Sterling tripped over chance to strike a blow for sportsmanship
RAHEEM Sterling is a footballer of the most beautiful grace, with breathtaking speed, slick touch and, as he showed at the Etihad on Wednesday evening, an ability to score captivating goals.
He is a Premier League winner, a League Cup winner and, at the rate City are going, by May he could also become a Champions League winner. But here’s the thing. Titles are not banked on cold evenings in November, but with Sterling that could have been different.
The team he plays for might be favourites for everything but this morning he should be the rock-solid favourite to lift FIFA’s Fair Play Award. Sadly for football, and sadly for Sterling, he is not.
Turn back the clock to the 23rd minute at the Etihad on Wednesday and the scenario as Sterling eases clear of the Shakhtar Donetsk defence in a Champions League match that was already going only one way.
He sets his sights on goal, a defender closes in; suddenly he loses his footing, he kicks the ground, there is no contact and down he goes. He looks around and to his amazement, Hungarian referee Viktor Kassai is pointing to the penalty spot while Donetsk goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov, right, is almost in need treatment he is laughing so much.
In one instant, Sterling could have changed every conception about him as a footballer, the scar of diving which surrounds him – not that for one minute would anyone suggest this was a display of cheating.
Why did Sterling not go over to Kassai and say he fell over?
Why did Sterling not find Gabriel Jesus, his team-mate, and tell him to put the penalty wide because he knew he was not fouled?
Why did Sterling not ask Pep Guardiola what he should do, because even his manager on the touchline was acting out why it was never a spot-kick?
Why did Sterling not go into his own box when play resumed and put the ball into his own net to make up for the goal which should never have been?
Only he can answer those questions, and 90 minutes later, in the spotlight of a TV interview, he would say: “I went to chip the ball and don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel contact. I scuffed the ball. Apologies to the ref and apologies to Shakhtar.”
If he knew that then, he surely knew it at the time.
In one instant, whatever reputation he has carved out for himself, Sterling would now be making the most extraordinary headlines and sending out the most extraordinary messages to his army of fans in every corner of the globe. Never mind also bringing a bright cloud to what has been a dark and controversial week off the pitch for his club.
FIFA bestow their honour on “a player, a coach, a team, a match official, an individual fan or a fan group in recognition of exemplary fair play behaviour”, and today that man would surely have been Sterling. No one forgets when Paolo di Canio was banned for pushing over referee Paul Alcock but equally, if not more, the fiery Italian is remembered for stopping play and picking up the ball during West Ham’s match at Goodison Park when he was about to score into an empty net, because the Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard was lying injured in the area.
For that instinctive moment of good judgment in 2001, Di Canio won the FIFA award for “a special act of good sportsmanship”.
You have to go back to 1997 to find an instance of a player telling a referee that he had not been fouled and his side should not have been given a penalty. Robbie Fowler’s appeals were ignored, however, and Liverpool scored the subsequent penalty against Arsenal.
Sterling has played all his football in the Premier League era, when players are coached to appeal for everything. Since it began in 1992 more than 2,000 penalties have been awarded and not once since Fowler has a player asked a referee to change his mind after awarding one.
Two things make Sterling’s decision to say nothing at the time even worse. Firstly, and with the greatest respect to their Ukrainian rivals, City would have won this game without this spot-kick easily put away by Jesus, who went on to complete a hat-trick including another penalty, this time blatant and without complaint.
Secondly, three minutes into the second half, Sterling scored a glorious goal – this from a player who can bring you out of your seat with his individual brilliance. It was Sterling at his best. But this night should have been Sterling at his best ever.