There used to be a time, not so long ago, when foreign football teams touring Australia would lure us with their Brad Pitts, Will Smiths and George Clooneys yet when they touched down on Australian tarmacs the cabin doors would open and out would come, blinking in the light like shameful secrets freed from attic chains, their Rob Schneiders, Brendan Frasers and Adam Sandlers.
Thankfully, those days are gone. The cashed-up Australian market has spoken. So tonight, as part of a three-team International Champions Cup, Real Madrid play Manchester City at the hallowed Melbourne Cricket Ground — the city’s Colosseum, Sagrada Familia and Westminster Abbey rolled into one — and all the stars are on show. That means Karim Benzema, Sergio Ramos, David Silva, Isco, Toni Kroos, Yaya Toure, Raheem Sterling and, yes, Cristiano Ronaldo — a man whose every move in Melbourne in the lead up is breathlessly recounted in the press (Ronaldo gets a haircut! Ronaldo’s wearing ripped designer jeans! Ronaldo stocks up on dietary supplements!).
Considering such stellar talent, and the fact I have a media pass to an event that costs punters up to $220 to attend, it seems churlish in the extreme to say I’m not especially excited about seeing the game, and I doubt I would have bothered had I had to pay. Besides the fact I support neither team, it’s an exhibition game and, by definition, nothing is riding on it which robs it of drama and context, key ingredients, I feel, in the enjoyment of sport.
And it’s not as if both teams will throw the kitchen sink at it, given they have more to lose than gain. What’s a significant injury to Ronaldo or Silva worth against a victory they’ll have forgotten about by the time they’re on the plane home to Madrid or Manchester?
So it is with mixed feelings I jump on my trusty treadly for the 6km cycle to the MCG. And no sooner do I get started in the dark than a steady soft rain begins to fall, pattering my helmet with a sweetly melancholy staccato and creating a watery static in the weak beam of my headlight. Later I’ll pass an electronic billboard featuring a photo of Toure, the crest of Man City, and the slogan “Melbourne’s Our Kind of City”, and it’ll appear to me to be an obvious reference to the weather.
Usually the streets surrounding the ’G ahead of a big match hum like the bellies of cicadas on a summer’s evening; tonight it’s subdued. In the rain it’s heads down, hoods up, and there’s not a lot of chat among the punters traipsing in. Not until I pull up outside the stadium, and lock up beside a statue of Shane Warne about to let one rip (that’s not a baked beans quip by the way; Statue Warnie is about to bowl a leg-break), do I see any sign of a crowd. Standing outside Gate 1 is a human field of wheat swaying as one ahead of the imminent arrival of the Real and City team buses.
Elsewhere, men, women and children circle the ’G looking for their entry gate while many others brave the rain to queue at the merchandise tents for their chance to purchase scarves, T-shirts, and $110 replica shirts. Judging by the five-deep crush of people at the Real counter — as opposed to two at both the City and Roma counters — the Spanish giants are the main drawcard tonight. Last Friday, as further proof of that, some 10,000 fans paid $10 each to watch Real train. That said, there are plenty of other jerseys in the crowd, though I don’t spot an A-League one. It’s Arsenal, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and a large number of Liverpool strips. Clearly, a lot of people are here to wish Raheem Sterling all the best on his new endeavour.
I get inside just in time to see, on the big screen, a young couple in the crowd, both of whom are wrapped in plastic like Laura Palmer though, thankfully, in a much healthier state. With the camera on them, and a boom mike over him, the young man proposes to the young woman and she mouths “Oh My God” (which is the catch-all response these days to anything from finding a bug in your tea to hearing that an escaped jaguar has broken into your parents’ house and eaten your mother’s face) and “But I’m wearing a [rain] poncho!” She’d imagined this happening differently, clearly, but what else can she do, with tens of thousands watching in the stadium. To great cheers she says “yes!”
After checking in I leave the media room and head to the concourse which is swirling with fans. Alongside the concourse are bars full of punters, many of whom seem to keep their seats during the game, content to continue drinking and watch the game on the many TVs. Perhaps they don’t realise the game is on free-to-air TV and they could have done this at home? Or at a real pub.
For what it’s worth, I don’t hear any football songs, or see a sizeable collective of Real of City supporters sitting together in a bay, and to me it feels more like a theatre crowd, or a cinema crowd. Which isn’t to say they’re not all fans of the game, I’m sure they are (at least here, away from the corporate boxes). It’s just that there’s little sense of passion, that the result matters to anyone. And that’s fine, I suppose. Why not watch some of the best players in the world go through their paces? It’s not every day Ronaldo’s playing down the road. But when I read the next day a newspaper report saying the atmosphere was akin to that at a big domestic football final I wonder if I was at the same game.
From the concourse, let alone the nose-bleeds, the pitch — which, if you were to compare it to a billiard table, would be the one at the local pub that has had more than its share of beer and blood spilt over it — is some distance away. It is a cricket ground after all, and a huge one at that. So it’s on the big screens we get the best view of the players warming up; Gareth Bale with his samurai top knot, a mahogany-coloured Ronaldo in gloves, and diamond earrings which reflect the floodlights and the adoration. And here’s Ramos, socks up, so it’s impossible to see if he’s wearing Man Utd shin guards. I watch the drills and see the whip-quick snap of the passes and am reminded there will be some talent on show tonight.
After the players return to their dressing rooms I see an Ignatius J. Reilly lookalike in head-to-toe Liverpool livery tucking into a sauce-splashed pie. He’s eating like there’s nobody watching. Though reluctant to enter into his feeding zone I vox-pop him, asking him his thoughts on Raheem Sterling. “I wished him all the best on Tuesday night when he tripped on the ball and fell over,” he says, referencing Sterling’s first touch against Roma, “but I shut up a minute later when he scored. But I’m glad he’s gone.” Sterling will be booed all night. Perhaps Ignatius here is part of the explanation.
The players soon return to the field to the kind of cheer you’d hear when circus performers enter the big top and the players line up as if there’ll be anthems. Thankfully there aren’t, not even a rendition of Abba’s ‘Money, Money, Money’, or even a pretend anthem like the Champions League one that players are supposed to listen to reverently as if it means anything.
City are playing in what could be black or a deep, deep blue, with Joe Hart, having surely lost a bet, dressed in Tweety Bird yellow from head to toe. Real, meantime, are in grey, as if the bod responsible for washing Real’s white strip accidentally threw in a pair of Ronaldo’s new, black skinny jeans and they’ve run, depressing a timeless classic.
The game begins and immediately you get a sense that while the tackles will lack sting the players are happy to chance their arm a little, to showboat for the crowd. They must have got a memo after the Real-Roma 0-0 borefest on Tuesday. Ronaldo, in particular, seems in a generous mood, and over the first 60 minutes he gives us his repertoire of step-overs, cut backs, sashays, pouts and what not. Up the other end Sterling is playing a lone striker role and he looks busy, always looking to make a run in behind.
Soon enough one such run isn’t in vain but he passes up a shooting opportunity on his left foot to cut inside onto his right. By the time he’s ready to hit it he’s shouldered off the ball and he goes down. Penalty? Don’t think so. But I’m more interested in what A$102 million buys you these days. A player who’s not two-footed if that’s any evidence.
In the 11th minute there’s a heavy collision between Toure and Real keeper Keylor Navas. Toure goes down hard, bringing to mind a speeding giraffe surprised by a low branch. But he gets up eventually and shakes hands with Navas confirming that, yes, this is a friendly in all respects. As play continues, and Silva begins to exert some influence, I overhear a spectator in a City shirt tell his mate that “generally you’ll find most people in Manchester go for City over United”. The mate nods, rather than ask for a citation, and we move on, happily accepting what we’re seeing and hearing as gospel. Why spoil a party?
At the 21st minute — by which time new City signing Fabian Delph has limped off — Real open the scoring, with Benzema doing well to hook in a cross with a first-time volley, beating Hart on his right. Three minutes later the crowd can say they’ve seen the great Ronaldo score a goal. Bringing down a Kroos through ball with a feather touch he instinctively tries to lob Hart and though the keeper parries there’s still enough on it. As the crowd shows its appreciation Ronaldo executes his goal celebration, Narcissus Exultant, but for once it feels like he’s just playing to the crowd, giving them what they want, instead of just being a knob.
As the half winds down — and a Mexican wave begins inside the ground — we get two quick goals: a third Real goal, to Pepe, then City’s first and last, to Toure, who converts a penalty that should never have been.
The second half is less interesting, though the rain has finally stopped. Real have a fair goal ruled out for an offside that wasn’t, then Ronaldo, through on goal, tries and fails to beat Hart with a tricky dink shot after a step-over. His fun and games end shortly after when the raised boot of a Real defender hits him very high – dangerously high — on the inside thigh. As he doubles over and grimaces I hear a snatch of Channel Nine commentary coming from one of the TVs in a bar: “He’ll be feeling that tonight,” says commentator Michael Bridges in his Tyneside accent. Someone will, at least, I think. I don’t imagine Ronaldo has any shortage of people willing to address his intimate regions.
In the 64th minute — even before Real put the game to bed with a fourth goal — both coaches ring the changes. Toure goes off, Sterling, Ronaldo, Ramos too. Sensing it’s all over bar the long trek home fans in the upper deck begin launching paper planes. Some plummet, as if piloted by stones, but others are better designed and drift over the sea of spectators — incredibly, 99,385 of them — towards the playing arena. When some look like not only making the outfield but the actual pitch the crowd beneath them rides their journey and some of the night’s biggest cheers come when two in particular come within metres of crossing the whitewash. By the end of the game I begin counting the paper planes on the grass and stop when it’s clear there are considerably more than 200.
The whistle goes and I head for the gates and my bike and wonder about what I’d just watched. There were some nice passages of play, astute demonstrations of world class skill. And there too, in the flesh, were players — football’s equivalent of Hollywood stars — we can usually only marvel at on television. It was an occasion and a chance to perve on the world’s best. But the game had none of the passion and celebration I saw in January when Asian Cup matches were held down the road at AAMI Park. Lowly Palestine and Jordan, for instance, make the stands crackle one night yet you could have purchased all 22 players on the pitch with the money in the consoles of Real’s luxury cars.
Unlocking my bike I see a mate, Greg, leaving the ground with his teenage son, Charlie, who’s dribbling a football on the wet grass. Charlie is wearing a City top and I ask him if he’s disappointed about the result. No, he says. Then Greg explains that three nights earlier Charlie was wearing a Real shirt. And that he’s actually a Liverpool supporter.
I mull that one over as I cycle home in the dark.
