Love this article. Bigs us up & strikes Man U down. Oh for the days this used to be commonplace....
United should envy call girls' dedication
Nothing underlined Manchester United's unconvincing start to the season more than the participation of Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Anderson and an unidentified "fat bloke" in an orgy to celebrate Manchester United's first victory of the campaign a fortnight ago.
If it turns out that Manchester United fail to match the standards expected of them on the field this season, then the timing of this orgy will surely be called into question.
Manchester United Football Club is nothing if it does not have standards and it is questionable if those standards are met when several high-profile members of the squad indulge in group sex to mark a win against a struggling Tottenham Hotspur team.
If United fail to retain the Premiership, the incident may not feature in many of the conventional post-mortems, but it will have a great significance. When members of a team summon girls to their home for a "sex romp" after beating Tottenham at home, then it is only natural that those who expect higher standards, and we are not talking about morality, should be concerned. Tottenham, after all, is a home banker and you would expect the players to consider it no more than was expected of them, not the signal for an outbreak of orgiastic fervour.
High on the improbability of his side's win against a Spurs team which has only beaten Derby this season, Ronaldo and his team-mates decided to celebrate the fortunate victory.
Of course, the tale of dubious morality becomes more troubling when we learn that the girls who were asked to share in this day of untrammelled joy were not the regular partners of any of the men, nor were they drawn from the heaving market of kiss-and-tell girls, only too willing to sleep with a footballer and take somebody else's money to tell the story.
These girls were escorts, and may have been the only party in the transaction to show true acumen. Having being paid once (three grand on a hand-held credit card machine) they remembered Alf Ramsey's words before extra-time in 1966 -- "You've beaten them once, now go out and beat them again" -- left the building and got in touch with the News of the World.
Manchester United announced last week that they had no intention of punishing the players, but there will have to be questions asked. Like drinking, there is a right time to have an orgy and the aftermath of a victory against Tottenham Hotspur is not one of them.
Yet the players must unwind and there will come a day when they earn nights such as these. For Ronaldo, Sunday fortnight last was not that day. Suspended following his sending-off at Portsmouth, you imagine he felt like Paul Scholes and Roy Keane at the Nou Camp in 1999: he went through the motions but his heart was someplace else.
In fact, in this everyday tale of football folk and their women, it is only the call girls who emerge with credit and a desire which highlights their professionalism. "I am so shagging Ronaldo before I leave," one is reported to have said after a brief but consensual tussle with the "fat bloke". Her friend matched her dedication. "Snap," she replied as the pair dug deep and gave 110 per cent.
At Liverpool, meanwhile, experts are still trying to establish the full significance of Rafael Benitez's beard. Before the departure of his assistant, Pako Ayestaran, Benitez was said to be working 14-hour days, but his working life may get even longer after the departure of his friend and colleague.
But Benitez -- whose greatest gift has always been a refusal to care what anybody thinks -- is in no mood for making friends. I believe the growing of the beard was an element of a two-part strategy which entailed firstly lowering expectations and then creating a siege mentality.
The beard works on both counts as people find it hard to take a man who looks like that seriously (see previous comparisons with Lieutenant Columbo) and then the team presumably have sympathy for their mocked manager. So far the players have displayed an astonishing unity and resolve personified, it could be said, by Momo Sissoko.
Sissoko was last spotted trying to recover a ball he had launched 60 feet into the air while attempting to play a five-yard pass against Manchester United in March. He disappeared from view then, clearly embarrassed, but he has returned fitter, stronger and, most crucially in his case, simply better at football.
As importantly for Liverpool, Benitez has been making enemies. His long-standing friendship with Steve McClaren has been noted by many good judges as the most questionable aspect of Benitez's character.
But that perished last week over the case of Steven Gerrard's toe. While McClaren was trying to please everybody, except, you sensed, himself, Benitez was making enemies. It is, as far as he's concerned, a no-risk strategy.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...n-1074455.html
United should envy call girls' dedication
Nothing underlined Manchester United's unconvincing start to the season more than the participation of Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Anderson and an unidentified "fat bloke" in an orgy to celebrate Manchester United's first victory of the campaign a fortnight ago.
If it turns out that Manchester United fail to match the standards expected of them on the field this season, then the timing of this orgy will surely be called into question.
Manchester United Football Club is nothing if it does not have standards and it is questionable if those standards are met when several high-profile members of the squad indulge in group sex to mark a win against a struggling Tottenham Hotspur team.
If United fail to retain the Premiership, the incident may not feature in many of the conventional post-mortems, but it will have a great significance. When members of a team summon girls to their home for a "sex romp" after beating Tottenham at home, then it is only natural that those who expect higher standards, and we are not talking about morality, should be concerned. Tottenham, after all, is a home banker and you would expect the players to consider it no more than was expected of them, not the signal for an outbreak of orgiastic fervour.
High on the improbability of his side's win against a Spurs team which has only beaten Derby this season, Ronaldo and his team-mates decided to celebrate the fortunate victory.
Of course, the tale of dubious morality becomes more troubling when we learn that the girls who were asked to share in this day of untrammelled joy were not the regular partners of any of the men, nor were they drawn from the heaving market of kiss-and-tell girls, only too willing to sleep with a footballer and take somebody else's money to tell the story.
These girls were escorts, and may have been the only party in the transaction to show true acumen. Having being paid once (three grand on a hand-held credit card machine) they remembered Alf Ramsey's words before extra-time in 1966 -- "You've beaten them once, now go out and beat them again" -- left the building and got in touch with the News of the World.
Manchester United announced last week that they had no intention of punishing the players, but there will have to be questions asked. Like drinking, there is a right time to have an orgy and the aftermath of a victory against Tottenham Hotspur is not one of them.
Yet the players must unwind and there will come a day when they earn nights such as these. For Ronaldo, Sunday fortnight last was not that day. Suspended following his sending-off at Portsmouth, you imagine he felt like Paul Scholes and Roy Keane at the Nou Camp in 1999: he went through the motions but his heart was someplace else.
In fact, in this everyday tale of football folk and their women, it is only the call girls who emerge with credit and a desire which highlights their professionalism. "I am so shagging Ronaldo before I leave," one is reported to have said after a brief but consensual tussle with the "fat bloke". Her friend matched her dedication. "Snap," she replied as the pair dug deep and gave 110 per cent.
At Liverpool, meanwhile, experts are still trying to establish the full significance of Rafael Benitez's beard. Before the departure of his assistant, Pako Ayestaran, Benitez was said to be working 14-hour days, but his working life may get even longer after the departure of his friend and colleague.
But Benitez -- whose greatest gift has always been a refusal to care what anybody thinks -- is in no mood for making friends. I believe the growing of the beard was an element of a two-part strategy which entailed firstly lowering expectations and then creating a siege mentality.
The beard works on both counts as people find it hard to take a man who looks like that seriously (see previous comparisons with Lieutenant Columbo) and then the team presumably have sympathy for their mocked manager. So far the players have displayed an astonishing unity and resolve personified, it could be said, by Momo Sissoko.
Sissoko was last spotted trying to recover a ball he had launched 60 feet into the air while attempting to play a five-yard pass against Manchester United in March. He disappeared from view then, clearly embarrassed, but he has returned fitter, stronger and, most crucially in his case, simply better at football.
As importantly for Liverpool, Benitez has been making enemies. His long-standing friendship with Steve McClaren has been noted by many good judges as the most questionable aspect of Benitez's character.
But that perished last week over the case of Steven Gerrard's toe. While McClaren was trying to please everybody, except, you sensed, himself, Benitez was making enemies. It is, as far as he's concerned, a no-risk strategy.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...n-1074455.html
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