Long article, but worth a read, as it makes some very interesting points.
Mascherano's crime of passion enrages old women of both sexes
They changed the rules of engagement for football in England last week; it's a shame nobody bothered to inform the players.
The English FA have embarked on a commendable campaign to encourage players at all levels to respect referees. This, one imagines, works best on the local park, because there are times when it is hard to ask someone to respect Mike Riley.
There are currently a number of leagues in England undergoing a series of reforms on a ten-week trial basis. Among these is the directive that only the captain should approach the referee.
This may or may not be implemented next season at higher levels, but after Ashley Cole's refusal to accept his booking against Tottenham ten days ago, there was an outbreak of morality and, it seemed, a change in the rules.
But there was no rule change, only what an FA spokesman told me last week was "news management" in the wake of Ashley Cole's display of petulance for which, it now seems, Javier Mascherano will pay the price.
Javier Mascherano played as he always does last Sunday at Old Trafford, but, apparently, he needed to be aware that "in the current climate" that was no longer acceptable. How was he to know this? Presumably he had not spent the days preparing for the game sitting at home reading the Daily Mail, an arduous enough task for somebody with English as their first language, let alone their second or third.
In fact, even if Mascherano was eager to read Richard Littlejohn, it's unlikely that the bull****-free environment in which Rafael Benitez likes to operate is overstocked with the Mail. Benitez' refusal to engage with the world of bull**** might have cost Liverpool as it was easy to predict the way some referees would react to the hysteria. But Roy Keane and Benitez are right, even if they won't always be happy in a world ruled by sanctimony.
Mascherano might have caught some of the Respect campaign on Sky Sports News, but while this fine channel is always, always on at football training grounds, in my experience, the sound is usually turned down. If Mascherano had glimpsed the shows of dissent, repeated on a loop, maybe he felt that this was something the authorities were now, for some cultural reason he had yet to understand, trying to encourage.
But he needed no encouragement. In the twee condemnations of Mascherano from, to borrow a phrase, "old women of both sexes", there was an absence of recognition that football remains a game that some of its practitioners are passionate about.
Thankfully, football still revolts against becoming a game ruled by the suburban values of those journalists who last week referred to Mascherano as a "nutcase" and decided that the behaviour of Ashley Cole and the Liverpool midfielder constituted "barbarism", an escalation of language which should leave them speechless, the only consolation when the rampaging hordes hit town, raping, pillaging and generally demonstrating how barbarism got its name.
Benitez, it was said last week in another example of shrill commentators losing command of their words, was defending the indefensible in making a case for Mascherano.
In fact, he was defending the very defensible. The actions of Mascherano at Old Trafford fall somewhere below the massacre at Srebrenica or the outrage at My Lai in the moral outrages of recent times.
In fact, his actions weren't even the most indefensible part of the day's proceedings. Far more worrying, and damaging to the game, was the tolerance shown by Steve Bennett for the calculated attempts by the Manchester United team to kick Fernando Torres out of the match, as they had kicked Arsenal out of it in 2004.
It was even simpler last Sunday as, in the continued absence of Steven Gerrard, distracted by his terminal self-obsession, United simply had to take care of Torres and Liverpool were neutralised. Even if they hadn't they still would have won, but Alex Ferguson is nothing if not thorough. When Torres complained to Bennett about it, remarkably, he was booked. Bennett, therefore, was giving the tacit encouragement of players to continue fouling one of the most exciting players in the league and the player who was being fouled was now one more post-hacking complaint away from a red card.
Mascherano, again paying the price for not taking the Mail and the other papers which had done most to highlight this campaign, wondered what was happening and was sent off, ensuring that Liverpool were heavily defeated in a game they were going to lose anyway.
But now they want to make an example out of him, something English football excels at. Conveniently, he is Argentinean so nobody complains if his words in defence of a team-mate see him labelled a "nutcase". They are now trying to compound the day's injustice with some more.
The sooner football introduces a law that says only the captain can talk to the referee the better. But the sooner officials start making tough calls for offside, adding on the correct injury-time and protecting the game's finest players from a sustained and unified battering, the better too.
Javier Mascherano is no nutcase. He is not part of the advancing army of barbarians threatening an English way of life, unless that English way of life is midfield play as represented by Frank Lampard. They changed the game he has played since a boy without telling him last week. And then they asked him to absorb these lessons during his biggest game of the season. Suddenly he was asked to behave as if driving through suburbia on a Sunday afternoon. Suddenly, he was told to mind his language and watch his step. They weren't the values that got him to Old Trafford. But they were ones that would drive anybody mad.
Mascherano's crime of passion enrages old women of both sexes
They changed the rules of engagement for football in England last week; it's a shame nobody bothered to inform the players.
The English FA have embarked on a commendable campaign to encourage players at all levels to respect referees. This, one imagines, works best on the local park, because there are times when it is hard to ask someone to respect Mike Riley.
There are currently a number of leagues in England undergoing a series of reforms on a ten-week trial basis. Among these is the directive that only the captain should approach the referee.
This may or may not be implemented next season at higher levels, but after Ashley Cole's refusal to accept his booking against Tottenham ten days ago, there was an outbreak of morality and, it seemed, a change in the rules.
But there was no rule change, only what an FA spokesman told me last week was "news management" in the wake of Ashley Cole's display of petulance for which, it now seems, Javier Mascherano will pay the price.
Javier Mascherano played as he always does last Sunday at Old Trafford, but, apparently, he needed to be aware that "in the current climate" that was no longer acceptable. How was he to know this? Presumably he had not spent the days preparing for the game sitting at home reading the Daily Mail, an arduous enough task for somebody with English as their first language, let alone their second or third.
In fact, even if Mascherano was eager to read Richard Littlejohn, it's unlikely that the bull****-free environment in which Rafael Benitez likes to operate is overstocked with the Mail. Benitez' refusal to engage with the world of bull**** might have cost Liverpool as it was easy to predict the way some referees would react to the hysteria. But Roy Keane and Benitez are right, even if they won't always be happy in a world ruled by sanctimony.
Mascherano might have caught some of the Respect campaign on Sky Sports News, but while this fine channel is always, always on at football training grounds, in my experience, the sound is usually turned down. If Mascherano had glimpsed the shows of dissent, repeated on a loop, maybe he felt that this was something the authorities were now, for some cultural reason he had yet to understand, trying to encourage.
But he needed no encouragement. In the twee condemnations of Mascherano from, to borrow a phrase, "old women of both sexes", there was an absence of recognition that football remains a game that some of its practitioners are passionate about.
Thankfully, football still revolts against becoming a game ruled by the suburban values of those journalists who last week referred to Mascherano as a "nutcase" and decided that the behaviour of Ashley Cole and the Liverpool midfielder constituted "barbarism", an escalation of language which should leave them speechless, the only consolation when the rampaging hordes hit town, raping, pillaging and generally demonstrating how barbarism got its name.
Benitez, it was said last week in another example of shrill commentators losing command of their words, was defending the indefensible in making a case for Mascherano.
In fact, he was defending the very defensible. The actions of Mascherano at Old Trafford fall somewhere below the massacre at Srebrenica or the outrage at My Lai in the moral outrages of recent times.
In fact, his actions weren't even the most indefensible part of the day's proceedings. Far more worrying, and damaging to the game, was the tolerance shown by Steve Bennett for the calculated attempts by the Manchester United team to kick Fernando Torres out of the match, as they had kicked Arsenal out of it in 2004.
It was even simpler last Sunday as, in the continued absence of Steven Gerrard, distracted by his terminal self-obsession, United simply had to take care of Torres and Liverpool were neutralised. Even if they hadn't they still would have won, but Alex Ferguson is nothing if not thorough. When Torres complained to Bennett about it, remarkably, he was booked. Bennett, therefore, was giving the tacit encouragement of players to continue fouling one of the most exciting players in the league and the player who was being fouled was now one more post-hacking complaint away from a red card.
Mascherano, again paying the price for not taking the Mail and the other papers which had done most to highlight this campaign, wondered what was happening and was sent off, ensuring that Liverpool were heavily defeated in a game they were going to lose anyway.
But now they want to make an example out of him, something English football excels at. Conveniently, he is Argentinean so nobody complains if his words in defence of a team-mate see him labelled a "nutcase". They are now trying to compound the day's injustice with some more.
The sooner football introduces a law that says only the captain can talk to the referee the better. But the sooner officials start making tough calls for offside, adding on the correct injury-time and protecting the game's finest players from a sustained and unified battering, the better too.
Javier Mascherano is no nutcase. He is not part of the advancing army of barbarians threatening an English way of life, unless that English way of life is midfield play as represented by Frank Lampard. They changed the game he has played since a boy without telling him last week. And then they asked him to absorb these lessons during his biggest game of the season. Suddenly he was asked to behave as if driving through suburbia on a Sunday afternoon. Suddenly, he was told to mind his language and watch his step. They weren't the values that got him to Old Trafford. But they were ones that would drive anybody mad.
El Niño 
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