Manchester United Fans Club

First they tried to stop his gymnastic goal celebrations; now his seal dribbling is on the no-no list: poor Nani, the brilliant Portuguese winger who is trying to bring a few rays of Cape Verde sunshine to a cold, grey and increasingly Prussian Premiership winter.

Sadly for him and for us, his amazing agility and old fashioned, Brazilian-style flair is meeting only gruff disapproval from on high. Arsenal certainly didn’t like it, but then they don’t like anything when things are going against them. But that doesn’t stop them rubbing the noses of their opponents in the dirt whenever they score a goal. Why, Thierry Henry was a past master and his example is still followed.

But the Gunners always have been in a league of their own when it comes to hypocrisy. More worrying was the reaction of Alex Ferguson who said he would “have a word” with the Cape Verde islander. Earlier in the season, Fergie told him to curb his somersaults and back flips because of the risk of injury, which probably explains why we were treated to a modified version last Saturday.

You sense that Nani’s free spirit is trying desperately to get out. For all the hype about the EPL, there are precious few players like Nani plying their trade in it. For every flair player, there’s a hundred of what Eric Cantona memorably called “water carriers”. These are the managers’ favourites, the guys who won’t let them down, will “get rid of it” rather than hold on for a better opening.

Brainwashed into a Big Brother-style military discipline, these are guys who won’t forget to man-mark, track back or put the boot in when it is deemed appropriate. We all know who they are - Bolton and Reading have entire teams of them; so do high-riding Everton except for the cultured Spaniard Mikael Arteta; even Chelsea have Claude Makalele and Jon Obi Mikel, Liverpool had Momo Sissoko, MU have Michael Carrick. Arsenal, to their credit, don’t have any.

Amid all this stultifying dross, Nani is a breath of fresh air. Why, in the few seconds his seal dribble lasted he showed more skill than West Ham and Birmingham did in 90 minutes the previous weekend. Or Chelsea and Liverpool for that matter. And judging by the reaction of the Old Trafford faithful and subsequent supporter polls this week, the fans want more.

There used to be dozens of Nanis back in the Golden Age of the late 1960s and early 1970s - which is why it was called the Golden Age. At Old Trafford they will never forget George Best who could turn a defender inside out and then go back and do it again. Paddy Crerand said he gave opponents “twisted blood”.

Chelsea had Charlie Cooke whose body swerve was such that whole sections of the crowd used to sway with him in appreciation. It’s not stretching it as much as you might think to say that full-backs were
sent so far the wrong way they had to pay to get back into the ground.

Rodney Marsh was another whose outrageous repetoire brought a cult following to QPR. But Brazil of course had the daddy of them all in Garrincha. An entire circus act on bent legs, he so bamboozled defenders they often ran into each other. And then there was Ferenc Puskas and the magical Magyars of Hungary who, during their 6-3 thrashing of England at Wembley, made England captain Billy Wright look like “a fire engine rushing to the wrong fire”.

Those were the words of that doyen of football scribes, Geoffrey Greene, a veritable poet of the press box. But then what he saw was often pretty close to poetry. Showboating was an essential part of the above acts but now - with a few exceptions - it is all about military formations with court martials if you fall out of line. Barcelona and Arsenal are honorable exceptions but are we supposed to believe that Ronaldinho and Messi never make fools of opponents?

It’s called entertainment and we need as much as we can get. We trust that Fergie won’t be too hard on Nani but wish “the word” he has with him will be “do it again, son”.

Source: theSun
Author: Bob Holmes