Mourinho's Notebook - Calling In Sick Coz You Don't Like The Boss
A Not-So Sterling Professional
The Bubba Sterling Saga drags on ever longer. There is a long list of things that Raheem Sterling has done to destroy his relationship with Liverpool Football Club and he continues to add to it.
Required to turn up to training on Wednesday for the first day of pre-season with LFC, he first said he wouldn’t go, then was told he had to, then called in sick. So sick that he also missed training the next day too. Subtle would not be the word to use here.
Obviously he wants out of Liverpool. The word is that his relationship with Brendan Rodgers is irreparable and that’s that. However it’s also suggested that if a new manager were in charge then Sterling might change his mind. Like, a manager who wouldn’t play him as a wing-back or rest him against Real Madrid.
The problem is that he’s not exactly presenting himself as a model professional to other teams. If you’re gonna be difficult, you’d better be worth it, and perhaps Manchester City, who have already said they won’t bid higher than £40m (LFC want £50m), might decide he ain’t worth the risk.
Meanwhile Liverpool are stuck with a player they don’t want but don’t want to sell for anything less than a price nobody is willing to pay so far. And if they do let him go for less then they’ll feel like Raheem won the power struggle after all. Look for LFC to strike a blow back before they settle. You don’t parley when you’re on the back foot, as Tommy Shelby would say.
The Micronesian Blues
Let’s spare a thought for the Federated States of Micronesia. In consecutive games at the Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea, they lost 30-0 to Tahiti, 38-0 to Fiji and 46-0 to Vanuatu. Headlines were made all over the world, it’s believed that both their final two games broke the record for the biggest loss in international football.
To make it worse, two of their players missed the bus after the 46-0 game and had to wait another half an hour at the scene of the crime.
Here’s the thing, though: you won’t find these scores in the FIFA record books now. Not because it was an under-23 match, but because Micronesia isn’t affiliated with FIFA.
Micronesia comprises of around 600 islands split into four states. Despite covering a spread of ocean about the five times the size of France (cheers for that one, BBC), it has a population of barely over 100,000 people. And although it is technically an independent nation, they signed a “Compact of Free Association" with America in 1986, which was renewed in 2003, that gives the USA the right to establish military bases in Micronesia in return for financial assistance.
The football team they’ve sent to the Pacific Games is handicapped in several ways, one being that they only have 18 players whereas all other teams named 23 man rosters. For many of those players, it was the first time they’d ever played overseas. For some it’s the first time they’ve ever player 11-a-side football. No kidding. With the vast range and tiny population of these islands, any sort of organised football league is immensely difficult.
This from their coach Stan Watson:
“Most of these have never been out of their villages let alone on to another island. I took them to Guam the other day [and it was] the first time they’ve been on an elevator or an escalator.”
The problem is that because of goal difference tie-breakers, once they lost by 30 goals in the first game, the other teams had to come out and beat them by more. Vanuatu were actually nervous for a while in the second half despite being over 25 goals up. This is something that opposition players and coaches have actually said is very frustrating for them. Unfortunately for Vanuatu, their 46 goals weren’t enough in the end because Fiji and Tahiti drew, putting them both through at Vanuatu’s expense.
As for Micronesia, it is their first ever appearance at an Oceania football event and this will be a positive one despite the 114 goals conceded. Academies have been set up by Coach Watson and he is bringing a few FIFA officials back to Micronesia where they’ll inspect facilities and debate recognising the Federated States as an official FIFA member.
The official world record for the largest international win remains Australia’s 2001 annihilation of American Samoa. The score was 31-0.
Ronaldo, Opportunistic Party Animal
Hanging out in Las Vegas for his holidays, Cristiano Ronaldo somehow stumbled upon an abandoned phone. Somehow he managed to find out who owned it, turns out it was some rich blonde babe on a gals trip. Well, any defender will tell you that CR7 is nothing but opportunistic…
Yeah, so he returned the phone and took the chick out to dinner. Her friends too. What a kind, selfless man, right?
Speaking of Ronaldo, erm…
Slave Driving With Tony Pulis
Premier League clubs are all back in pre-season now, and while Raheem Sterling is lying in bed with a box of tissues and a thermometer, the West Brom players have been in Austria training in heat and at an altitude as Tony Pulis stands by with a whip and a megaphone.
Elements of that last paragraph were imagined and/or exaggerated, but not the slave driving. Manager Pulis has a reputation for expecting peak fitness of his players, and in his first pre-season with WBA he’s got them running the equivalent of a marathon every three days. Every three days. On a semi-related note, Saido Berahino’s dumped his controversial player agent, the same bloke advising Raheem Sterling.
