The Ujfalusi – it’s easy to do and made to order for every player with marginal talent but a huge will to win.
Can’t keep up with the best players? Tired of having them run past you with the ball? What do you do? Well – just run at them really hard, with your hair and your arms flying through the air – making it look like you’re trying your darndest to get the ball, then at the last second, when the ball and player go past you, stamp on the player’s ankle.
That’s the dance Lionel Messi was subjected to yesterday and he came away with what many feared would be a broken ankle.
Thankfully for Barca fans, the Associated Press is this morning reporting that Lionel Messi does NOT have a broken leg.
While this will be a relief to many, word is that Messi will miss at least two matches due to a severe ankle sprain and Messi’s teammate, Gerrard Pique, is none too happy about that. Pique said after the match that teams have started to hunt for Messi: “I feel sorry, now it seems that everything is valid in the world of football. He [Messi] was hunted. Anything goes on to stop the big players.”
Pique is right about this. What can be quite maddening – if you think about it enough – is that a thug like Ujfalusi will take his red card and miss perhaps three matches, while players like Messi could have their seasons ruined.
It gives new meaning to the “last dance”…
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Pique’s term “hunted” is telling.
Anytime your sport’s best players are “hunted,” you’re in trouble. The video shows that what’s-his-name on Atletico Madrid had no chance or intention of getting the ball of Messi – his goal was to take Messi out, pure & simple. But this has been going on for decades: check out films of Pele in ’62 and ’66 being taken down mercilessly again and again, or of Maradona on the receiving end of some brutal “tackles” during his heyday.
If FIFA, or each major league’s governing body, wanted to stop this they might institute an automatic forfeiture of the offending player’s team’s next game, if the infraction was judged sufficiently serious in a post-game review. Extreme, yes – but maybe something like this is necessary to return the game to its stars and stock-in-trade. People don’t pay to watch hatchetmen take down the best players on the field. Not many kids walking around in Ujfalusi jerseys…
The NHL had this problem pre-lockout, with stars like Lemieux & Gretzky hooked and held into submission many nights. But the NHL – not exactly the most forward-thinking or proactive sporting organization – actually did something about it by instructing its referees merely to enforce the rules already in place. Hey presto – now, once again, it’s stars like Crosby, Ovechkin, Toews, St.Louis, Cammalleri, etc – many of them relatively small guys – who are the difference-makers most nights, not the goons.
FIFA take note. Oh – and think about that video-replay stuff on goals, too.
Gotta give it to you there Shorty. Knowing both sports well, I have to agree that hockey is a MUCH MORE progressive sport than soccer/football. But why would soccer want to change when so many people – from Zurich (FIFA headquarters) to London (Premier League (otherwise known as the Leg Break League) headquarters) – owe their positions and power and money to the *&$%#$# STATUS QUO? Frankly I’m surprised that people even bother to watch such an outdated game as soccer.
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