Colin Sheridan: Darwin Nunez delivers rare defiance of metrics and science
RARE DEFIANCE AND METRICS:Nobody has scored more winning goals in the Premier League this season than Núñez. Nobody’s missed as many chances, either. Pic: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
― Robert M. Drake, Black Butterfly
How many Uruguayan footballers do you think you could name? There are the obvious ones; Luis Suárez. Diego Forlán. Edison Cavani. Diego Godín. And for those old enough to be enthralled by little more than the allure of an exotic name; Enzo Francescoli. This is before we even scratch the surface of a footballing history few of us are remotely aware of. A chap called Alcides Ghiggia scored the go-ahead goal for Uruguay when they shocked Brazil in the 1950 World Cup final, silencing the 180,000 crowd at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro.
The Brazilian journalist Roberto Muylaert compared the black and white film of that goal with Abraham Zapruder's chance images of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas: he says that the goal and the shot that killed the U.S. president have "the same dramatic pattern ... the same movement ... the same precision of an unstoppable trajectory. They even have the dust in common that was stirred up, here by a rifle and there by Ghiggia's left foot." That match is considered one of the biggest upsets in football history; Ghiggia would later remark that "only three people managed to silence the Maracanã: Frank Sinatra, the Pope, and me."
Then there’s another fella called Héctor Castro. You’ll love this one. At the age of 13, Castro accidentally amputated his right forearm while using an electric saw. El Manco (meaning "the one-armed") scored Uruguay's first goal of the 1930 World Cup, a tournament La Celeste went on to win. Either side of winning that World Cup, Castro won a gold medal in the 1928 Olympic games, and two Copa Americas.
If you’re a Liverpool fan, you may remember the name Carlos Aguilera, who memorably scored two goals for Italian side Genoa at Anfield to knock Graeme Souness’s side out of the UEFA Cup. Aguilera had more clubs than Robbie Keane, which may have something to do with his reputation as a reputed penchant for the hard stuff. He was, as they say back west, a bit of a character.
Suárez was arguably the greatest character of the lot of them. It says a lot about his genius that his spectacular ill-discipline never eclipsed what he did with a ball at his feet. I’m no Liverpool fan, but his 2013/2014 season on Merseyside was beyond ridiculous. The alchemy between himself and Leo Messi at Barcelona was footballing telepathy in motion. He was mad, but boy could he play football.
Which brings us to Darwin Gabriel Núñez. Less a professional footballer, more a force of nature. Nobody has scored more winning goals in the Premier League this season than Núñez. Nobody’s missed as many chances, either. As he warmed up at the City Ground on Saturday the Forest crowd gleefully chanted “Just a shit Andy Carroll” at the Uruguayan. In their defence, there’s been days that Darwin has looked like a shit Alan Kernaghan.
Not at 5pm last Saturday, however, when, in the ninth minute of added time, he deftly turned in Alexis MacAllister’s cross to win Liverpool three vital league points. The theatre of the goal - its timing, its execution and its consequence - was everything we have come to expect of Núñez. He is a one man running-of-the-bulls. It has never looked likely he will evolve into a 20 goals a year striker, but stick him in the mix with 30 minutes to go and literally anything can happen. Anything.
The tendency in these moments is to say stuff like “he’s come a long way since getting sent off on his home debut for nutting Joachim Andersen,” but, in reality, he hasn’t. Núñez is just as likely to follow Saturday’s winner up with a half-dozen missed chances at Sparta Praha in the Europa League, or a hat-trick of rabonas at home to Man City next weekend. He is exactly what has become so rare in modern professional football, a game held at gunpoint by bloviating metrics and pseudo sports-science; Darwin Gabriel Núñez, an agent of unequivocal chaos.
What’s rare is indeed wonderful. For all of Erling Haaland’s brilliance, he resembles a man created by a 3D printer. Harry Kane has the personality of a Tesla. Jude Bellingham plays football too late at night for most of us to see. Darwin Núñez may not be the footballer any of us thought we wanted, but in this curated world of contrived coincidence, the magnificent Uragyan anti-striker is exactly the type of footballer the world needs.
When the time comes for the mockumentary to be made detailing the FAI’s hunt for a new manager, we can only hope that the creators of Spinal Tap are the ones entrusted with its production. That they managed to both announce John O’Shea as the interim manager and O’Shea actually knew about it seems to be the only win the governing body have recorded since letting Stephen Kenny go last November.
The bar is pretty low. The latest twist in the tail came late on Saturday evening when Croatian Slaven Bilić’s name was suddenly and very surprisingly linked with the job. The rumour lasted about as long as Bilić did at Al-Ittihad of the Saudi Professional League (four months).
When I saw it pop up on my screen I actually thought it said Bernie Slavin, not Slaven Bilić, and trust me, at this point the prospect of Billingham Synthonia striker and Ireland international actually committing to the job and ending this charade excited me greatly.
I can’t help wondering, though, other than the bungling FAI, why is the job proving to be such a third rail for prospective candidates? Understanding the pay is little more than one week's salary for Killian Mbappe, hasn't the appointment has a good deal going for it, relatively speaking? Our crop of emerging talent is better than even we had hoped, pre-Kenny. Hours are flexible. We, the media, are incredibly empathetic and patient. Our fans - by their own admission - are the best in the world. Like most people, I’m all Oireachtas-committee’d out, but I’d actually pay to attend whatever forum that publicly audited the procedures that were adopted for the most anticlimactic recruitment process in the history of football. Stephen Kenny must be delighted with himself to be rid of them.
Only three points separated the sides in last year’s league clash, but this past weekend Very Camogie League Division 1B meeting of Wexford and Antrim was anything but touch-and-go, with the Model County dishing out a 52-point hammering to the northerners, scoring an astonishing 12-20, to Antrim's four points.
Beset by off-field shenanigans (Antrim are on their third coaching ticket since November), the Belfast-based outfit actually won their league opener against Down. This reversal will undoubtedly prompt a steward's inquiry from inside the county.
While Sharlene Mawdsley's World Athletics Indoor Championships dreams were shattered on Friday night by a highly controversial disqualification, her brilliant run to initially qualify for the 400m final is just another reason for Irish athletics fans to be excited about this summer's Olympics in Paris.
Be it in the pool with Daniel Wiffen, on the river with any one of our brilliant rowers, or on the track with Mawdsley, Adeleke and Mageean, there is a buzz about our Olympic prospects that is unprecedented. Medals, too, will not define this Olympics for those athletes, but performance. Much to look forward to.
