A rather lucrative little mistake
Jordan Henderson’s Saudi Arabian adventure is over before it really started, but let’s not bother wasting any sympathy on the former Liverpool player.
The midfielder ended his football exile last week just six months into his three-year contract, joining Ajax with only minutes to spare before his football career spontaneously combusted.
Essentially, he realised the move was a mistake when he ended up playing games for AlEttifaq in searing heat in front of tiny crowds, with one match attracting less than 800 supporters. And it didn’t help his England ambitions that the standard of the league he was playing in was described by one seasoned player as “essentially walking football”.
More painful for Henderson was the fact that his decision to follow the money trail had made his young family unsettled and unhappy, while also doing irreparable damage to his public profile.
Here was a previous champion of LGBT rights becoming a poster boy for a league based in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Not a great look, and one which didn’t go unnoticed by England fans who booed when his name was read out at Wembley.
Henderson had obviously been blinded by the bling but, once the reality of where he was and what he was doing hit home, it is no surprise he beat a hasty retreat at the earliest possible opportunity.
But, as I said earlier, let’s not feel too sorry for him that things didn’t work out. Why? Because his six-month ‘mistake’ is rumoured to have earned him more than €15 million. I don’t know about you, but I would be willing to spend 26 weeks making any mistake you like for that sort of cash.
Heck, I would do it twice as long for half as much.
Meanwhile, as Henderson was settling into his new Amsterdam home last week, Ajax announced that their new English midfielder’s number 6 jersey had become their fastest selling replica shirt of all time.
Wow!
I mean, that is truly astonishing considering the list of legends that have played for the club includes Johan
Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Edgar Davids, Dennis Bergkamp and Frank De Boer, to name but a few.
Still, achieving a record like that makes for a few positive headlines for Henderson, which he will gladly take after so much negativity in recent months.
Now all he’s got to do is figure out where he’s going to store 10 truckloads of number 6 shirts...
It’s offIcIAl: footbAll’s A mess
It’s getting harder and harder to take English football seriously.
Barely a match goes by now that doesn’t have at least one moment that leaves you staring in open-mouthed disbelief, cackling wildly with ironic laughter or banging your head against the wall.
And it’s all thanks to the ungodly combination of match officials who are bordering on clueless and a VAR system that isn’t working.
Last Sunday, Sheffield United played West Ham United at Bramall Lane, and it was, for the most part, a relatively normal game. Heading into injury time, the away side were (somewhat unjustly) winning 2-1 and you had a feeling the game was destined to fizzle out.
But then the referee decided it was time to get frisky, the VAR people lost the plot, and somehow the six minutes of added time saw two red cards, a penalty that was never a penalty, a goalkeeper substitution, the latest goal ever scored in the Premier League, and another penalty that was not awarded despite being a serious contender for worst tackle of the season.
When the dust settled, the final result was 2-2, which was probably a fair reflection of the match. However, that is no excuse for the shambolic officiating that made injury time thrilling but farcical.
You suspect the authorities that run English football – from the Premier League itself to the organisation that takes care of the match officials – are burying their collective heads in the sand in the hope that the problem will sort itself out.
But it is blindingly clear this problem isn’t going to fix itself, and action needs to be taken quickly to stop English football becoming the laughing stock of European football...
thAt’ll be the dAy
In an attempt to use technology to gain a football advantage, Wolverhampton Wanderers players have started wearing ‘daylight’ glasses before their night games.
I don’t know if you have seen these things, but they are essentially anti-sunglasses. They sit slightly above the eyes and shine artificial light down onto the face to create the illusion that it is, in fact, daytime.
Footage came out recently that shows Wolves players tucking into a pre-match meal while wearing these glasses and, if truth be told, looking like a collection of futuristic idiots.
Apparently, sports scientists believe the glasses will improve performance as, when it get dark, the body automatically goes into sleepy mode. The glasses trick the body into thinking it is still midday and therefore dispel any thoughts of curling up on the sofa with a nice glass of red.
Part of me can see the logic behind this, but a bigger part of me thinks this is little more than a passing, pointless fad. Just like when players used to cover themselves in electrician’s tape or when substitutes used to sit on exercise bikes on the touchline.
Why? Well, what happens when you take the glasses off? Obviously, you can’t wear them during the match so you will need to remove them at some point before kick-off. So, your body – which has now been artificially fooled into thinking it needed to stay awake and is therefore more tired than it would have been otherwise – sees the ‘sun’ has gone down and goes straight into time-for-bed mode?
Surely, the opposite would be more beneficial – keep the players in total darkness up to kick-off and then let the floodlights fool their brains into believing it’s daytime when it matters the most.
Just saying.
“His decision to follow the money trail had made his young family unsettled and unhappy, while also doing irreparable damage to his public profile
E-MAIL: JAMES.CALVERT@ TIMESOFMALTA.COM TWITTER: @MALTABLADE