Some memories from 2011.

Yesterday, appropriately enough, I read Julian Barnes’ “The sense of an ending”. Among many things it deals with is the diluting of memory.

One character quotes Patrick Lagrange when explaining history “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation”

Sport it can be argued is the counterpoint to this, though not perhaps the inadequacies of documentation bit. We all remember down to the smallest of details where we were when the most seismic of sporting shifts occurred. A moment shared by millions reduces itself into the most personal of experiences and as 2011 ticks over to the sporting monolith that will be 2012, here’s a few that crossed my mind.

To those of a red persuasion each time you wonder up the great citadel of Old Trafford melts into one memory. A great throng inches its way up past the swag sellers and sadly now, more and more walk past the fanzine sellers who bellow out their names. I’m proud of my own contribution to one such fanzine however small and it is one match day experience that should be treasured and protected.

Last February during the derby day the nerves that beset me were such that if the statue of Sir Matt Busby was a lot lower I may have planted a kiss at his feet a la Oliver Reed in Gladiator. Bring me fortune indeed.

I spent the next hour or so in a perpetual state of nervousness not helped by Wayne Rooney’s ineptitude. I was pestering a friend of mine to the right that he had to come off. His touch was wayward, his passing was abysmal and I failed to see what he was offering the game. Then it happened.

There is a millisecond after something extraordinary happens in a stadium where everyone confirms it did just happen before the carnage ensues. To be in line with Rooney that day as he arched his body back and hung in the air was to be blessed. To see the ball slam emphatically into the net as it did and to share in the collective ecstasy that followed was to know you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment. Unless you wore blue and were stationed to my top left. Apparently they gained some measure of revenge lately but alas, my short term memory is imperfect.

I think I have successfully managed to tell everyone I know or everyone I have ever had any communication with that during the summer I covered my first and so far only match as a football writer. Forgive me but starting out at Manchester United v FC Barcelona at FedEx field in Washington was a little thrilling.

I dressed up and stayed quiet the first day as Sir Alex and Patrice Evra took questions. I leaned in a bit too much as Paddy Crerand and James Cooper from Sky Sports were discussing transfers though. Xavi Hernandez shook my hand as he left their press conference. It was an honour despite him torturing me at Wembley in May. Dimitar Berbatov raised a hand in an apology when a stray shot nearly took my head off in training. I wish it hit me.

Gary Neville told me to sod off when I asked him for five minutes of his time while I was ringside as Fergie and his hairdryer launched a seek and destroy missile at a Daily Mail scribe. It was nice to see at half-time too that I can take a better penalty than Kobe Byrant.

The day after the match I sat in the impressive surroundings of Nationals Park to watch the home team beat the Mets. It is easy to see why some of the best sports writing is about baseball; there is a slow brooding intimacy to the sport. Jason Werth was having a hard time during the game and during the season and wasn’t being helped by one spectator in front of him. He didn’t convey the look of a man ignoring the heckler well and when he reflexively plucked one ball out of the air in the fifth inning he marched towards the bullpen and the spectator and had eyes only for him. The heckler averted his elsewhere.

A misty night in November under the floodlights at Thomand Park will forever leave its mark too. The terrace moved as one that day as Munster churned through those forty phases. It was like watching a horror movie at times as some watched through their fingers fearful of the seemingly inevitable knock on that would end the game. When the ball was finally worked to O’Gara he still had it all to do but that red man writes his own script and Thomand yelled as one when the ball split the posts.

That’s just a few memories, most definitely imperfect and doubtlessly inadequately documented but its how I remember them anyway. 2012 will have to go some to dilute them.

Stuck in the middle with who?

“He can play there” has replaced “No value” or “I’m not getting into that” as the catchphrase during the Boss’ weekly press conferences.

Phil Jones can play there, Wayne Rooney too. Ji-Sung Park can play there while Ryan Giggs now calls it home. Yes it’s the middle of the United midfield otherwise known as the hole to be filled by any fit player in red who may possess the ability to trap a ball and occasionally pass it.

The mere notion that an injury to Tom Cleverley would cause a ripple of panic amongst reds would have seemed ludicrous last season. That is not a slight on the youngster who has displayed dynamism and a committed intelligence in every one of his performances so far in this campaign.

That Cleverley has emerged central to United’s game-plan is not a knock on the slightly altered way we are playing either. The ponderous passing of last season was swept away at the beginning of this in a tide of devilish triangles and physical pressing. There was pace to everything United did and a brashness not seen since ’08. Cleverley was often the tip of the triangles until a crude challenge from Kevin Davies put him out of the game, and knocked United’s rhythm.

The holes started appearing. The upgraded Anderson reverted back to the leaden one footed model we are all so accustomed with. Darren Fletcher has had to fight serious illness and with it weight loss and his form has suffered accordingly. The Scotsman has never been the all action figure that reds have yearned for anyway. He is a shuttler in the Ramieres mould. A man capable of covering a vast amount of space but ultimately one incapable of dominating in a two man midfield.

Michael Carrick seems unable to start a season in any kind of form. Sir Alex has mentioned before that the Geordie hits his stride in the winter and we need him to. He remains a polarizing figure amongst reds. Both sides are too extreme in their arguments. Carrick is a facilitator, a delivery system between attack and defence with the positional poise to protect his centre halves. If he gets over his autumnal blues then his restoration should be the starting point.

Then it becomes a numbers game. The sizzling form of Javier Hernandez has demanded that two strikers play but do United have the personal now for a two man midfield? Even if the Dutchman who shall not be named landed at Old Trafford it is difficult to imagine the midfield would have been transported into a Barcelona style carousel. It simply doesn’t work like that.

Perhaps that is the problem. Barca are the benchmark and we have to eclipse them yet the feeling is we have to eclipse them by playing like them. We can’t. Their philosophy is their own just as ours is. Barcelona at their best cut you with a thousand passes, United at their best need only three. It’s a high intensity, high pressure specialist way of playing. It requires a dominant general.

We have been raised under Fergie on a staple diet of Keane and Robson and maybe despite the incredible success enjoyed since, we have never really recovered from the loss of the former. The double of ’08 was formed off the back of the best centre half pairing in the world and the goalscoring of the best player in the world. Three were deployed in the middle, the passing of Scholes, the positioning of Carrick and the lungs of Hargreaves held the fort and got the ball as quickly as possible to the devastating trio upfront. In the absence of two of that trio and with the fading of that central defensive partnership, cracks have emerged.

People can point to last season’s success as proof that the middle cannot possibly be as weak as it is perceived and perhaps they would have a point. Having to continually rely on another Indian summer from Ryan Giggs though is surely not an option United can continue to countenance.

Perhaps Cleverley will continue his progress and United will join the latest trend across Europe and plum for a diminutive playmaker. It’s a snarling beast we need though. One mixed with skill and stamina with balls to boot. Who is that to be? Who knows, but we will know we have him when the gaffer stops saying “He can play there”.

This article first appeared in Red News fanzine : http://www.rednews.co.uk/ 

Time for Real to deliver a Barcelona moment.

The late novelist David Foster Wallace once wrote an essay on Rodger Federer entitled “Rodger Federer as a religious experience”. In it he defines what he describes as Federer moments. He explains “These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you’re O.K.”

In the midst of Barcelona’s five goal trouncing of Real Madrid last November Wayne Rooney admitted that his wife ran into his living room to see what the commotion was about. Rooney was on his feet clapping; having a Barcelona moment.

We have all been there. No side has delivered moments of mesmerising motion with such regularity as the current European champions. They have done so despite their eternal foes Real Madrid figuratively and sometimes literally, poking them in the eye.

Tonight though, might very well see Real and Jose Mourinho landing a knockout blow in the fight for the La Liga title. Should Real win, they will go six points clear of Barcelona with a game in hand. A possible nine point gap should not be insurmountable at this stage of a season but it will be given Real’s devastating form and the vast chasm that separates the top two from the rest in the league.

Mourinho’s side are experiencing second season syndrome under the Portuguese but it is the sensational kind. They are on a winning streak that now stretches to fifteen games. Hardly any have been close. Real’s matches are now defined by a wave of white shirts descending on the opposition with an almost violent glee.

Cristiano Ronaldo was often called upon last season to pull Real out of the fire, now he is merely the tip of the sword. Xabi Alonso is controlling games from his quarterback station. Karim Benzema said this week that Mourinho has turned him into a lion. Sami Khedira is flourishing; Gonzalo Higuain is scoring and Real frankly, have been better than anyone on the continent this season including Barca.

The Catalans have been brilliant at home, mediocre away. A perfect Camp Nou record has been balanced with only two wins away from there, both by single goals. Their dependence on Lionel Messi is starting to mirror Real and Ronaldo last season.

That said, they remain the benchmark and in a lot of ways remain Real’s Everest. It has been three and a half years since Madrid won a clasico. They have been humbled in a few of those. Barca’s possession game is a nut that Real have yet to crack and it will be fascinating to see just what Mourinho has in store tonight.

Everyone knows how Barca play but hardly any can stop it. Despite Pep Guardiola experimenting with three at the back this season, the fundamental way they play has not changed. Their two major summer signings Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez are a tad more direct and the latest star to roll off of the La Masia production line; Isaac Cuenca is also more of a classic winger. But they are merely strings added to the bow. The blueprint has not altered; it is up to Jose to finally crack it.

Last summer yours truly had a personal Barcelona moment. Standing pitchside at FedEx field in Washington, I was mere yards away from Andres Inestia and Xavi as they started pinging the ball to each other. They were soon joined by Sergio Busquets and Jonathan with the unfortunate youngster tasked with the impossible job of trying to win the ball. His effort was astonishing, and in this simple drill the Barcelona success story could be mapped out. Effortless one touch passing and a relentless drive to win the ball back.

Mourinho tried going toe to toe with them last November with ritual humiliation the result. He deployed Pepe as the cat amongst the pigeons in the champion’s league last March only to see the cumbersome centre half sent off and the two legged tie settled in the first.

Real’s assistant manager Aitor Karenka faced the media in Mourinho’s place this week and said they do not need to change anything and he may well be right. Real counter attack better than anyone and should their runners isolate Barcelona’s defenders than it could be a long night in the capital for the champions. That said, Real will need to be quick. When Barca hunt for the ball they do so in packs and high up the field. If however, the first pass is quick and accurate, away from that pack then space will open up, space that Real above all can exploit.

Pep Guardiola likes to spring a surprise in the clasicos and what that could be is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it will be that Barca will sit deeper without the ball. Real need space to power into. Barca could be content to keep the ball and work for a single opening instead of inviting the greatest counter attacking force in the world on them.

Of course many games of this importance are settled by a moment. Genius from Messi, or perhaps a Madrid sending off. There have been many Madrid moments in the recent history between the clubs. Pepe or Ramos being sent off, Mourinho poking Tito Vilanova in the eye. But now is the time for another Madrid moment.

One that will make or jaws drop and eyes protrude and one that has Wayne Rooney clapping in his living room.