|
|
發表於 2006-2-27 23:33:47
|
顯示全部樓層
It isn't rocket science...
Phil Ball
I was in Berlin last week at a conference, which unfortunately had nothing to do with football. I couldn't even nip out to see a match (there were a couple I could have seen) since I was out in Spandau, a long way from the centre of Berlin.
But to the point. One of the conference speakers was in full flow on the Friday, trying to get us to see that his point was really quite a simple one. He kept using the phrase, 'After all, it isn't exactly rocket science'. Indeed. I was reminded of the phrase after witnessing the lamentable spectacle of a game called Zaragoza v Barcelona on Saturday night - not in itself a poor match but one which ended in problematic scenes that are surely not difficult to solve.
As will have been reported by now, Sam Eto'o was subjected to the usual stuff that he and other black players get at Zaragoza. Last season, when Barça won 4-0, Eto'o famously did his monkey dance in front of the goal where most of the insults were coming from. It was an attempt to defuse the whole thing with a bit of humour, but inevitably it backfired, and resulted in Saturday's scene.
With thirteen minutes left, unlucky for some, and the score still at 0-0, Eto'o suddenly lost his rag and began to make his way towards the goal where the same pond-life which had insulted him last year had been having a go at him throughout the match. As the Zaragoza defenders (wisely perhaps) prevented him from going too close, Eto'o grabbed Alvaro, Zaragoza's Brazilian (black) defender and appeared to point at him, asking the crowd why they weren't abusing him too. Well - he wasn't actually saying that. He was trying to point out the absurdity of the whole thing. Unable to make his point in the cauldron of noise, he turned around and began to walk off, mouthing the phrase that may yet become a watchword in Spain's troubled racial arena - 'No juego más' (I'm not playing any more).
He meant that particular game, of course, but you wouldn't blame him if he wanted to retire from the whole sorry scene. That's because it's not rocket science. The fact that Zaragoza got away with it last season, and have continued to get away with it ever since was the reason behind the lamentable scenes on Saturday, with Eto'o eventually breaking down in tears on the pitch, surrounded by a babbling commotion of players and officials.
Football can suddenly become a very unbeautiful game - and it only has itself to blame, in Spain anyway. It's not up to columns like this to lead the protest, but as reported last year, when I phoned Zaragoza for a chat, they just gave me the 'no comment' line. I might try them again during the week. Why not? They're unlikely to receive any punitive calls from the Spanish Federation.
Racists will always exist, but at least they can be prevented from enjoying themselves every fortnight at everyone else's expense. It's not rocket science. Zaragoza's manager, Victor Muñoz, normally a fairly intelligent chap, commented after the game that it was 'a minority' that had been making the monkey noises, and that it was wrong to blow the whole thing out of proportion because of 'a few'. The racist chants did not represent Zaragoza. Wrong again. Of course they represent Zaragoza, just as they represent the three other persistent offenders in La Liga - let's name and shame them - Atlético Madrid, Málaga and Getafe. Espanyol could be added to that group too. The Bernabéu, despite the infamous England game, and despite some of the elements behind the south goal, in general behaves itself.
But why does that minority represent Zaragoza? Well it's not rocket science. They represent the club because the club has done nothing whatsoever to ban those fans. It's hardly a problem to identify and then exclude those offenders. They're all there, on the television pictures. And if the clubs won't do it, then the Federation must step in and close the grounds for one or two matches, depending on what they decide. The (in)famous 600 euro fine is in itself a racist fine, the pathetic amount reflecting the pathetic excuse for a governing board that Spanish football possesses. Where there's a will there's a way. The absence of the will is the problem in Spain, despite the recent lip-service that the Federation has been paying to several pan-European initiatives to kick racism out of football. La Liga cannot continue to advertise itself as Europe's top league if it cannot get its own house in the minimum of order.
Eto'o will no doubt be accused this week of overdoing it, of trying to grab the headlines - something of which he has admittedly been guilty in the past. He's not always the sharpest tool in the shed, but his actions at Zaragoza may eventually be seen as a turning point, if they actually contribute to some executive action. Ah Spain! A wonderful country in so many ways, but one that likes to talk just a little too much, a little too often. What racism needs is action, and fast.
The best thing about the whole game was that from the eventual corner that Eto'o had been prevented from taking by the insults hurled down from the terracing, Edmilson volleyed a shot goalwards that was handled by Celades (ex-Barça) on the goal-line. Celades received his marching orders and Barça were awarded a penalty. Ronaldinho, normally the player who takes the spot-kicks, seemed to hesitate for a moment as Deco definitely said to Eto'o 'Sacas tu' (You take it). In a sense, I was praying that he would, just so that he could stick up a finger to the terracing behind as the ball hit the net - but he shook his head and pointed at Ronaldinho.
It was probably the best thing to do, in retrospect. If he'd missed, he'd have lost the argument, unfortunately. Ronaldinho scored, and then three minutes later, Eto'o centred for Larsson to make it 0-2. At the end of the match, Eto'o walked off with his arms held aloft, a '0-2' shape definitely apparent in the shape of his fingers. Good for him. One can only hope that next season, La Liga will have finally got its act together about all of this. Hope springs eternal.
Elsewhere, there were woes of a different nature - up in Vitoria, to be precise. On the eve of the rather juicy Alavés v Racing fixture, featuring the current possession of Dmitri Piterman versus the previous one, a whole swathe of the home supporters had got together, under the ad hoc collective 'Piterman Kanpora' (Piterman out), finally moved to action by the president's diatribe in midweek against those supporters who had dared to question him whilst in the dug-out. He labelled them 'subnormales' and 'borrachos' (drunkards), which, even if it were true, would not be the best way of going about pacifying a set of supporters already suspicions of the magnate's motives and sceptical as to his dictatorial methods of running the club. As Louis XIV once proclaimed, 'L'etat? C'est moi'. (The State? That's moi). It was, as cocky statements go, one of the coolest in history. Piterman had similarly proclaimed, albeit implicitly, that 'Le club, c'est moi', or as they say in Vitoria, 'El club, soy yo'.
Well, as far as a majority possession of shares was concerned, there wasn't much anyone could do to refute that statement, but the demos before the game against Santander (a 2-2 draw) were of the view that Piterman has never really understood that a club is a sentiment, not a possession. Piterman, in a rare act of public contrition, had actually apologised on the Saturday, saying that he was only referring to three people who habitually hung out behind his dug-out and abused him every weekend. Stay up in the stands where you belong Dmitri! It ain't rocket science. But Dmitri, despite his intelligence and wit, seems to have turned into the classic dictator, corrupted by the pursuit of absolute power, a pursuit that corrupts absolutely. Meanwhile, his club still totters on the brink. He won't last much longer.
Telmo Zarra died in midweek at the age of 85. His real name was Telmo Zarraonaindia, a tricky little morphological mouthful that nevertheless belonged to Spain's greatest home-made centre-forward. He scored 294 goals in league competition (a record that still stands) and was Pichichi on a record six occasions. His 38 goals for Athletic in the 1950-51 season still stands unbeaten, Hugo Sánchez only equalling it in 1989-90. Since the Mexican striker took eight more games to score his tally, the plaudits have remained with Zarra.
He became known as the 'second best head in Europe after Churchill' after scoring the goal that defeated England in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil. This became the most famous goal in the history of the Spanish game because it stuck up a finger at the country who had advised the USA - whom Spain also beat during the same competition - to exclude Spain from the Marshall Plan as a punishment for their 'neutrality' during the Second World War. Zarra became a national hero, and his death in midweek was widely mourned, especially by the generation that remembers him.
All the grounds maintained a minute's silence at the weekend, and there was a particularly special homage paid at San Mamés before the game against Villarreal.Other names, other times. They had their own troubles back then, of a different nature. Poorly paid, plying their trade amongst the broken ruins of post-war Europe, signing the same ration books as the people who came to watch them play - it's a wonder in 2006, with everything laid out relatively on a plate, that we still can't get it right.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/col ... =europe&cc=4716
原來係為佢默哀,RIP。 |
|