A LITTLE LOCAL DIFFICULTY
Alex Ferguson, Bob Paisley, Ernst Happel, Jock Stein, César Luis Menotti, Helenio Herrera, Alf Ramsey, Herbert Chapman, Valeriy Lobanovskyi, Bela Guttman, Vittorio Pozzo, Graham Taylor. Some great football managers there. But if you were to ask the Fiver who was the greatest of all, you’d only get one answer: João Saldanha. He was the man who built Brazil’s 1970 World Cup-winning side, but never got to see the job through to completion after accusing Pelé of going blind, arguing viciously and stubbornly with the country’s tinpot dictator over team selection and chasing after his predecessor with a loaded pistol, having taken excessive umbrage at some mild criticism in the papers. Saldanha stood accused of being thin-skinned and emotionally unstable, the fact he had once been a football journalist perhaps the most damning evidence of all. He was dismissed and replaced by Mario Zagallo, and the rest is history. A hot-headed failed journalist, then. The Fiver loves him very much.
So it’s nice to see that the sharpshooting spirit of Saldanha – who also once unloaded a pistol into the sky during an argument with a goalkeeper he had long suspected of match-fixing – lives on in Brazilian football. For last weekend it all kicked off during a regional match near Belo Horizonte between Brumadinho and Amantes da Bola, when players of the latter team, incensed at decisions made by referee Gabriel Murta, set about the hapless official in the physical style. Murta hot-footed it to the dressing room, though he hadn’t turned tail. A couple of minutes later, he re-emerged packing heat, his dead eye trained on one player whose kicks and punches had been delivered with a particularly robust efficiency.
Murta – a police officer by day, you may or may not be surprised to hear – was thankfully restrained by one of his linesmen and so had to satisfy himself with a bit of pointing and let-me-at-him playground posturing. Like Saldanha before him, questions have been asked about the average ambient temperature of Murta’s noggin; accordingly he is to be sent to a Minas Gerais Football Federation-approved quack for bonce assessment. However, local referee chief Giuliano Bozzano is standing by his man, despite the whole thing having been caught on camera. “I don’t want to rush into anything,” he said today, with a sigh as he reluctantly hauled his feet off the desk. “At the moment it happened he’s opted for getting his gun because in his view it was a question of controlling a situation.” If only Howard Webb had thought of this before the 2010 World Cup final.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It should be noted that the player’s hiring met all expectations with regard to marketing returns, increasing ticket and shirt sales for the club as well as attracting a number of partners. Ronaldinho’s recruitment also showed that Fluminense are capable of attracting the greatest players in world football” – after a nine-game spell in which Ronaldinho failed to score, failed to provide any assists and got booed by his own fans, suits at Brazilian club Fluminense show what heartwarming Modern Football is all about after cutting him loose.
FIVER LETTERS
“In response to Liverpool fan Ian Tasker’s letter on his club’s DNA being in his genes (yesterday’s Fiver letters), does that mean all the faithful Magpies have a pair of these?” – Nick Trim.
“I can’t be the only person curious about Ian’s ancestry. Is he a modern-day football Heracles? And if so, did Liverpool FC play the role of Zeus or Alcmene in his conception?” – Thomas Reimer.
“I think it’s safe to assume that Yevhen Konoplyanka (yesterday’s Bits and Bobs) has never heard that Peter Crouch has a GTFABM? Saying that, Crouch is only 2.03m, not the 2.5m Konoplyanka seems to think classes you as a BM these days. He should also be careful that he doesn’t upset 1.9m Sevilla FC team-mate Vincente Iborra, who has a good 14cm over Konoplyanka’s 1.76m frame” – Ben North.
“The link to The Fiver was in the ‘Football – Popular’ section of Big Website yesterday. Who on earth thought anybody would look for it in there?” – Colum Farrelly.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is: Colum Farrelly.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
We locked Jonathan Wilson in a glass case of emotion and forced him to talk about José Mourinho’s football philosophy.
Then there are more fun and games in South America, where an Argentinian player celebrates scoring by jumping in an ambulance, hammering away at the horn and getting booked for his troubles. And then to Denmark, where Esbjerg’s Nicki Bille Nielsen opts for the calmer celebration of necking a fan’s pint.
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BITS AND BOBS
Chelsea manager José Mourinho has openly criticised the desire and commitment of his players. “Mentally I can say I am a serial champion,” he crowed. “I can be five or 10 years without winning a title, but I will still be a serial champion in my approach and my attitude. This is the problem we have at this moment. We have champions, but not serial champions.”
Turkish referee Deniz Coban interrupted Kasimpasa manager Riza Calimbay’s live post-match TV chat to say sorry for wrongly awarding an injury-time penalty to opponents Rizespor in the 1-1 league draw. “I apologise to you, to the Kasimpasa team to the Rizespor team and to the Turkish Football Federation as well as the refereeing committee and have to consider my future after this,” he declared. “Do not talk about leaving the profession, the game needs more people like you,” parped Calimbay in return.
Jack Warner has been banned for life by Fifa’s ethics committee and described as a “key player” involved in illegal payments. “Given what is happening in Zurich with [Sepp] Blatter I wish to say that there is no such thing as coincidence,” he snarked.
Former Rotherham boss Steve Evans isn’t letting the small matter of being a free agent get in the way of his third-personning. “Steve Evans had to make a decision for Steve Evans,” he purred. “It won’t be a secret to many people that my phone has been quite lively since yesterday.”
After being together for just three months, Russian outfit Anzhi Makhachkala have booked coach Yuri Semin a table for one at local fusion restaurant Doo-Won. “We analysed the situation closely concerning how Anzhi had played in the first 10 games,” sniffed a club statement.
Wolfsburg’s Klaus Allofs has revealed the scale of coin Kevin de Bruyne is now getting at Manchester City. “When a player comes to you with an offer from a club willing to pay him four times as much, then you’ve got to consider what’s going through his head,” trousered Allofs.
Bournemouth striker Callum Wilson has become the club’s third key player to suffer serious knee-gah this season and faces at least six months out.
And Wayne Rooney insists he didn’t ask Lord Ferg if he could leave Manchester United in 2013. “I went in to see him and just said: ‘If you are not going to play me, it might be better for me to move on,’” trilled the striker. “Then, all of a sudden, it was all over the press that I had put a transfer request in, which I never did. I don’t know what happened and why that came out that way.” Hmm …
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Get your hands on (home) tickets to Bournemouth v Watford in the Premier League!
STILL WANT MORE?
Man-baby Catnip, David Bryant’s Bowls and Actuarial Real Analyst V all star in David Squires’ latest offering: Fifa, made in Zurich.
Dominic Fifield heads to Germany for a chin-wag with England U-19 and Borussia Mönchengladbach full-back Mandela Egbo.
Villarreal are top of the shop in Spain right now and it matters, OK, reports Sid Lowe.
Anthony Martial gets the treatment in this week’s edition of the Gallery. Next up: we want your Son Heung-mins.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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