The Salford City Story

Saturday night derby

Eighteen games into the season and Salford City is unstoppable. They trounced league winners Manchester United 4-3 last night in front of a packed home crowd. The small city wore a deserted look on saturday night as folks jostled into the 20,000 seater stadium in the north west corner of the city. The stadium, also called Uncle harry's meadow saw plenty of excitement as Salford equalized thrice and finally seized the game in the injury time.

Nani with two brilliant free kicks and Hernandez netted the third, but the home hero and this year's leading scorer Wayne Rooney banged in four goals, each of them a minute after every red score.

Unbeaten Run

This little "Cinderella" Manchester club has been riding solely on the success of 25 year old Wayne Rooney. Thanks to Wayne, the Club has climbed three divisions in the last three years and entered this season into the premier league and the city and the press just can't raving about Wayne.

The townsfolk just love this kid. "I know Wayne, he'll never leave this town", says the ageing caretaker of the club ground. "Wayne is our hero", says the Graffiti on this wall and the next we drive past and then we realize, all of them. The local Sir Francis catholic school even has a morning prayer called, "We'll be like Wayne."

So, how is Wayne dealing with all this adulation?

Wayne

Next we go to Wayne's house. A mile drive from the city outskirts into the woods and we reach a secluded lawn covered on all sides by dark forests and in the middle stood the two storey-ed building. All peace and quite. Transparent glass for a wall on the first floor, statues of unicorns in his lawn, a small freshly dug pond with mud still strewn around its edges. Lives alone. Grew up in this very house after his parents died or so he believed.

"There is something wrong", the first thing he says; looks blankly out the glass wall.

"What?", we ask, "things couldn't have been better."

"I've never told this to anyone before but I have to tell someone or I'll go crazy."

"Please go ahead! We'll understand", we lean forward, rapt attention. A dog barks in the distance breaking the afternoon stillness.

"I.....", he pauses, hesitating, "I never really touch the ball. I mean, like when I shoot, the ball moves before my boot hits it. It's like the ball isn't really there", he looks at us, "you understand what I am saying?"

We nod, trying out various possibilities in our minds. All that loneliness and the sudden adulation might have taken a toll on the kid's head.

The Special One

It has been a love-hate affair of Chelsea fans with Mourinho ever since he took over Chelsea in 2004. 2004 to 06 was a good time to be a Chelsea fan. You didn’t have to go through the heartbreak of losing. It was a good time to support when all you wanted was emotional highs and skip the lows. And boy, did they win – back to back premiership titles after 1955. It didn’t matter that Mourinho turned Chelsea into a boring, defensive outfit. All was forgiven because he gave us wins.

But even the self-styled 'Special One' knew that this winning streak couldn’t go on forever. "Daddy always brings a trophy", said Jose's son and Jose says, "Daddy can't bring the trophy every year. Daddy got to lose someday". So, he did falter. A red resurgence in 2006/07 meant that Chelsea were second in England and there was that fallout with the Chelsea hierarchy.

Then Mourinho took Inter, an already boring team with quality not quite at the level of a Barca, Chelsea or a Man U. February came and Chelsea fans watched with horror as the man who had led their entry into the big league was taking apart their dreams. With Barcelona, it was vintage Mourinho as Inter suffocated Barcelona with their tight marking and umpteen flow-breaking fouls. The idea was to let them not play. The press conference smugness that Mourinho displays now seemed to be hubris and his tactics against the very idea of football. One anchor has put it this way, "If this world gets ten managers like Mourinho, there would be no spectators. The stadiums would be empty".

The most detestable part of it was that he was leading the second best or maybe the third best team to a trophy they didn’t deserve. Everyone, the neutrals would be happy if it was Messi's Barca who would lift the trophy and Jose Mourinho tried to upset that and therein lies a catch. Like, is it that bad? Leading an underdog, using their strengths whatever they had; as Eto'o accepted, 'We are not as skilled as Barcelona, but we have our strengths [sic]', does the most 'perfect', the highest quality team have to win? Why not the so called second best, those not quite at 'that level' but with their own strengths nonetheless? Why not those who rise to the occasion? It all seemed fair again.

So, what makes the special one, the special one? A glimpse of the answer came after Saturday's final match with a YouTube grab showing Jose getting down from his car and having an emotionally charged exchange with Marco Materazzi. "We did it. We knocked the bastards off". Jose was ours again.

Check out the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUD4IxLIPuo

Champions league up for sale: 14 man Inter beat Barca

'It's a fucking disgrace', as Didier Drogba would have put it. Never has a referee been so moronic, the decisions so glaringly wrong as has been in the Inter-Barca first leg match last night at San Siro. Dani Alves' hearty laugh said it all when he was fouled by Sneijder inside the Inter penalty box, and what does the referee do? Instead of a penalty to Barca, he throws down a yellow to the fallen Alves. The refs mistakes had reached such comic proportions that one wonders how fatter his wallet got after Tuesday's match.

No doubt Inter played well; attacked on the break and defended well, but the scoreline should have been 2-2 rather than 3-1.

To add to the circus, look at how the commentator describes Milito's goal - "Well Deserved". Now sir, before using any other adjective, a remotely sensible person would say, "that was clearly an offside". Well deserved? You must be joking, right? Or did the Mafia manage to scare the commentators too?