Klopp cuddles way to top
“We cried for 20 minutes, in each other’s arms, when he left.”
We must be careful, of course, since it was Klopp — in a marvellous interview with the Guardian — who provided us with that image. If it is a faithful account, it may explain Shinji’s early struggles at Old Trafford. A man incapable of extricating himself after, at most, a minute or two, and mumbling, ‘boss, this is getting weird’, was not quite ready to face Fergie.
Exaggerated or not, the love story chimed with Klopp’s indulgence of all the players who have slipped away after tasting glory under his regime.
“At 18 I wanted to see the whole world. It’s okay that they want to go to different places. But they get there and, shit, it’s not the same.”
Klopp sheds more tears when he sees Kagawa restricted to 20-minute cameos, has welcomed home the prodigal Sahin and won’t condemn Götze for agreeing to decamp to tonight’s opponents.
“Bayern told Mario, ‘It’s now or never’. I told him they will come next year. They will come in two years, and then three years. But he’s 20 and he thought, ‘I must go’.”
It is the kind of talk we have heard many times from Arsene Wenger, after another one deserted him, giving the impression, at least, that he is on the players’ side even when they have gone to someone else’s.
This is not, seemingly, the Paolo Di Canio way. If you believe Paolo Di Canio, Paolo Di Canio’s “arrogant, ignorant” players were incidental to “the miracle” Paolo Di Canio created in saving Paolo Di Canio’s Sunderland from the drop.
Of course, Paolo Di Canio has had his trials. We didn’t have to visualise another recent standout image, since there were photographs of Phil Bardsley poured onto a casino floor beneath a generous topping of £50 notes.
A modern, ever-so-slightly downmarket, remake of the old George Best story. Mr Bardsley, where did it all go wrong? Where the original starred Miss World in a hotel room, the remake cast an FHM High Street Honey defending her man on Twitter. And Best’s talent was downsized to Bardsley’s, which is probably what annoyed Di Canio most.
But if Di Canio goes on to have any kind of management career, you suspect there will be plenty of Phil Bardsleys. There may be some Danny Grahams too, if another predecessor buys unwisely. And Connor Wickhams. And plenty more opportunities to publicly question players’ abilities and attitudes and tell the world they need a slap.
And when any of his players graduate to better things, there will be chances to skip the cuddles and slam their treachery. And it will be interesting to see how all that works out for him.
Wenger might not hold his players tenderly, but when he reaped his customary, modest, end-of-season reward last Sunday, you like to think it’s small payback for all the times he must have held his tongue.
For mornings like the one, a few years ago, when Arsene woke up to photos of NicklasBendtner outside a nightclub with his pants around his ankles and told us, with a straight face, that his man had been set up.
“He did not put his trousers down, somebody did it for him.”
It might not have cured Bendtner’s compulsion to show us his underpants. It probably made no impact on Bendtner at all. But it didn’t damage trust in the dressing room, where it used to be prized.
But in the new era of the short-term ‘project’ manager, perhaps Di Canio’s is the new way. As Frank Lampard told us, Rafa Benitez had no time or inclination to build relationships at Chelsea. And Roberto Mancini managed to knock two good years out of lads who were deeply suspicious of him.
But the pastoral way holds an enduring appeal. “It’s not so difficult to find a moment to be their friend or teacher,” Klopp said, this week.
It is why few would begrudge him reward tonight.
He may have been wronged last weekend but Paul Grimley’s choice of retort to Joe Brolly’s baiting of him and his footballing family was telling.
“One thing my brothers didn’t do was go around Croke Park or any other park blowing kisses to the crowd.”
God forbid.
In the austere, ascetic regimen of modern Gaelic football, an act of affectionate flamboyance would be as appropriate as Sergio Garcia hosting Come Dine With Me in Jackson, Mississippi.
Just listen to the language Brolly himself used on The Sunday Game to describe last week’s matches.
Brutal. Ruthless. Surrender. Not a serious team. Man up. Humiliation. You must dedicate your life. Brutal, brutal business.
Later, we would hear that Grimley had donned sackcloth to apologise for Armagh’s ashen display.
Things might be taken less seriously at a self-help seminar on how to be taken seriously.
Ciaran Murphy took up the theme in his column for The Journal. “Senior inter-county football is vicious now — tough, cynical, oppressive.” Murph might have been only half-joking when prescribing what Galway needed to add. “Cocky, arrogant, ignorant players that are a mild disgrace to their families with their carry-on.”
A signing or two from Di Canio’s dressing room perhaps? It would all have you fear we might be nearing a day when call-ups for the county will come via conscription letters.
But the clouds did break for one shaft of light, as we saw Andy Moran’s exuberant, dancing celebration of his comeback goal.
Naturally, he was mortified afterwards. “I’m a tiny bit embarrassed at the moment. It was the most celebrated fourth goal of all time, I think,” he said.
A loose moment of joy in a brutal world.
They are always sorry, aren’t they, the golf crowd, when they get mixed up in the racism? Making their excuses for slips of the tongue, or silly remarks, or not knowing which terms are offensive. Apologising and moving on.
Like cosseted inhabitants of a finally manicured Craggy Island.
Having to apologise for an apology might be a new one, but what has always been most notable about golf is that none of the sorries ever preface any kind of penance.
For a sport that tends not to be so accepting of a mea culpa if you aren’t wearing the right slacks or sport an inappropriate collar, or have had the misfortune to be born a lady, there seems to be a curious lack of rigour in the sphere of offensive language.
Even Shoal Creek Golf Club founder Hall W Thompson managed to get the terminology right 23 years ago when he insisted: “We don’t discriminate in every other area except the blacks.”
Things have moved on, since then. But when you’re working from that low base, what’s another couple of whitewashes?
The draw his four secured might have felt like a loss to him, but O’Brien still has a nose for the big moments when Pakistan are in opposition.
Remember the anguished young lad from the ’95 riot? Setanta Sports want to send him to Wembley next week, if he can face it.
“Highly unprofessional – sporting events are contests and not a declaration of war.” Just as Luis Suarez was ready to get on with life, the world’s moral compass delivered its verdict on the bite.
Did Zinedine Zidane ever expect to be damned by the faintest praise of all?
Well Lambert obliged on Sky’s Footballer’s Football Show: “He had great feet for a big man.”
