Rattling Rafa? It’s just not cricket

GETTING politics out of sport is like draining oil out of sand. You’d be better off taking preventative action to stop it getting there in the first place.

We’re having a little crisis over here in our other national sport, but when one cricketer’s alleged cheating suddenly becomes an insult to an entire nation, you sense there are unscrupulous people ready to turn anything, no matter how trivial, to their own advantage.

My city’s noted for its bolshiness, so it was unusual to see our manager in the bad guy role, being hectored by a politically motivated journalist before last week’s game in Kiev. It was Through Fingers TV.

Now I know there are always two sides to every story, but my sympathies tend to lie in one camp here.

Call it pogrom, call it holocaust, call it holy war: if anyone had a historical right to go that extra mile in order to prevent their own annihilation, it’s the Israelis.

But if you’re under siege there’s also a tendency to treat anything and everything as a slight. Claiming Israel is as safe as anywhere else is completely bonkers and no one really believes their response to the world’s rubberneckers: “Move along, nothing to see here.”

I’ll admit part of me wanted Rafa to deal with it Ferguson style (get up and walk out) or Mourinho style (relishing the confrontation, and no doubt asking what they were doing in the European Cup in the first place) — or just go up to the idiot and flatten him, saying “How’s that for a preemptive strike?”

Mostly I sat in admiration at the patience and calm of our manager who’s a class apart. I’m too old for the idolatry that football feeds on, especially in this era of obscene reward. Do your job and I’ll be content.

Yet I can’t remember being this desperate for Evans or Houllier to succeed. There’s the odd bit of needle with Jose of course, but overall Benitez is one of the good guys.

It was unsettling to see him treated with such disrespect by an exceptionally rude journalist who was thicker than a hippo sandwich (some things don’t change wherever you travel).

Eventually the trifling matter of a football game took place and I can’t remember being so nervous when we were holding onto a slender lead in Turin. We’re all too wise for our own good, sifting through the commercial ramifications of failure.

We speculate on whether top players will come to a club with no Champions League football. Or stay at one for that matter, cynicism now being so widespread that player loyalty is considered a joke and one that always has a treacherous punchline.

My dad’s all-time hero is Billy Liddell, a gifted man who could have gone anywhere, but elected to plough through eight years in a lower division. Shankly arrived too late for him, but he remains an iconic figure whereas people like McManaman were despised the second they left.

It wasn’t surprising that the team played like strangers with Rafa ringing the changes. They still created enough chances to have eased our accountant’s nerves.

Whether it’s the thought of Kuyt breathing down his neck (no doubt standing on a stepladder to do so) or simply a good run of form, Crouch is becoming an integral part of this team.

Since his England form improved dramatically he’s carried the air of a man who’s heard all the jokes and decided that irritation is beneath him. Why not, everything else is.

Adding players with more guile than grit may pay off in terms of spectacle but the defence creaks when left to its own devices. Losing Carragher and Sissoko hasn’t helped. Still, we ambled into the group stages and can now bury our snouts in the Champions League trough.

Everyone greeted the announcement of our next opponents with quiet satisfaction, it seems. I’ve long since lost the ability to gauge whether my eternal gloominess makes these games harder than they actually are, but I thought the draw could have been kinder. PSV will be difficult.

I liked Dirk Kuyt’s shoot-on-sight policy in the 2-1 win over West Ham, but his name’s producing yet more linguistic confusion. Hyypia, Smicer, now Kite/Koit/Kowt. Apparently even ‘Dirk’ isn’t pronounced the way you think it is. And is it Aurelio, or O’Reillyo (sorry, I couldn’t resist)?

You knew where you were with Tommy Smith.

* Read Steven Kelly every Wednesday in Arena