Only the greats can get away with revolt
MAURIZIO SARRI is not alone in experiencing the indignity of failing to substitute one of his players and being left to account for it. Luis Enrique’s Barcelona were 3-0 up at home to Eibar in October 2014 when he told Lionel Messi it was time to leave the field. Messi had no intention of doing so and an exchange of hand gestures ensued before the player in question held up a thumb, looked away and walked up the field. ‘What happened can be interpreted many ways,’ Enrique said afterwards.
‘I will carry on doing what I’ve been doing.’ Leave means leave for all but the very elite on the football pitch. Zlatan Ibrahimovic rejected AC Milan manager Max Allegri in 2010 after injuring himself while celebrating an overhead kick. Cristiano Ronaldo said ‘thanks but no thanks’ to Zinedine Zidane during Real Madrid’s Champions League quarter-final at Bayern Munich in April 2017, scoring twice in extra time to make a point. But the manager who tolerates this from any but football’s deified sends a signal about his own vulnerability. ‘The balance of power in a dressing room is sometimes a delicate one these days,’ says one former manager. ‘You need to pick and choose your moments to put your marker down.
You need to know when allowing subordination to pass is disastrous.’ Roberto Mancini was the same picture of unmitigated rage as Sarri after £250,000-aweek Carlos Tevez refused to go on to the field for him from the substitutes’ bench during Manchester City’s Champions League defeat at Bayern in September 2011. The Italian almost wept with fury in the post-match press conference, declaring: ‘He behaves like this, for me he can’t play (for City again). Never.’ Tevez returned to the side the following March and outlasted
Mancini, who was sacked 14 months later. Martin Allen, the former Brentford and Leicester manager, recalls another ruse when watching Brentford in 2004. Forward Tony Rougier deliberately walked in front of the home fans, milking the applause, and marched straight to the dressing room without a glance at manager Wally Downes, who was sacked a few weeks later. Allen subsequently took over as Brentford manager and one of his first acts was to pin on the wall a list of the players he wanted in his squad. Rougier wasn’t on it. ‘He was in my office in 30 seconds, wanting to know why,’ Allen says. ‘There’s no way I’m having a player like that in any squad of mine.’
Ryan Giggs revealed the Manchester United players had a different strategy to avoid the manager, going to great lengths to pretend they could not hear Sir Alex Ferguson bellowing at them. This meant standing 20 yards away from the touchline at all times. John O’Kane, one of United’s Class of ’92, was picked at left back by Ferguson in a 1995 UEFA Cup tie against Russia’s Rotor Volgograd but asked 15 minutes before kick-off if he could play right back instead. Ferguson acceded, sensing the player was ‘rattled’. O’Kane lasted 27 minutes, never played for Ferguson again and relied on another United for his best days: Hyde.