Three days later, and United are in Istanbul. Given the size of the city, the usual plan of avoiding everyone else going to the game was uncomplicated. During half-time, there was a kerfuffle that had, apparently, been simmering all day, ending with headbuts, punches and bleeding. Like the beer chucking, this too is not uncommon, which is why, in answer to Bob’s question, it feels like a karaoke night in the loony wing of a borstal on groundhog day.
That aside, it’s been a pretty good week. As is my wont, by the time the Spurs game came around, I’d convinced myself we’d definitely win, before turning up at the ground to discover that rather than the usual one or two surprise selections, there were several, in a team with as much discernable shape as Beth Ditto.
After a minute United were behind, but after a couple more, they were playing well enough to suggest that this would be temporary. Having spent the last two seasons playing badly and winning anyway, on this kind of form a defeat was inconceivable.
Showing all the skill of a “Deal or No Deal” champion, Fergie found the correct balance between legs and guile in midfield, the selected quartet interchanging to devastating effect. Fletcher excelled in the wide role that bought him so much derision earlier in his career, and for the first time the headline “Anderson Scores” needn’t be atop a tabloid kiss-and-tell.
Knitting them together were bubbe and zeide, Giggs and Scholes; the former so flush with mysteriously grown football brain that you wonder if he’s got a pet mouse called Algernon, the latter drilling inside-out passes like Boris Becker’s backhand and free to keep the play moving without Carrick under his feet.
With Rooney and Berbatov playing well individually and in combination too, Spurs were a tottering pass-drunk mess well before full time, completely incapable of competing with United’s zest and zip. Even after Scholes took a rest, United remained superior, Rooney mesmerising and brutalising an entire back four so severely that even Harry Redknapp couldn’t find someone to blame.
On to Besiktas, and it was quickly obvious that their fans are a lot better than their team. The entire ground spent much of the game standing, bouncing and jumping, with flares and flags augmenting other more general merriment – things that if done in England would result in sanctions of one kind or another.
Even without officious stewarding and policing, though, it’d be silly to think that this kind of throbbing fanaticism could be replicated. Turks are loud, unashamed and uninhibited – in a good way - and emotional reserve isn’t seen as an ideal.
So whilst in Britain, people go to the football to behave in a way that’s forbidden in most other contexts, in Turkey – and to a lesser degree in Italy, Spain and Greece – it’s simply an extension of what’s usual, and from a higher starting point. Politics and religion are the same; people in the UK people participate, but with nothing like the zeal you see elsewhere.
British football is also hindered by the import accorded to looking good. In other countries – even those where the national character is more temperate, like Germany and Holland - everyone is happy to look silly dressed in identical polyester monstrosities. Not exactly aesthetic, but it’s a leveller and a disguise, encouraging unhinged behaviour in the same way as a fancy dress party.
Less said about the game the better, but a couple of notes. Valencia was once again mercy-subbed, Blundetto to Fergie’s Soprano. Nani, meanwhile, kissed the badge when celebrating Scholes’ goal, the only feasible explanation that he replaced the red devil with a photo of himself.
Talking of self-love masquerading as passion, United are playing City this weekend. With Adebayor banned, there’s extra pressure on Tevez to get fit.
When he left, I accepted his scoring against us as an inevitable but small price to pay for shifting someone I never liked or rated, and I expect most Arsenal fans feel the same about Adebayor. Melding the touch of Edward Scissorhands with the nous of a gnu, they are but two of the many decent but not top class players City ensnared over the summer, rather like how Paul Daniels attracted Debbie McGhee.
It’d actually be interesting to see what’d happen should Tevez play and score, after what happened with Adebayor last week. It may have looked to the untrained eye as though his goal celebration against Arsenal was designed to wind up their fans, but luckily Mark Hughes was on hand to enlighten us all:
“We just have to understand that he is an emotional guy and he wanted to share the moment with the fans in the corner with whom he has a special affinity”.
Of course, we know this to be untrue because we can see the pictures, but ordinarily we’d also surmise that one game in front of said fans - who should be wearing pointy hats with a “D” on them – could hardly constitute “special affinity”.
But this is City we’re talking about, their proclivity to falling in hopeless love the second someone notices them the stuff of legend. Whether it’s Rodney Marsh, Francis Lee or friendly
Dr Thaksin, football’s equivalent of the ugly, spotty, fat kid with an enormous library of pornography simply cannot help himself, after years spent watching his handsome neighbour get it on with everything in sight.
It’s hard, though, to see very much wrong with what Adebayor did. When players receive abuse, fans may be surprised when it’s returned, but that doesn’t accord them the right to moral outrage. No one expected Eric Cantona beat up Matthew Simmonds, but that doesn’t mean Simmonds had legitimate reason to feel aggrieved, nor that he didn’t deserve what he got.
The same is so with Adebayor. He isn’t responsible for the behaviour of others and neither should he be. A few seasons ago, Robbie Fowler scored for City against United, running to the away fans showing five fingers to represent the five European Cups he hasn’t won. Even by his exulted standards, this was not a pretty sight, but no one complained. We’d been giving him stick for years, he got the chance to retort, and he took it – good for him. Our reward was the knowledge that we’d got to him.
On the other hand, the three-game ban the FA have given Adebayor for the incident with Van Persie is a joke. He stamped on his head! Even in the UFC, where the aim of the game is to deliver maximum pain at maximum speed, that’s against the rules – and they’re in bare feet, not studs. Hey McFly, anybody home?
This little episode also highlights the need to alter how suspensions work. Adebayor should have been sent off against Arsenal (twice, as it happens), but stayed on the pitch to score the decisive goal. Now, he’s banned for City’s game against one of Arsenal’s rivals, effectively punishing them twice.
To remedy this, let’s have players sent off suspended for the next time the teams in question meet. There’d need to be provisions in place to deal with cases of transfer, promotion and relegation, but that’d be easy enough, and would make the system a lot fairer.
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