The language of football is a fine and highly nuanced dialect. The majority of people involved in the game speak it with a high degree of sophistication. Minor deviations from the familiar, almost imperceptible to outsiders, can set off alarm bells: what’s really going on there?
But it’s an argot developed to talk about football, and when applied to other subjects, it can sound extremely jarring. Erling Haaland is one of the brighter, more engaging players. There’s an appealing quirkiness to him that suggests he has a higher-than-usual level of self-awareness.
He doesn’t mind stepping outside the norms, being a bit different. But consider his assessment of Manchester City’s 3-0 win at Liverpool on Sunday. So proud of everyone. [It’s] important to stay strong mentally, stick together and do what you can do something about, and the thing we can do something about is to play good football and fight together.
That’s the only thing we can do.” Strip away the context and he could be talking about an injury crisis, or perhaps the resignation of a manager or a suspension to a key player. The tropes are familiar: it was hard but we stuck together and so we prevailed. This was a mental battle, [it’s] never easy coming back from internationals.” But of course this wasn’t really about coming back from internationals; that’s not what made this difficult for City.
This was about the verdict of the independent panel looking into the charges brought against City, the fact that the club have been found guilty of the greatest act of sustained cheating in the history of English football. Nobody knows what’s coming next. The gravity of the situation still seems to have not dawned on many in football.
City, as is their right, continue to maintain their innocence and have appealed. The propaganda battle goes on. But this is no longer about whether the financial regulations were fair.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
