It's been 17 hours, but I'm still struggling to come up with anything to say about this slumped haystack of a match. I watched it grimly, out of a sense of duty to what's turning out to be a maddeningly incremental historic moment—Manchester United are now "all but guaranteed" to win the title they'd "essentially sewed up" a few weeks ago and "basically won" in March—but as it turned out I wasn't the grimmest thing in the room. Has any team ever endured its way to a championship with as much dogged moroseness as Manchester United this year? Wigan were great, apart from being Wigan, but watching Man Utd at the moment is like watching an old man cut the grass with an antique lawnmower. The grass can't do anything about it, but it takes forever, and no one has any fun.
The Run of Play
Attacking Football
I think you capture it perfectly. I watched simultaneously feeling dread and hope, both geared towards some sort of damning finality. I had the unsettling feeling from the instant Wigan scored that United would once and for all crush my dreams for Liverpool's unlikely title challenge, but tied to this was an inkling of the blasphemous hope that they would bring about sweet relief for my heart by ending said challenge. Sure enough they did, as they did against Villa and Tottenham, but even now I feel no finality, because United "still need one point from their remaining two fixtures." No span of five months has better captured the joys and horrors of being a football fan.
Manchester United, with their plodding and methodical Continental approach to the game, is like reflecting upon Evolution – powerful, mystifying, but ultimately not very exciting to watch in 90 minute increments.
I too suffered through the wigan-Man Utd match, cursing "The Man" for not giving me Copa Del Rei final.
Basques Vs. Catalans? Playing in front of the King? TVE, the nationalized Spanish TV censoring the anthem of Spain because of the crowds boos, and the playing it without live sound and with no images of the crowds during half time? The team sponsored by the United Nations Vs. The team that sponsors Basque nationalism? The best playing footballing side in the World Vs. The only team in the world that limit themselves to regional players, as a political statement? Globalization Vs. Regionalism?
That was the game of the week (Though problably not for the game itself).
In the imortal words of Skunk Anansie: "YES IT'S F***ING POLITICAL!!!!"
"..but watching Man Utd at the moment is like watching an old man cut the grass with an antique lawnmower. The grass can't do anything about it, but it takes forever, and no one has any fun."
Fantastically said.
"..but watching Man Utd at the moment is like watching an old man cut the grass with an antique lawnmower. The grass can't do anything about it, but it takes forever, and no one has any fun."
I can't help but repeat Wayne's sentiments. I've spent all of 2009 trying to express my feelings and thoughts about this version of United, and you've got it summed up perfectly. I would nominate their match at Upton Park as the embodiment of this. That's what started me thinking about this, anyway. As good as that Giggs goal was, it was neither a surprise nor was it particularly thrilling in any way. It just … happened, and you knew it would. The rest is always a slog.
The maddening bit is that, once again, I talked myself into the positive scenarios for Liverpool as soon as Wigan scored. I started envisioning and imagining how it could play out, how Wigan could somehow win, how Arshavin or someone else could pull off a stunner for a draw on Saturday and then how Hull – in some bizarro flash of relegation-battle-inspired action – helps Liverpool finish the miracle.
But when I checked the match at work and saw Carrick scored, the thought just hit, "Well, of course, you ninny. What did you expect?!"
Ugh, the lawnmower …
Coming back to the Manchester United theme, this season i found myself wishing them to lose out of simple boredom.
It is the pinnacle of sporting quality, when winning becomes so natural that you come to expect it. A few weeks ago, Rafael Nadal's coach talked about his expectations for the clay court season (bear with me i'm going somewhere with this). He said "It's always easier to lose than to win, so i don't expect to win".
Somehow, in United's case (and in Rafael Nadal's by the way…) we have come to accept winning as the natural law. It is a hugely valuable tool for a team to have. It's the advantage that gives United the wins in games like the one versus Tottenham. The other teams go into a self destructing mode because they know they need everything to go right to have a chance in the game.
Perception of invincibility is what builds legends and Empires.
Strangely enough, with my fake money on the soccerlens betting thingy, I always bet against Man U to lost; which may account for why I'm in the hole.
And Joao, I feel your pain, I was all geared up for the Copa del Ray and turn on Gol to find nothing. It was weird.
Joao, you mentioned the United-Spurs match, and I saw a Tottenham supporter play out your theory at halftime. I watched the match at the pub, and my friend texted someone she knew who supported Spurs, saying something to the effect of, "Hey, your guys look really great today. You must be ecstatic."
His reply presumed defeat in a memorable fashion, saying pretty much, "As a Tottenham supporter, I know better than to think we will actually win this match and my heart will be crushed once more."
Sure enough, 20 minutes and 5 goals later …
On the other end of things, a pub regular who supports Spurs came up to me at halftime and said I have to buy him a shot of Jameson after the match because his boys were doing Liverpool a huge favor and I should thank him. I told him straight that he's nuts for talking like that at halftime, that it's just dumb to presume Tottenham was going to get even a point out of that match.
Sure enough, 20 minutes and 5 goals later …
To echo the others, a really good metaphor. United winning feels so inevitable and anti-climactic, as this Utd team has had no real challenger to test them nor any inspiring player to give them a personality- at least last year C. Ronaldo was in top form, while the year before that it was about wresting the title back from Chelsea. And there was no real 'exciting football' to justify the lack of competition, while even their much praised defense isn't the best in the league (that would be Chelsea).
Come to think of it, past Ronaldo, Van der Sar, Vidic, Evra and Ferdinand, its really hard to say who is in the first choice IX. It's worth mentioning that Gerrard got the writers' award, despite United's dominance and earlier half-hearted campaigns for Vidic, Giggs and Rooney (although I can't see why Rooney deserves it, except for possibly his Englishness)- the squad is so rotated its impossible to know who is important. Say what you will about the choice of Gerrard but at least he plays a major role for his team.
To be honest, recently I've gotten pretty depressed about the league's lack of competitiveness- I think that there should at least be a cap in the number of players a team can use. You also wonder how long the newspapers can still write odes to the 'genius' of United when there's no one worth testing it against. Of course, if the number of replies to anything Daniel Taylor writes on the Guardian blog is any indication, the answer is a very long time.
Anyone remember Man Utd's final match of the treble winning season against Tottenham? David Ginola making Gary Neville look like a dog chasing its own tail and then strangely walking off the pitch after amusing himself for 10 mins. Tottenham had no desire to do Arsenal any favours.
Or how they scraped through against Inter, Juve and then finally Bayern?
This aura of incincibilty was built by the shoddiest of means. Which is what makes it even more painful now.
It's not that hard to see how important Rooney is if you actually make the effort to look at the evidence.
He's played in all of Utd's european games, and started all but 2. He's also appeared in 29 league games (the same number as steven gerrard), and a hamstring injury and a one game suspension account for most of the games he didn't pop up in there. On top of that are a few more cup appearances, and 7 goals for England. And he plays all these games because he's a bloody good player. The only real rotation he's subject to is that Ferguson is sensible enough not to wear him out in the league cup, and the one big gamble he took in the FA cup semifinal.