One week in May 2003 saw a few chickens come home to roost in South Africa and Glasgow. Long-term there's no telling how these incidents will play out, but the fact that each arguably overshadowed events on a football pitch somehow lends both episodes a less than optimistic accent.
Northern Ireland B lost 2-1 to Scotland Future at Firhill, home of Partick Thistle, with both sides missing players for whom the words ‘international retirement' just don't add up. Trevor Horlock and Craig Burley, to name but one from each country, would in years gone by have been, at 31, considered comfortably in their prime, whereas now they are just comfortable, with some extra bargaining power on the free market to boot. Relating here the full saga of Burley's willingness or otherwise to play for Berti Vogts would wear out these typing fingers, so consider the temptation resisted, while Horlock's curtain-call thankfully came without the kind of duress endured by his former captain, Neil Lennon.
|
Copyright WellOffSide.com |
It was not in the famously non-sectarian Thistle's corner of Glasgow but in a neighbouring street a week earlier that incident one was literally thrashed out, as Celtic's Lennon and his passenger were assaulted on the road by three men in what has been characterised as a ‘sectarian incident'. It was pretty much downhill for the catholic-raised Lennon from there, with Celtic beaten by the odd goal in five by Porto May 21 to miss out on the UEFA Cup before coming up short in their climactic SPL shoot-out, leaving Rangers with the title. But in a Celtic dressing room containing international retirees as varied as Lambert, Larsson and Sutton, could Lennon be forgiven for cursing the luxury of turning down your country's call has become?
Back to the 21st century: Johannesburg provided a diversion to the main event of South Africa v England as finishing touches were made to a reception they could have branded ‘An Audience With Nelson Mandela'. This blazered-up affair kept one eye on the South African FA's 2010 World Cup bid and another on the soft-focus redemption of Lucas Radebe, whose farewell game saw him take on familiar Premiership adversaries and challenge the notorious knees, yes, those that prevented 70 caps easily topping a century, one last time. This redemption symbolically – if not fatally – also undermined SAFA's coach, Ephraim ‘Shakes' Mashaba.
The record states that Lennon, 32 in June, retired from international football last October after an explicit death threat was phoned into the BBC in Belfast on the eve of a home game, while Lucas Radebe, 35, got around to retiring officially this April, having skipped a non-playing rendezvous in the apparent knowledge that he would bow out in May – regardless of Mashaba's attempts to exert his authority.
Though both captains drew differing kinds of criticism whenever they came to pull on the national shirt, the comparisons end there. It's the talented one-time Anglo pioneer Radebe whose alleged lack of patriotism, ie failing to match his timetable to that of his country, that has seen him lead the way for refuseniks worldwide since joining Leeds in 1994. Ultimately, all such name-calling has done is to ensure that his and Lennon's cases have turned into running sores, and The Purist is not about to add to those divisive, self-appointed voices that cast players as role models as and when it suits. The Purist is, however, standing up for Shakes Mashaba.
Look at the coverage the England-South Africa game generated in both countries. After the England captain's hair and wrist problems, the alleged snub of Mandela by a selection of visiting players, the hotly-contested suggestion that Beckham's presence itself was the $5m deal maker or breaker, the absence of Quinton Fortune and the precise role of a witch-doctor in proceedings, there seemed precious little room for the line drawn in the sand by SAFA's head coach.
In stubbornly choosing a squad shorn of the European-based big-earners
for this ‘bid' match – against his employers'
wishes – did Mashaba underestimate the price of provoking
those interests representing his old foe, Radebe? Time will tell.
Having been caretaker boss twice before, he really should have had
some inkling as to his dispensability. Either way, his predecessor,
Jomo Sono of Jomo Cosmos, was installed for what was his own fourth
spell in charge, following Mashaba's attempt to defend his
regime in a press conference with this (abridged) statement:
"I am well aware that reasons beyond my control will always
stand between my plans and me. These reasons are largely the availability
of players. We need to move on and start talking about what we have
and not about what we wish for.
"Everything we are hearing now is new, and we hear it from the media. But [a camp in Spain missed by Lucas Radebe, Mark Fish, Shaun Bartlett, Benedict McCarthy, Quinton Fortune and Hans Vonk] was called specifically to discuss problems, if players had any, including the organisation and travel arrangements. We even stated categorically in the call-up letters that players would not be expected to play, just to talk. What more are we expected to do or say?
"Is it fair for the media to keep on suggesting that we are not calling these players? Some sections of the media are even suggesting that we must go back to these players and invite them to play. Is this not what we have been doing all along, and they keep on saying no?
"Is it not obvious that the ball is now in their court, to approach the association and declare their availability? After that, the association would take an appropriate decision. When are we seeing the media starting to pressurise these players to do the right thing?"
What Mashaba didn't say was that the media he accuses is largely pandering to the agenda of the more powerful agents. And his removal – initially for one game, becoming "all the 2010 bid games" and reverting to one again – made preparations for the African Nations Cup qualifier versus Ivory Coast, scheduled for June 21, somewhat complicated.
Sono, meanwhile, in full ‘safe pair of hands' mode, announced a revised ‘bid squad' and pointed out: "It isn't right to change in and out the whole time."
Not until June 2 was Shakes Mashaba confirmed as coach for both CAN qualifier and June 14th's ‘bid' friendly with Trinidad and Tobago. Nevertheless, as an illustration of the present balance of power between countries, clubs, managers and players, nothing could be more telling.
A Northern Ireland player and former colleague of Lennon's is not without sympathy for the Radebe scenario: "It's easy to be cynical, but the fact is, so many federations just don't have money. And frankly, players can think, with standards not what they are used to, that it's a lot of hassle to go through to get beaten, too. I know Neil never felt that way, he was too proud. But when you have the potential choice of letting down the manager you see every day or the one you see every other month, and you add an injury to the mix, well, sometimes it becomes a much tougher choice between your future and your pride."
Friendlies are the new F-word and the 96-hours release versus 48-hours-to-kick-off rule enforced by FIFA depending on a fixture's status is rendered irrelevant when players cry off for increasingly creative reasons. They may be injured, they may be hen-pecked, or their rogue of an agent is settling some score or even trying out the threat of retiring out on some defenceless or less than well-connected national boss.
Is it any wonder that we have a universal drain on that managerial cream that used to occupy the ‘top job in the country'? As players and asset-strippers squeeze the cash out of the game an erosion of status, experience and authority is the result, making the challenge both of reining in players or, as in Lennon's case, of keeping them from such a chilling form of target practice, so much the harder.
Our Northern Ireland player points out the reality: "Now the Champions League takes up so much attention, in the end the amount of clubs that are in effect bigger than the FAs will only continue to grow, and if you want to compare the Northern Irish, or for that matter the Irish set-up to your bread and butter, there is a world of differences. The best coaches want to work for clubs, not countries, and virtually every Premiership club is a better set-up unless your country happens to be England, Germany or someone at that kind of level."
David Dein of Arsenal and The Football Association has an embarrassment of hats to wear on the issue of club v country, but one ominous comment tells us where the more powerful will stand once a regulated calendar is in place: "The players work for us first and foremost. We are happy to release them, but under reasonable circumstances".
|
Copyright WellOffSide.com |
Led by G14, of which Dein is a leading light, Europe's top clubs may be fighting back against player-power – among plenty of other things – but at the same time, no one is queuing up to manage Stefan Effenberg… barred by Vogts after the World Cup of 1994, he didn't even retire, he just wouldn't come back!
When French skipper Didier Deschamps, coincidentally the same age as Alan Shearer, retired at 29, he – like Shearer – did so after playing in Euro 2000: "I don't need to keep on playing," said Deschamps. "I'm on top now and I don't want to keep playing too long." Both were captains and both had weathered substantial abuse from the football public in France and England respectively. The difference? If there's any one man whose decision relates directly to the shifting forces of modern football, or to be specific, the predominance of UEFA's Champions League, that man is Alan Shearer, though he kept Europe out of his statement.
"I want everyone to understand that I am not walking away from a challenge. I am hugely patriotic and my time as England captain has made me incredibly proud. However, football is about planning for the future and hopefully my decision today will help England become even more successful in the coming years."
His club's revival and consecutive qualifications for UEFA's flagship competition alone have justified that decision and all but put the debate to bed – barring a few days' interlude sparked by Shearer's own briefing upon Newcastle's return from Inter in March, when he suggested – without being misquoted – that he'd consider coming back. The feeding frenzy engulfed Sven Goran Eriksson briefly before Shearer's resignation was resurrected.
Already ‘in the can' by then was his vow to finish at the top, contained in that March BBC documentary presented by Alan Hansen, with whom he shares an agent. The "something had to give" line always seemed honest enough, yet our anonymous international felt the way Shearer acted further cheapened the process.
"He is well-known among players for playing games with the press, and though he must miss it, I think he knew all along there's no going back, and the focus he's found is the reason he's playing so well, if you ask me. It's a pity he couldn't resist sounding like he could change his mind – but we've all got egos!"
|
Copyright WellOffSide.com |
At 28, Nolberto Solano, also of Newcastle, is still a bit on the young side to be retiring, let's face it. But when it comes to retirement he's a serial offender. Having signed a new deal at St James' Park in 2001, Solano lost the captaincy of Peru and complained, "I am tired of the national team."
His club manager tested the theory and found Solano playing ball as negotiations over a contract extension dragged into the spring of 2003. Extension in the bag, Sir Bobby Robson found it was a different story: "A few months ago he told me he was finished with them, but now I've received a stiff letter from FIFA saying he has to go. They haven't got a cat in hell's chance of qualifying, ut he's still got to go!"
Ahead of a Peru-Chile double-header at the end of April – fixtures he'd already agreed to forgo – came this semi-ultimatum: "If I am not playing first-team football, then I'd have to consider my future," said the Peruvian, who duly played in Milan before starting the next three Premiership games. He didn't make it back for that double-header after all, but what odds will you lay that Solano will be a) be sitting out the Copa America that Peru hosts in the summer of 2004 or b) considering his future again before too long.
If it's a valid reason for retirement you want, step forward Neil Lennon. Said our anonymous international: "He has a young daughter, and in football you soon find out you've no choice but to look after number one. How could anyone take a risk over who's made a death threat?" Lennon's ex-colleague was the first asked to contribute to this article that did not decline to discuss the subject, though he did request not to be named.
"He was always booed by the hardcore, and we do play at the home of Linfield, a seriously protestant institution. You could say coming out in support of a united Ireland side wouldn't have helped him, either. But if you checked his record for pull-outs, there's no questioning his loyalty, it would have compared with anyone's. I don't believe that was ever really a factor, and Neil had almost turned it all around by last season anyway, having played on as skipper after someone painted a noose on a wall back home."
Even so, by last August you didn't need to read the graffiti in the Windsor Park toilets to see the writing on the wall for the basic right of Lennon to pit his skills against the elite without all kinds of security considerations being automatically triggered.
Should you feel tempted to file that Lennon scenario away in the one-off folder, by the way, talk to another Newcastle player first. Lomano LuaLua had to think twice after his withdrawal from a DR Congo squad led to his grandma becoming a target at home. Add to this development how far appearance money and bonus schemes have become the norm and the potential involvement of organised crime becomes one more factor that, whether the object is for a player to play or to withdraw, can only make international football's future ever more treacherous.
Sir Bobby Robson, no newcomer to the international battleground or its protocol, knows full well he could never get away with basing the merits of letting a player travel on his nation's chances of qualifying for this or that competition. At virtually every professional level a club boss now faces a rash of international call-ups on a regular basis, but one English club that's home to a veritable outbreak is Charlton Athletic.
Still, however often Alan Curbishley is cited as a model manager or mentioned in despatches by on-message FA front-benchers, his success in securing a long list of retirements goes largely unrecognised. How many Charlton players, if they don't actually retire, then suddenly encounter problems getting visas? Radostin Kishishev, Dean Kiely, Fish and Bartlett for starters, although, interestingly, John Robinson's identical goodbye to Wales was not enough to earn him a deal for next season.
 |
| Signed Wayne Rooney Shirt |
To be fair to Curbishley, he's confronting the thick end of a wedge that was still thin for then-Birmingham City boss Trevor Francis back at the turn of the year 2000. Stalwart skipper Martyn O'Connor's flirtation with the Cayman Islands may have prompted guffaws-a-plenty, given that he went from whirlwind debut (at 31) to retirement within two months, but the threat to Birmingham's promotion aspirations was real enough.
Francis railed against O'Connor for destabilising potential recruits in the dressing room and "leaving us in the shit," to quote him precisely. You could hardly blame either O'Connor (who couldn't say no) or Francis (who literally couldn't say no) for their reaction given the circumstances, and that's why the contradictions remain for those who discreetly guard their grip on the news agenda – there's so much aggravation and intrigue to exploit.
You could view Paolo Maldini's post-World Cup 2002 retirement as one of the more dignified recent examples, as well as that of ex-Internazionale Ivan Zamorano, which was at least timely, final, and a timepiece in its own right: "I believe that I can still contribute something to my country's team. There comes a moment when something lights up and you see that it is the chance to step aside," he said in April 2002, aged 34… and he stuck to it.
Mashaba's stance, whether part King Canute, part visionary or somewhere in between, was worth taking. OK, as protests go it's never going to make the Tiananmen Square category. But, for a man with one arm tied behind his back, he did what he could to throw some light on where the real responsibility for football's future lies. Just don't expect your news outlet of choice to help dislodge those sitting prettiest. For them, the ensuing conflict is one of the few rich seams left in news management, as agents aim each – premeditated – elbow at any sports editor that won't cooperate.
Natural wastage has always been with us, but what if the bottom line in future meant that, whatever a get-together is called, the selectorial options are multiplied as opposed to undermined? Otherwise, which manager could be criticised for walking out on a toothless federation?
Shakes Mashaba went so far as to call players' patriotism into question, and such rhetoric would be fighting talk were those players concerned as savvy as Alan Shearer. Not for him the mercenary stigma that's stuck to the likes of Benni McCarthy, though players continue to throw stones despite living in some impressive glass structures.
Roll on a Euro 2004 as thrilling in a pure football sense as that of 2000; let the titillating battle for patriotic moral high ground run its course and let's watch those gradients of greed slope off to the point where the asset-strippers depart in search of another sport. Let's hope no more players have to retire due to threats and that life in Glasgow does not become so intolerable that even one professional has to move.
Let's wish SAFA luck in holding the 2010 World Cup while we're at it.
Although there will always be a minority that doesn't know the meaning of the word quit, and Neil Lennon deserves, despite everything, to remain in that category, the fact is that in the 21st century the reasons given for withdrawal are almost as numerous as the withdrawals themselves. Unlike in the comeback-friendly world of boxing, however, football's punters, or box-office, may not be best-placed to decide a player's fate.
The stakes remain so uniquely high we're going to have to carry on believing what managers and players say!
GO AND SEE A GAME!
The Purist
Frank Rikjaard
Gareth Southgate
Warren Barton
Ramon Vega
You've read the column, now have your say. Email your comments to The Editor
