Blogging on Football
“If you are leaving Real Madrid, there is only one club you can join that is not a step down – and that’s Manchester United.”
— Rafael Van de Vaart a few weeks ago before joining Tottenham Hotspur.
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He was a former homeless man who had never played at a level higher than the Portuguese third division who suddenly an unexpectedly moved to Manchester United for £7.4m and hasn’t been heard of since. Sir Alex Ferguson has been hard in his defense of the player he signed without ever having seen him play saying its taking him time to get up to required fitness, while sceptics are claiming the kid is far from United standards and this could well be one of the all-time great transfer busts.
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So as far as we were all aware, Javier Mascherano’s main reason for leaving Liverpool was because his wife could not settle in the city. Well, the Argentenian captain has today come forth to let us know that this wasn’t the case, but rather broken promises by the club. In a scenario that threatens to turn into a playground game of “he-said, she-said” Mascherano came out today to say that Liverpool upon refusing his move to Barcelona last summer, promised he could leave the club this year if an acceptable offer come in.
“When they started to involve my family and to say things that didn’t make sense, I obviously suffered,” he said. “They’d promised me something for a whole year and they never fulfilled their promise. And that didn’t have anything to do with my family or anything else. When you read or hear lies, you obviously get angry.”
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AirWolf Ryan Babel on his way to London this afternoon
So long as you can take most things you hear with a pinch of salt and so long as you can not take it all too serious (which can be sometimes hard when you’re club is linked to Roman Pavlyuchenko) then you can have a lot of fun with all the rumors and drama of the final day before the transfer window “slams shut” as the media would have it. Various people calling into radio stations reporting that they are a taxi driver or that their friends cousins ex-room mate at college is a taxi driver who just dropped Lionel Messi off at the Eastlands just moments ago. Unfortunately some good and serious rumors get caught up in the mix but it keeps things light as we try guess which ones might actually have some truth to them. If you believed the radio and the papers that were running live updates of the day, Liverpool’s Ryan Babel spent the afternoon flying a helicopter above London deciding whether to land it at West Ham or Tottenham. The reports were surreal, but, I suppose the end goal was achieved, everyone tuned in and everyone lapped up the rumors whether you were so gullible as to believe them or not.
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After the Uefa love-in that was the Champions League draw yesterday in which a 5 minute drawing of groups was dragged out into a one hour plus ceremony of pointless presentations, speeches and player appearances between draws to keep the fans stuck watching, waiting to see who their team would get and in which group. The Uefa reserve team that do the Europa League draw have things right, they apparently just get down and dirty and draw the groups out nice and fast … so fast that by the time I got into work this morning a list of who was in what pool was available to digest. And it took some digesting indeed.
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“My future is at Liverpool. I have had four great years at the club. Unfortunately I have not won any trophies but hopefully I will do in the future. The point for me was that I’m 30 years old and I wanted to know if any club in the world showed any interest in me. The club spoke to me and explained everything. They said I was really important for Liverpool and that made me a really proud person. At that point I focused my thoughts on Liverpool.”
— Dirk Kuyt, 26 August 2010
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You know, it isn’t that Javier Mascherano wanted away from Liverpool because he was homesick and just couldn’t settle in Liverpool – I can live with that and I can understand it – the Liverpool life probably isn’t for a lot of people and he gave it three good years trying to settle so one can understand that in his mind it was never going to work. But it’s the way he handled his ‘get out of town’ move. It was classless, unprofessional and befitting of a child who when they didn’t get their way they tipped all the toys out of the cot and started bawling until their chocolate. When Liverpool rejected a perfectly shit offer from Barcelona for the Argentinian, Mascherano decided he wasn’t going to play for the club anymore and sat out last Monday’s shocker against Manchester City. Well now, at least, his inhumane treatment is over.
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