Beautiful game can be ugly

Monday, 09 May 2011 10:43

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It's not often I venture across the dividing line between my preferred choice, Gaelic football, and what my colleague, Padraig Burns, refers to as 'the beautiful game,' but I feel compelled to take up the quill and get some vitriol out of my system.
With herself dispatched to a quieter part of the house and under strict instructions that the area in the TV room was wired with landmines and there was no access to the football zone until 9.30 p.m., I awaited the curtain to rise on what the RTÉ panel would have us believe would be the meeting of the two greatest club teams in the world. A game we would cherish. Unmissible, I think, was the word used by one of the panel.
Unfortunately, RTÉ didn't tell us this game should have carried a health warning and anyone with a shred of impartiality would agree that Real Madrid were by far the transgressors, the action of some of their players bordering on criminal and a huge disservice to what can be a wonderful game when played in the right spirit.
After Wednesday night's debacle between Real Madrid and Barcelona I fear the 'beautiful game' has turned into something rather ugly and those involved have brought shame on the game, themselves and two of the most famous clubs in the world.
When kissed by the princess of the Bernebeau, Jose Mourinho, instead of the frog turning into a handsome prince, transformed into a ogre, and a dam ugly one at that, an evening when the Special One was exposed.
Johnny Giles deserves credit for stepping up to the plate and calling a spade a spade, or in the case of the Real Madrid, Mourinho a troublemaker, who seems to thrive on controversy and his own self-importance, refusing to admit it was his team selection that failed on the night and not the officials.
If ever charges could be preferred against managers and a team for crimes against football, this surely falls into such a category.
Observers may quite rightly point to the GAA who have been known to create their own few fracas over the years, the most recent tunnel episode between Cork and Dublin not the most edifying, and those involved are unlikely to escape censure.
However, whatever fault lies with the GAA, and they have many in the area of discipline, by and large players tend to play the game within the spirit of the rules.
You get hit and go down but get up if you can. In the 'beautiful game 'it seems many of the players from both Barcelona and Real Madrid, but particularly Real Madrid, had to have a higher diploma in dramatics before they were accepted into the club.
To feign injury is one thing. To get your opponent dismissed or to falsely claim a penalty is despicable and in my view is akin to crime as trying to claim money under false pretences.
What a fine example the players on Wednesday night have set for the youth who look up to these superstars as demigods. How misguided can we be.
It is a sad reflection on the game that some players do not play the game in the true spirit given vast amounts of money they are paid to parade their skills and their petulance.
Heavy fine will be imposed, no doubt. Meaningless. What does a few thousand euros mean to players who earn in a week what many will not see in a lifetime.
As it stands, Manchester United and Barcelona have a leg each in the final and let's hope the final lives up to the standards these clubs and players aspire to and we get a final that will go some way to repairing the tarnished image of what some would have us believe is 'the beautiful game'.
Then again, as the poet said, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.