When it comes to accepting defeat, I am a firm believer in doing so gracefully.
That probably stems from decades of supporting Sheffield United and England, which gives you sufficient practice at losing to realise that reluctant acceptance is way more dignified than stamping your feet.
Real Madrid, however, don’t subscribe to that point of view.
Boycotting the entire Ballon D’Or because Vinicius Jnr didn’t win was one of the most blatant displays of chucking your teddy out of the pram I have ever seen in football. Utterly classless.
Rumours circulated in the run-up to the big night that the Brazilian, despite being favourite, hadn’t won the coveted award, which was instead going to go to Manchester City’s Rodri.
And that prompted the Spanish club to leap into full-on sulk mode, issuing a statement that is almost childish in its content.
“If the award criteria doesn’t give it to Vinicius as the winner, then those same criteria should point to Carvajal as the winner. As this was not the case, it is clear that Ballon d’Or does not respect Real Madrid. And Real Madrid does not go where it is not respected.”
Wow!
I’m not going to get into the specific merits of whether Rodri or Vinicius deserved to win. You could argue in favour of each player for hours and still not come to a definitive conclusion.
But what the Real Madrid statement showed was that they either have no idea how the Ballon d’Or works or selectively chose to ignore that process because acknowledging it would have pissed on their bonfire.
There aren’t any specific “criteria” when it comes to choosing the recipient of this award – it’s a vote.
A hundred sport journalists from the top hundred football nations (according to FIFA’s rankings) are asked to take part in the vote. They are given the list of nominees – in this case, 30 players – and asked to pick their top five. Each journalist’s first place pick gets six points, second place gets four, third place gets three and so on.
Those points are then counted up and, lo and behold, the player with the most points is the winner. Simple as that. This isn’t a prize decided on by a committee over a boozy lunch or a select group of sponsors who have never watched a match. It is the result of a simple and efficient democratic process.
So essentially, Real’s pathetic conspiracy theory is an absolute non-starter.
Indeed, if the 50-person Real Madrid delegation hadn’t boycotted the entire award ceremony they would have been around to collect three trophies – Carlo Ancelotti as coach of the year, Kylian Mbappé as joint top scorer and, wait for it, Real Madrid as team of the year.
How’s that for disrespecting a club!
Then again, when all’s said and done, should we be even remotely surprised that Real Madrid didn’t turn up for the award ceremony? Just last weekend their entire team failed to turn up for El Classico...
Getting carried away
A few of my more neurologically divergent Manchester United-supporting friends started to get all “I told you so” after their midweek League Cup victory over Leicester City.
In a nutshell they were claiming that their players had long been capable of winning games 5-2 but that it was Erik ten Hag who was stopping it from happening.
I think we need a little perspective here, ladies and gentlemen.
For starters, Ruud Van Nistelrooy picked a near full-strength team, while his opposite number went with nine changes from his normal side. And if United’s first 11 isn’t capable of handsomely beating Leicester’s reserves, then the club has problems not even Sir Alex Ferguson could fix.
Just as importantly, United’s display against West Ham United last weekend was not bad. They could have, and should have, gone 3-0 up in that game, but were let down by poor finishing rather than a poor performance.
You could easily argue that United were due to give someone a spanking, and there is every chance that, had Ten Hag still been in charge, the outcome would have been similar on Wednesday.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting for one second that it was wrong for the Dutchman to be relieved of his duties. The time had come.
But any United fan who thinks that the very act of firing Ten Hag is enough to solve all the club’s problems is painfully deluded. It will take time and a lot of time to turn this particular juggernaut around, whether that is under Van Nistelrooy or, considerably more likely, Rúben Amorim.
Getting rid of Ten Hag was only the first step in a potentially long process of football redemption for the Red Devils.
Of course, if United dish out another spanking this afternoon when Chelsea come to visit, I will have to rethink my opinion. And United’s hierarchy may want to rethink their managerial choices...
Special moments to treasure
Oh, how I miss the Special One!
José Mourinho came back into English football orbit last week when his new side clashed with Manchester United in the Europa League. The game eventually ended in a 1-1 draw, with Mourinho the centre of attention as always after getting himself red-carded for protesting a refereeing decision.
But the real fun came in the build-up to the game, with the former Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur boss talking about his time at Old Trafford. He got extremely emotional, almost shedding a tear, when asked about his relationship with Sir Alex.
And then he showed his mischievous side when talking about 2018 when United finished second to Manchester City.
“I think we still have a chance to win that league because maybe they punish Man City with points and they have to pay me the bonus and give me the medal.”
Yes, it was only tongue-in-cheek, a little bit of humour.
But it is that sort of stuff that is sorely missing from the Premier League these days where just about every manager – with the possible exception of Ange Postecoglou – seems to have had their sense of humour glands removed. Or, in some cases, undergone a complete personality bypass.
He may not be the all-conquering manager he once was. But Mourinho still has an aura about him that few will ever be able to rival.
E-mail: James.calvert@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade