Manchester United – Manchester City 1-6. Mario Balotelli and David Silva lead Roberto Mancini’s men to a historic victory at Old Trafford. Does this outrageously humiliating scoreline signal a changing of the guard in English football?
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5 replies on “Super-Mario and Friends Do Man U”
Perhaps a changing of the guard in English football with a Spanish twist: David Silva was once again at the center of things after taking a season to truly settle in. This, once again, demonstrates the mind-boggling depth of La Furia Roja (Silva does not start).
Silva is amazing – never seems to misplace a pass. The thought of him and Aguero linking up with Balotelli and Dzeko providing the muscle is scary.
I don’t think the guard has quite changed yet though – the English players such as the much (often quite rightly) maligned Milner, Barry, Lescott, and Richards as well as their best English player Johnson – will prove important on cold January nights in Sunderland and Stoke when in the past non-British players for City and other teams (Robinho springs to mind ) have gone missing.
It was great to see Fergie so angry!
I believe in the short term, yes, the status quo of English Football will be shaken, but in the long run, No. It all boils down to who the patronage of Man City, which, just like Chelsea’s, will at some point face real resentment…football is not just the athletic activity on the pitch, it is a cultural site, and football clubs like Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester United will always be up there, because of that British episteme that is lodged in their deep structure. Indeed, even on the face of it, when a European coach assembles a winning team dominated by Europeans (and Africans) it dazzles the young fans in the stadium, but later, upon reflection, they realize that such performances leave a strange taste in the mouth.
As you can imagine everyone from the PM down to the conductor on my train in to work has been talking of little else but the Utd implosion since Sunday here in the UK. But the one thing that cautions even City fans to remain tight-lipped about their prospects of “dominating” (alright winning a few trophies!) English football over the coming years is that their play on the pitch continues to exhilarate and confound in equal measure. A good response to the Bayern Munich debacle has since been followed by a very lethargic display against Villarreal which here had people pretty confident of United’s chances in the run-up to Sunday’s game. More than that, off-field, the soap opera continues and at some point, as Ben points out, English seasons tell us that dressing room factions and individual “characters” are likely to catch up with you on a wet Tuesday night in Stoke or Sunderland. Whether it’s Balotelli’s misunderstanding of the use of fireworks or Tevez’s PR machine which today has him suing Mancini over the £1m fine and guilty charge on not warming up in the aforementioned Bayern match, it all adds up to what we in the UK like to call pantomime season come early. Mancini, Platt, Kidd or the higher management will have to rid themselves of all that if they’re to be taken seriously, let alone continue to win trophies including their coveting of the Premiership from under United’s noses. As Ferguson knows well from his relations with the likes of Ince, andrei kanchelskis, van Nistelrooy, and even Beckham eventually, when the players are not only the story but far bigger than the club, it’s time for a re-think.
“Balotelli’s quirky lifestyle honoured with a chant of its own”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/oct/24/manchester-city-fans-mario-balotelli
With thanks to Alan Cobley for this.