Temporary reprieve
Thu Aug 07 09:00AM
Cristiano Ronaldo's declaration that he's staying put at Manchester United appears to have brought one of the most tedious transfer sagas in living memory to a close, but excuse Early Doors if it doesn't feel like breaking out the bunting and the fizzy pop.
United fans may be breathing sighs of relief this morning, but the fact remains that Ronaldo's announcement has merely delayed the inevitable.
He'll return from injury at the end of September, all meekness and dedication to the cause, and when the goals start flying in again the United fans will convince themselves that his love for the club has been miraculously rekindled and that the transfer speculation of this summer was all an elaborate ruse concocted by the evil Ramon Calderon and his underlings at Marca.
United could retain the league, they could retain the European Cup, they could score 26 goals past Hull City without reply and be invited to compete in a celestial match in the sky against footballing greats of yesteryear, but Ronaldo will still want to play for Real Madrid because that is his dream.
So next summer the thing will start all over again. Ronaldo will refuse to be drawn on his future, Calderon will make sneering references to "problems between the player and the club", Sir Alex Ferguson will defend "the boy" amid patronising remarks about his head "being turned" by Real's filthy lucre and whichever pneumatically-chested beauties the Portuguese winger happens to be siring at the time will be flouncing all over the front pages of the British tabloids once again.
Don't say you haven't been warned.
- - -
After eventually growing tired of watching videos of freakish female body-builders strutting their stuff on YouTube yesterday, ED decided to check out the opening fixtures of the Olympic women's football tournament.
The women's game has come on leaps and bounds since Sky Sports' Andy Gray and Richard Keys were reduced to a fit of hysterics while discussing a particularly shambolic goalmouth scramble in a mid-1990s women's FA Cup final, and ED was thoroughly entertained by what it saw.
Barring the odd wildly shanked shot and demented goalkeeping foray, the matches bore striking similarities to the men's game, particularly in an age when squeakily-voiced men with long hair and a bewilderingly low pain threshold are increasingly the norm.
There were shocks aplenty on the tournament's opening day as well, with Canada recording their first ever Olympic win against Argentina and reigning champions the USA losing 2-0 to Norway after conceding twice inside the first four minutes.
It was in the Brazil-Germany game, though, that ED's interest was most notably piqued.
An eventful game finished 0-0, but what really caught ED's eye was the performance of Brazilian number 10 Marta, who is widely considered to be the best women's player in the world and possesses a left foot deft enough to perform minor brain surgery.
At one moment during yesterday's game she flicked the ball past the German right-back with the outside of her left foot before whipping in a peach of a cross that her team-mate Cristiane diverted over the crossbar from six yards with what appeared to be her face.
And that disparity in quality is the beauty of women's football.
In the men's game rubbish players are just very occasionally rubbish and will spend most of their time pulling off a passable impression of a half-decent player, whereas brilliant players can go for weeks on end without doing anything remotely eye-catching, thereby providing opinionated pub bores with plenty of ammunition for sweeping "so-and-so is so inconsistent yah" or "so-and-so is massively over-rated yah" statements.
But in women's football, rubbish players are rubbish and brilliant players are brilliant pretty much all the time. Every time Marta gets the ball, you genuinely expect her to shrug off five opposition defenders before curling the ball into the top corner from 45 yards with her left buttock - something which is made all the more likely by the fact the goalkeeper looks as comfortable gathering crosses as she would be gathering live grenades.
- - -
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Next week there will be a solution. We've given ourselves time to think things over well. We're not close, nor far from reaching a deal, nor somewhere in between." The agent of Valencia midfielder David Silva, on the chances of his client signing a new contract. Good to have that cleared up then.
TALKING POINT: The comments board was positively dripping with bile yesterday, as ED invited nominations for the worst manager in Premier League history.
Paul Jewell (g_hine), Rafael Benitez (mrsims150), Christian Gross (craig.washington), Peter Reid (iansanderson197), Roy Evans (kevin1985kane), Mike Walker (andywalker269), Jacques Santini (jamieasims), Graeme Souness (marcus7aurelio), Alain Perrin (risker15), Sammy Lee (jay8my) and Mick McCarthy (geordieprince1) were all put forward, while lordofjape served up a veritable smorgasbord of managerial misfits in the form of Egil Olsen, Stuart Gray, Steve Wigley, Les Reed, Paul Sturrock and Howard Wilkinson.
Today - Your thoughts on Mr Ronaldo. Glad he's staying? Wish he was going? And is he a deceitful, money-grabbing mercenary or simply a man with a dream? Don't hold back...
COMING UP: Live scoring of Olympic men's football from 10:00 BST, featuring Brazil v Belgium, Ivory Coast v Argentina, and hosts China v New Zealand.
Plus Transfer Talk and live coverage of both the fourth Test from The Oval and golf's US PGA Championship on a day positively bursting out of its undersized pants with sporting action.
doubt its a first post, but you never know!
From andyc147 on Thu Aug 07 09:03AMMaybe now that cronaldo is staying Mr Smurf Jude can help him locate his spur
Have a lovely day everyone
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 07 09:04AMWho is James Carr ?
From arttidesco on Thu Aug 07 09:05AMyour right, you know it realy has just put it all of for another year, it's good to see him stay from a neutrals poit of view but we will all just get fed up with it again next year.
From kev_tech2003 on Thu Aug 07 09:05AMi watched the Brazil v Germany games yesterday, i dont think womens football has come on at all, their still utter garbage.
only watched the game coz i had 20 on Brazil to win.........gutted!!From andyc147 on Thu Aug 07 09:09AMhey ED what about bruce rioch you didnt put him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that was a great shout
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:13AMgreetings & salutations e.d. bile~drippers, hope thursday treats everyone well.
at first, i was hoping cronaldo would bolt for madrid and potentially weaken manchester, but the more i read the comments from rouge diablo supporters on eurosport, the more delight i take in his return. i don't think i can recall the best player on a team being as unpopular with the fanbase than mr. hair-product, it's going to be a treat to watch them suffer through another campaign with a squad most of their fans aren't very fond of, kind of like chelsea syndrome ~ love the results, not so enamored with the football. if liverpool can't steal a title, that will have to be the consolation prize!
From jcpotvin on Thu Aug 07 09:15AMronaldo doesnt care about football anymore. he could pick any woman up from sarkozy's wife to robbie fowler. he just likes his life as multi-millionaire spender
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:16AMjcpotvin the best liverpools' consolation prize will be the sacking of benitez
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:19AMif i thought sacking benitez would help the club, i'd be all in favor, but he's an asset, not a liability. i'm not sure why the supporters of other clubs are so eager to see us sack the manager, but it's good to know the red shirt still inspires a little animosity among the rest of the epl supporters.
From jcpotvin on Thu Aug 07 09:24AMwow looks like a pretty barren thread. ED have u been banning people again. naughty.
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:25AMi'm not a cronaldo fan, risker, but i think he could do better than robbie fowler, as handsome a man as the 'anfield-poacher-king' is (and always will be), i think cr7 and totti would make a much more sensible couple ~ pastel 'miami vice' leisure suits for everyone!!!
From jcpotvin on Thu Aug 07 09:28AMTalking of youtube...
I realise that there are a few persons across the pond who know what they're talking about, but...
search for "huckerby on KRON" and you will see just how much your average sports journalist in USA actually knows about football.
It's hilarious! Whilst being a Norwich fan, I do not believe that Huckerby scored the greatest goal ever, but for some reason, the Yanks are keen to impress how good their new signing is... Classic
From g_hine on Thu Aug 07 09:29AMjc benitez keeps rotating pointlessly. when someone plays well u give him the next game. the fact that u dropped torres for those draws was killer u could have lost ur CL spot.
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:30AMHi I am a united fan.SAF as much as I respect him,he has made the wrong decision.This Ronaldo does not have his heart with united and he has only used united for the past 5 years to mould him and now wants to leave.SAF should not keep a player that will be bad for the dressing room because players like Giggs,Neville,Scholes and Brown have been at united their whole careers and they love the club with a deep passion.They will take offence to him playing but not with his heart at the club.It will hurt the team spirit and can course problems in the season.He Ronaldo should be told to @#$% off and never put his foot back at united.
Roland
From rolandlundall on Thu Aug 07 09:30AMhandsome HA! and anyway tooti's injured so he couldnt forfill ronaldo's needs ;)
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:32AMg_hine the man's insane!!! legend!!! lol "ermmm errr....huck...hucku..." obviously a @#$%
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:35AMhi jc, see how long it takes for me to make my keyboard joke for the 5th time today lol.
Id rather see ronaldo stay i think he brings alot to the EPL and seems to have softened up old fergie.
From jay8my on Thu Aug 07 09:35AMhello all - good talking point Ed by the way - this is an ongoing saga that as you mentioned will never end - as cronaldo has his heart set on playing RM. I think a lot of his cry boy antics and all the rest come down to his immaturity; I know at that age I would not have dealt very well with the "best in the world" tag, and having money thrown at me left right and centre - (Im sure I wouldnt be as well balanced as I am today ;) ) that said in his defence, he is still a little @#$% - I still cant get over what he did to his own Man U team mate (even if they werent playing together for the game) when portugal played England and he had rooney sent off pretty much - just goes to show what sort of little man he really is. I too find it amusing JC that he is almost as unpopular among the sc ummers as he is with us!
Im hoping that there will be a media released crying session complaining about "fan support" coming up in the coming weeks!
From kantong_wokster on Thu Aug 07 09:36AMI hate the fact Imhearin Ronaldo is sayin he is atayin now. aye thats it, he's decided he still wants to play for Man U.
He wants to play for real and thats up to him. Man U wont sell and now Real wont buy so he;'s no choice.
Man U fans can stop all the talk of why would he want to play for a lesser team. they aint and he supports them!
what a boring day!
From sav46e on Thu Aug 07 09:39AMif you say so, risker, but i never thought the decaf coffees from ewertun were ever going to catch us, ditto with the bad guys from villa, 11 points clear of 5th is a pretty comfortable margin, no?
From jcpotvin on Thu Aug 07 09:39AMHa Ha , Huckerbys a legend!!! lol
From andyc147 on Thu Aug 07 09:40AMthe press are probably gonna be out of stories but they'll think up something. messi to hull or whatever
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:41AMIve just realised somethin. Who gives a flying f uck about Ronaldo!
From sav46e on Thu Aug 07 09:43AMby the way risker - I dont think he could have Sarkozy's wife - she has a thing for "powerful men" (quote unquote) - not cry babies who earn too much money than they can handle! And apparently looks arent high on her priorities either - after all sarkozy looks like a rabid little garden gnome in a suit. ;)
From kantong_wokster on Thu Aug 07 09:44AMhi kantong sam,
i agree what he did to rooney was a joke, but i think hes a different player now. Hes put on about 4 stone for a start. He is a typical man utd number 7, who never copies the player that has worn it before, but bring their own style and own game and impelment it into the man utd structer. Im no man utd fan im a mighty gooner, but he hardly scores against us anyway. So not too fussed.From jay8my on Thu Aug 07 09:46AMHe's probably going to screw up like Michael Owen if he goes to Real Madrid, after one season, he's probably coming back to Newcastle or something.
From ryanho0001 on Thu Aug 07 09:46AMg'morning j, i'm sure you won't have to wait long.
yo kw, whaddup? i agree cronaldo has a lot to deal with at a young age, but i also agree that he's a tee-2v-eh-tee, so i'm a little torn. it's hard to feel sympathy for anyone who grooms themselves to that degree, doesn't do a lot for the masculine image of world football, especially here in the u.s.; there are boy bands with more "street cred".
From jcpotvin on Thu Aug 07 09:47AMsav46e - every newspaper in the world, real madrid, man utd, sir alex ferguson etc etc etc
From jay8my on Thu Aug 07 09:47AMyeh i suppose kantong, how could she fall for the guy he must have got her drunk, after all he is a wine and vodka specialist ;)
From risker15 on Thu Aug 07 09:50AM
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