Literary and verbal laziness in football

Wayne Rooney – The epitome of linguistic clarity.

The mid-season transfer window slammed shut for European football clubs not too long back. No, it did not close gently. It, as it always does, ‘slammed’ shut. Given the nature of football transfers, a door left ajar is as good as one that is wide open. Should a club get a sniff of a want-away player, the 2300 GMT deadline becomes a mere number as deals get ‘thrashed’ out in double-quick time.

For a sport where scripts are written, torn, re-written, and torn apart again in less than two hours, football’s allegiance to cliches is not just annoying, but confounding. And each section of the game is afflicted with the disease, be it the players, managers, or the journalists.

Sample Juan Mata‘s statements on becoming Manchester United’s record signing.

“The time has come for a new challenge,” Mata was quoted as having said by the BBC. “I am excited at the chance I have to be part of the next phase in the club’s history.”

Curiously, footballers always move for a new “challenge”, or when a ‘project’ becomes too tempting, or too ‘big’ to resist. Of course, one cannot expect footballers to be brutally honest and say that the massive salary on offer was instrumental to their transfer, or their former manager was completely wrong to have not played him more frequently. But that does not absolve them of the atrocious post-match interviews, none exemplified better than a victorious Wayne Rooney, basking in the success his immense talent brings to him and his team.

“I am concentrating on my football. I have got my head down and worked hard,” Rooney was quoted as having said in mid-September.

Yes Wayne, we are glad you are concentrating on your football and working hard. A bucket-load of new information: a footballer concentrating on his football.

Jose Mourinho stirred up another controversy recently when he accused West Ham United of playing “19th century football”. Trust Jose to say it like no one else could. But then, don’t West Ham United and Stoke City, at least before Mark Hughes’ subtle shift to a more continental footballing ‘philosophy’, represent the ultimate challenge to a footballer? So what if Lionel Messi scores a hat-trick against Real Madrid? Could he do it on a wet Wednesday night against Stoke City, with the bus parked in front of the goal?

Of course, for every ‘hoof up the pitch’ involving ‘the West Hams’ and ‘the Stokes’ of the world, there is always ‘the Arsenals’ and their ‘top, top, top’ players who prefer to ‘pass the ball into the net.’ The manner in which goals are scored is of utmost importance, and nothing better describes a fluid, passing game than ‘playing along the carpet’.

When one of the less fancied clubs comes up against the ‘big’ clubs, talent takes a back seat for 90 minutes as David versus Goliath is played out for the umpteenth time. Never has the underdog received so much support as he does today. And should plucky David win, it has to be after having ‘worked their socks off’, or having ‘played their hearts out’.

Of course, such a match, or any other for that matter, would require a ‘turning point’. However, if the turning point is incidentally near the 45-minute mark, then it becomes a ‘game of two halves’, ensuring that the incompetent mathematicians packed in the stands don’t make the mistake of thinking that football had borrowed the system of quarters from basketball.

One can only be thankful that Sir Alex Ferguson retired at the end of the 2012-13 season. If anything, Ferguson is singularly responsible for two of the most overused cliches in the history of sport.

Should his team put in a floundering first-half performance, there could only be one place where Sir Alex would be standing: next to the locker room plug point, revving up his hairdryer. Having blown hot air over his wards, the septuagenarian would then take his place in the stands, ‘furiously chewing’ on his favourite piece of gum.

Obviously, Manchester United would then go on to win the match in the dying minutes of the game, better known as ‘Fergie Time’. Whether David Moyes owns a hairdryer or not is yet to be seen. But, it can be safely said that Moyesie Time will not be making an entry anytime soon.

Liverpool’s victory over Everton on January 28 was of added importance, as the two clubs’ adjacent positions in the league table had somehow managed to convert the derby into a ‘six-pointer’. Relegation battles are another category of matches that are assigned six-points by commentators and journalists, even though only three points are awarded to the victors at the end of the match. Little is known of the constituents of the remaining three points, though one could guess that ‘bragging rights’ may form a part of it.

To end with England defender Rio Ferdinand’s fantastically articulated summation of the challenges of the 2012-13 season: “We want to give the fans what they expect and be battling at the top of the league. The gauntlet has been thrown down time and time again. It is up to us to pull in the right direction. We have to step up to the plate and produce. I am sure we will.”

Football, for all its Brownian motion-like unpredictability on the pitch, is rooted in literary banality off it.