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From what criteria do the selectors of the presumably meritorious Man of the Match awards base their selections?
Perhaps a few cases in point might help our analysis, and by so doing illustrate that any such consideration demonstrates more thought and labour than the sainted MOM selectors. The Grand Slam matches this weekend past, the triggers for orgies of media hype and hoopla, surely present cases where the Man of the Match selection needed to approach the Platonic ideal. For the purposes of our study, let us posit that Men of Matches need to demonstrate a visible effect on the run of play, an appeal to the eye as well as the scoresheet. For a player to qualify for this award, he must have made a strong enough display to set himself apart in what has increasingly become, with the influx of corporate monies and the cost of failure, an ever-more regimented, team-based game.
With this interpretation as a starting point, let us examine the Grand Slam matches from this weekend past. In the Liverpool/Chelsea clash, Steven Gerrard was selected as the Man of the Match.
Of course. “World class” and all that. Next.
However, taking nothing away from Gerrard’s performance, which was in many ways one of his most complete of the season, he in no way deserved recognition as the Man of this particular Match. While engaging in plenty of chasing back and closing down, as per the dictates of Rafael Benitez’s system, and also pushing forward on the attack, Gerrard’s telling touches were comparatively scant, the elegant flick on to Dirk Kuyt from which the Dutch striker lashed over the goal while in a good position being one of the few that sticks in the memory.
Is one graceful flick, plenty of bite the tackle, and good runs into the attacking third really what constitutes a Man of the Match performance? Or is the name behind the bottle of champagne the important factor?
Touching it with the needle, that one. Jamie Carragher might well have earned MOM plaudits in an ideal world. His display against Didier Drogba, an in-form striker who has given Carragher fits on virtually every other occasion, was exemplary. For all the excuses about central defenders gone missing and the resultant weakening of Chelsea’s midfield, Drogba, all approximately five billion pounds of muscle and malice, in fact, was in his normal position and surely looking forward to matching up with a player against whom he has had plenty of success in the past.
Instead, he found space in Carragher’s pocket. Handy thing, this not carrying a wallet.
If the MOM selectors insist on selecting an attacking player rather than a defender, a dubious attitude in conflict with the real game of football, but there you go, there was still a better choice than Gerrard in the person of the latest Kop cult hero, Dirk Kuyt. A perpetual motion machine and one-man wrecking crew, Kuyt simply never stops running, always taking up different positions, involving his teammates in the play, coming back to build up attacks and also popping up in good positions when it is time to finish.
A goal in the 4th minute, skillfully turning makeshift central defender Paulo Ferreira inside out before lashing the ball past Petr Cech, makes a start for a strong case for Kuyt as MOM. Endless closing down of the weakened Chelsea back four, pulling defenders out of position, and having two other fine chances to add to his early goal combine to put Kuyt into Man of the Match boots in an ideal selection world.
Some room for disagreement with the Liverpool/Chelsea MOM selection, then. Gerrard played well, but never stood out as having a game-turning effect in the same way that either Carragher or Kuyt did. On to the next match in the so-called Grand Slam, then, where we might see if the Gerrard MOM was a one-off mistake.
United scored a goal from a deflected header, then proceeded to shut up shop for the rest of the match. Had they won, would the scorer of that goal, one Wayne Rooney, have been named MOM? Almost certainly, for precisely the same reason that the eventual winner was selected, because of his name rather than his overall contribution. Thierry Henry’s selection as Man of this Match casts the whole exercise into severe doubt, for other than scoring a match-winning goal in extra-time, Henry did little other than berate his teammates for not placing the ball precisely where he wanted it, engage in his usual visual chastisement of the match officials, and stand around for long stretches while the leather-lunged, enthusiastic Emmanuel Adebayor got on with the work and running for two striker positions.
Ah, but the purists might argue that it is these very moments of individual brilliance, the skill to finish in stoppage time to defeat United and throw the chase for the Premier League title open among four clubs, that make a player worthy of Man of the Match honours.
Bunk and balderdash. Fill in the other common expression starting with the letter “b” at your leisure.
Henry took up a good position for the game-winner, but the skill in that finish was provided by the Eboue cross, placed so precisely that Henry would have had to work to miss it. And the “assist” on the Van Persie equalizer was in fact a missed back-heel flick attempt that was finished by Van Persie’s clever continuing of his back post run. The fact is that while Gerrard might have at least been defensible for recognition as Man of the Match, the selection of Henry for the same honour bordered on the farcical. Wandering about the pitch in disinterested fashion for virtually the entire match then nodding home your teammate’s exquisite cross should not be recognised as any sort of laudable performance. The running, tackling, prompting, and sophisticated display from Cesc Fabregas, or as already noted, the lungs-burning, work-of-two-men display from the indomitable Adebayor were both far superior football exhibitions than that from Thierry Henry. Indeed, Henry’s international compatriot Patrice Evra would have been a better choice as Man of the Match; safe to say that, had United won, he would have been denied the increasingly dubious “honour” just like Cesc and Adebayor were.
Of course, this nonsense has been going on for years, and has increased in frequency with the coming of SkySports and the need to promote football as entertainment rather than an athletic contest. Can’t have the treasured, glory-hunting supporter watching the Man on the Match ceremony and not knowing who the player is, can we? And how are we to make the breathless jester hat brigade sit through strings of commercial appeals before finally recognising the De Facto Corporate Shill of the Match if we don’t pick a “name” player?
Time to recognise the Man of the Match award for what it has become rather than what it should or used to be, not the acknowledgement of a superior footballing display but instead a vehicle for the selling of corporate football to the casual telly consumer…
Perhaps a few cases in point might help our analysis, and by so doing illustrate that any such consideration demonstrates more thought and labour than the sainted MOM selectors. The Grand Slam matches this weekend past, the triggers for orgies of media hype and hoopla, surely present cases where the Man of the Match selection needed to approach the Platonic ideal. For the purposes of our study, let us posit that Men of Matches need to demonstrate a visible effect on the run of play, an appeal to the eye as well as the scoresheet. For a player to qualify for this award, he must have made a strong enough display to set himself apart in what has increasingly become, with the influx of corporate monies and the cost of failure, an ever-more regimented, team-based game.
With this interpretation as a starting point, let us examine the Grand Slam matches from this weekend past. In the Liverpool/Chelsea clash, Steven Gerrard was selected as the Man of the Match.
Of course. “World class” and all that. Next.
However, taking nothing away from Gerrard’s performance, which was in many ways one of his most complete of the season, he in no way deserved recognition as the Man of this particular Match. While engaging in plenty of chasing back and closing down, as per the dictates of Rafael Benitez’s system, and also pushing forward on the attack, Gerrard’s telling touches were comparatively scant, the elegant flick on to Dirk Kuyt from which the Dutch striker lashed over the goal while in a good position being one of the few that sticks in the memory.
Is one graceful flick, plenty of bite the tackle, and good runs into the attacking third really what constitutes a Man of the Match performance? Or is the name behind the bottle of champagne the important factor?
Touching it with the needle, that one. Jamie Carragher might well have earned MOM plaudits in an ideal world. His display against Didier Drogba, an in-form striker who has given Carragher fits on virtually every other occasion, was exemplary. For all the excuses about central defenders gone missing and the resultant weakening of Chelsea’s midfield, Drogba, all approximately five billion pounds of muscle and malice, in fact, was in his normal position and surely looking forward to matching up with a player against whom he has had plenty of success in the past.
Instead, he found space in Carragher’s pocket. Handy thing, this not carrying a wallet.
If the MOM selectors insist on selecting an attacking player rather than a defender, a dubious attitude in conflict with the real game of football, but there you go, there was still a better choice than Gerrard in the person of the latest Kop cult hero, Dirk Kuyt. A perpetual motion machine and one-man wrecking crew, Kuyt simply never stops running, always taking up different positions, involving his teammates in the play, coming back to build up attacks and also popping up in good positions when it is time to finish.
A goal in the 4th minute, skillfully turning makeshift central defender Paulo Ferreira inside out before lashing the ball past Petr Cech, makes a start for a strong case for Kuyt as MOM. Endless closing down of the weakened Chelsea back four, pulling defenders out of position, and having two other fine chances to add to his early goal combine to put Kuyt into Man of the Match boots in an ideal selection world.
Some room for disagreement with the Liverpool/Chelsea MOM selection, then. Gerrard played well, but never stood out as having a game-turning effect in the same way that either Carragher or Kuyt did. On to the next match in the so-called Grand Slam, then, where we might see if the Gerrard MOM was a one-off mistake.
United scored a goal from a deflected header, then proceeded to shut up shop for the rest of the match. Had they won, would the scorer of that goal, one Wayne Rooney, have been named MOM? Almost certainly, for precisely the same reason that the eventual winner was selected, because of his name rather than his overall contribution. Thierry Henry’s selection as Man of this Match casts the whole exercise into severe doubt, for other than scoring a match-winning goal in extra-time, Henry did little other than berate his teammates for not placing the ball precisely where he wanted it, engage in his usual visual chastisement of the match officials, and stand around for long stretches while the leather-lunged, enthusiastic Emmanuel Adebayor got on with the work and running for two striker positions.
Ah, but the purists might argue that it is these very moments of individual brilliance, the skill to finish in stoppage time to defeat United and throw the chase for the Premier League title open among four clubs, that make a player worthy of Man of the Match honours.
Bunk and balderdash. Fill in the other common expression starting with the letter “b” at your leisure.
Henry took up a good position for the game-winner, but the skill in that finish was provided by the Eboue cross, placed so precisely that Henry would have had to work to miss it. And the “assist” on the Van Persie equalizer was in fact a missed back-heel flick attempt that was finished by Van Persie’s clever continuing of his back post run. The fact is that while Gerrard might have at least been defensible for recognition as Man of the Match, the selection of Henry for the same honour bordered on the farcical. Wandering about the pitch in disinterested fashion for virtually the entire match then nodding home your teammate’s exquisite cross should not be recognised as any sort of laudable performance. The running, tackling, prompting, and sophisticated display from Cesc Fabregas, or as already noted, the lungs-burning, work-of-two-men display from the indomitable Adebayor were both far superior football exhibitions than that from Thierry Henry. Indeed, Henry’s international compatriot Patrice Evra would have been a better choice as Man of the Match; safe to say that, had United won, he would have been denied the increasingly dubious “honour” just like Cesc and Adebayor were.
Of course, this nonsense has been going on for years, and has increased in frequency with the coming of SkySports and the need to promote football as entertainment rather than an athletic contest. Can’t have the treasured, glory-hunting supporter watching the Man on the Match ceremony and not knowing who the player is, can we? And how are we to make the breathless jester hat brigade sit through strings of commercial appeals before finally recognising the De Facto Corporate Shill of the Match if we don’t pick a “name” player?
Time to recognise the Man of the Match award for what it has become rather than what it should or used to be, not the acknowledgement of a superior footballing display but instead a vehicle for the selling of corporate football to the casual telly consumer…
