game it was understandable he couldn't escape from.
Here I shall just add a story from the papers this morning, in The Star and The News of The World:

Fergie hit back at Kop boss Benitez by saying: “He said I wanted protection for Cristiano because we were playing Liverpool, but I’ve been talking about protection for Ronaldo for two years.

“Rafa is trying to get the referee on his side - he must think we are bloody stupid.”

Which is pretty much the point I made the other day. The important thing here though is not so much why Benitez would try this on but why so many in the media would go along with it so slavishly.
Back to Carlos and, on a lighter note, his comments on Ronaldo:

"Cristiano is a player who constantly amazes you," said Queiroz. "He plays all year round for Manchester United and Portugal - and at such a level. Truly, he is a Superman."
...

"I have been privileged," responded Queiroz, "to work with some of the best players in the world on a daily basis." He threw in a few names from Real Madrid alone: "Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo, Raul, Roberto Carlos, David Beckham. And I think Cristiano is the finest and most complete football player. You think about Figo the winger, Ronaldo the forward, Zidane the playmaker - and you add the strength of Fernando Morientes in the air! Then you have Cristiano Ronaldo. I have never seen such a creation."

And so say all of us.

The Independent has an interview with Paul Scholes which is worth a read:

"There was always going to be a time when someone came in who's young and sprightly, with a lot of ability and will keep you out of the team. I know there probably isn't that much time left, so you have to try to enjoy it as much as you can, coming to training, playing games. I hope it's a long time away. I just want to concentrate on playing for as long as possible."

If that eventually means moving on from United, so be it. "It won't be far, I'm very much a home person," he says. His first love, Oldham Athletic, might be in with a shout. But Barcelona and Milan, like the Dubai Marina developers, should prepare for disappointment. As Keane once said of his erstwhile team-mate: "No celebrity bullshit... just an amazingly gifted player who has remained an unaffected human being."

The Times has an interview with Ryan Giggs:

No one in United’s history comes close to Giggs’s 34 appearances against Liverpool. His first meeting with the Merseysiders was as a 17-year-old. “I don’t remember it,” croaks the old boy. “I used to remember every game I’ve played.” He’ll never forget his second. It was Anfield, April 1992, and United lost 2-0, thereby surrendering the championship to Leeds United. Leaving the stadium, a young Scouser asked for Giggs’s signature and when Giggs obliged, he tore it up in his face.

“That was a shock,” Giggs recalls. “I mean, when someone asks you for your autograph. For the first couple of years of my career it was the biggest disappointment. I’d had such a rise into the first team and everything had gone well and that was my first real slap. You grow up quickly in football and the important thing is how you react.”

Before moving on to other Man Utd matters, there's this piece by Keith Hackett in The Guardian which I found interesting. He talks about certain misconceptions about the offside rule:

Let's be clear about this. Match officials do know the laws and apply them to the best of their ability - but time and again pundits criticise perfectly valid decisions. The Match of the Day analysis of the Aliadière decision was a case in point. They suggested the goal should not have been given, that the striker should have been flagged for 'gaining an advantage' after being in an offside position from the long ball. That is simply wrong.

The relevance of all this to this blog is in the fact that it shows up the pettiness of pundits. They are meant to be experts, guiding us through the game, and yet they can't even be bothered to find out the rules, preferring instead to scoff at anything they don't understand. I remember in the last World Cup, Mick McCarthey as co-commentator would, at every off side decision, express his confusion at the offside rule, a rule that isn't, let's face it, that hard to understand. Mick McCarthey is a football manager. Wouldn't you have thought he could have spent some time learning the rule? How can he manage effectively if he doesn't know the rules?
To stretch the point: this demonstrates why the ex-Liverpool dominated pundit Mafia hate us so much - they are stuck in the past and are unable to get past their fondness for the glory days of Liverpool, as in offside, they refuse to see the world has changed.

Speaking of which, Paul Wilson in The Guardian fantasises that Liverpool are still title contenders:

Any one of four teams could still win the title, which is unusual in itself. Yes, it would take a mighty effort for Liverpool to manage it, or, to be more accurate, an unlikely collapse by all three teams above them, but Benítez travels to Old Trafford today with a team in form and the knowledge that his first League win over Manchester United would at least challenge the assumption that Ferguson's players could always stay comfortably in front in a two-horse race.

Benitez continues the fantasy on a larger scale:

"Ferguson needed seven years to win his first Premier League," said Benitez. "We are in the fourth year and I'm disappointed because we could be closer this year, that's clear. But now we have a spine, a group of young players that we can progress with. We had the plan of how to play before but we didn't have the options we have now. Now I have confidence we can win the title before seven years.

So rather than Sir Alex making comments weeks in advance in an attempt to influence the Liverpool game, it is in fact Benitez who is obsessed with us.