Claudio Lotito Does Not Want to get Ahead of Himself, Gets Ahead of Himself

Lazio are on the verge of signing Argentinian striker Mauro Zarate from Qatari side Al-Sadd. Their president, Claudio Lotito, has been talking about the move while at the same time trying to urge restraint and common sense:

"We won't announce anything until we have deposited his contract with the authorities," Lotito told Corriere dello Sport. "We are used to announcing a new signing only after the contract has been completed and that hasn't happened yet."

"The terms of the agreement foresee a valuation of the player which will rise to around €25m [£20m] because Zárate will turn out better than Lionel Messi."

So, Lotito evidently does not want to jinx the transfer at this late stage by claiming that it is a done deal when this is not the case. And at the same time, he is asserting that a player who he has yet to actually sign will be better than Lionel Messi! There is a contradiction in there somewhere.

Farewell to Motty

The European Championship final between Spain and Germany was John Motson's final commentary for the BBC. Now, some people really can't stand Motty. I have never really had too much of a problem with the guy, except for when he is covering England games and turns into the worst sort of little Englander. It is indisputable that Motson has provided some great moments over the years, so I felt that I would give RTE's coverage a miss this time, and listen to Motty one last time.

Two moments stood out, symptomatic of Motson's attitude to commentary:

1) The first was his repeated insistence that we should not 'write off the Germans.' This mantra has been on the go for as long as I have been following football, and was inspired by a number of high profile penalty defeats suffered by England at the hands of Germany in major tournaments. However, in the past ten years we have seen the German national team demonstrate that they are no longer the mechanical and efficient teams of lore, who won through a combination of force of will and brutal organisation of the talent at their disposal. Their aura of invincibility has disappeared somewhat from the German national teams, for various reasons which I will not go into here.

Yet, here was Motty banging on about 'Teutonic tenacity', and warning us after 50 minutes that 'people have been telling us for years that we should never write off the Germans.' The problem with this is that the person most responsible for perpetuating this myth is one John Motson. With the game as good as dead and only two minutes remaining, he again insisted that we should not 'discount the Germans.'

I'm not sure whether I will miss this predictable national stereotyping or not.

2) Motson has always been at his best, and most stirring, when he simply calls events as they unfold, even if this means eschewing the use of verbs or any adherence to grammatical norms. One moment that always makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck is his commentary on Michel Platini's goal for France against Portugal in the last minute of extra time in the Euro '84 semi-final. 'Tigana. Tigana. Platini. GOAL!' In his intonation and his pared down language which was an obvious result of the gripping turn of events, he managed to convey so much of the emotion and the spontaneity of the moment.

However, when he turns to his notes, or tries to fill time with a statistic, or an 'insight', things can get confusing. Fast. For example, tonight, as Dani Guiza came on for Spain, we had the following exchange.

Motson: Guiza was the top scorer in the Primera Liga with 27 goals for Real Mallorca.

Mark Lawrenson: And not one of them was from a penalty.

Motson: And yet he took and scored his penalty against Italy in the quarter final .... or did he?

Lawrenson: No.

Motson: Perhaps that is why he doesn't take the penalties for his club in Spain.

Moments of confusion like this, especially in the latter years, became part and parcel of the Motson experience. It was precisely because we still had an inkling in the back of our minds that he was capable of great things, such as the Platini commentary, or the Ronnie Radford goal, that moments like this could be accepted, and embraced. Motson was never my favourite commentator, but he usually gave you something to talk about, and brought some level of character and idiosyncrasy to proceedings. So here's to Motty!

Unalysis

As we are all acutely aware, sports in general, and football in particular, all have their own internal language, a series of clichés and descriptive phrases which are used over and over, generally with the end result of communicating very little indeed. Football, and especially football commentary (I'm talking to you, ITV) can become almost impenetrable due to the constant recycling of the same words and turns of phrase, and because everyone subscribes to it, the end result is something approaching gibberish.

At the same time, language trends are fashionable, and certain words seem to come to dominate discourse at certain times. For example, a number of years ago there was a newfangled vogue for describing goalkeepers as 'shot-stoppers', and judging the merits of a given 'keeper based on his adeptness at said skill. I mean, isn't shot-stopping the most basic pre-requisite for any number one? However, once phrases like this take hold, it is very difficult to escape them.

Another example might be the shift from describing a player as being 'interfering with play' (or not) when discussing the offside law. Now, commentators and analysts routinely blather on about being passive and active, and exploring the semantic differences inherent in these words, when in fact the law remains as it was, save for the terminology being used. However, use of the terms passive and active now dominates.

The reason for my writing it is this: I simply cannot stand use of the term 'end product' to describe an attacker's effectiveness. I just cannot. It seems that this term has only really come into vogue in the past eighteen months, but now totally dominates discussion amongst television, radio and newspaper analysts.

'End product' began, as far as I can discern, with Cristiano Ronaldo, and specifically, his metamorphosis from supremely talented bag-of-tricks winger to a truly effective attacking player who creates and scores his fair share of goals. Beginning last season, commentators began telling us that Ronaldo was suddenly becoming a top player, because he had improved his end product. And now the phrase has become ubiquitous, and insufferable, and not just restricted to Cristiano (although it seems to help your case if you are a Portugese winger).

"If he concentrates on his end product as a wide player, which is ultimately crossing the ball, then he'll prove a useful player."
--- 23rd June 2008

"Second of all, they are the absolute pinnacle of inefficiency. They are Arsenal at their worst – a glorified training session with no end-product."
--- 20th June 2008

"But it is down to the individuals to improve on their end product once they have taken someone on. Can they make that final pass?"
--- 23rd June 2008

"...strong as usual but no end product."
--- 25th June 2008


....and so on.

I can't take it anymore.

I am not sure why I have taken such umbrage with this phrase in particular, but every time I hear Lee Dixon, Gavin Peacock or Martin Keown smugly refer to 'end product' while flirting across the couch with Adrian Chiles, I feel an irrational sense of rage.

What did people do for descriptive phrases in the days before end product? Is it too much effort to contemplate using other phrases? End product is vague as a phrase, and more than that, it is beyond lazy and below analysis. In theory, you can comment on just about any endeavour known to man while using relative quantities of 'end product' as a benchmark. Why do we put up with this level of unalysis?

End product is symptomatic of a greater trend, that of the coming and going of transitory buzzwords. Unlike 'doing a job', which I find endearing (see below), end product is a lazy and not particularly helpful.

And for some reason, whenever I hear talk of 'end product', I think of a morning on the toilet which inevitably follows a long night on the beer. And perhaps that is where the problem lies...

Doing a Job

It has been well documented how football is expressed through much hackneyed clichés. Listen to the average post game interview, or press conference, and there is remarkably little in the way of actual content, just vague allusions to 'giving one hundred and ten percent', or 'a game of two halves', 'the end of the day', playing 'fluent football', and so on. While many of these have been lampooned and become fodder for satire, it hasn't led to a decrease in their usage. If anything, football-speak is just as nonsensical and impenetrable as it ever was.

There is another level of football-speak which has yet to become the stuff of parody, and has almost surreptitiously come to be accepted as orthodox, without so much as an eyelash being batted. I want to talk about just one example of that, the phenomenon of 'doing a job'. References to doing a job are legion amongst not only footballers, but football managers, commentators, and even journalists with no playing history in the game.

Doing a job is one of the most commonplace idioms in the footballing lexicon. By doing a quick piece of research on Google News, you can find many examples of the phrase being used with great frequency, and in current news stories. There is no need to trawl through archives. So, using the results obtained, all dated between May 22nd and June 23rd 2008, lets try to work out what this actually means.

"We are outsiders in the group because we don't have as much experience as the other teams, but outsiders can also do a job."

--- Guus Hiddink, June 15th
So, at the cutting edge of the professional game, a major international tournament such as the European Championships, it is possible to do a job. Russia were outsiders in their group, but capable of more. Does this mean qualifying from the group? Putting on a good show? Getting into a scrap? Knowing now what we do, we must assume that Mr Hiddink, one of the world's top international managers, associates doing a job with success.

"I have the confidence [in Chris Coyne], that's why I took him for the last selections. He can do a job."

--- Pim Verbeek, Australia Manager, June 6th.
Staying with international football, we begin to get closer to a truer idea of what doing a job entails. This story, from the Sydney Morning Herald, describes the aforementioned Coyne as a 'journeyman centre half', 'rough, tough and experienced', and having spent 'a lifetime in football's equivalent of the salt mines.' He was suddenly plunged into an Australia squad with a number of high profile members playing at the highest level of the game. Verbeek reckoned that 'he can do a job.' Not that he could hold his own, or excel, or make an impression. Merely do a job. Adequacy.

"It really boosts your confidence when you’re working for a manager who believes in you and thinks you can do a job for him."
---Marc Fitzpatrick, Motherwell, June 4^th 2008

But hang on a second! Marc Fitzpatrick reckons that when a manager believes in your ability to do a job, your confidence soars. Is it possible to raise one's game above mere adequacy and be something more? Perhaps he has a low opinion of himself?

"I think I can step up. I’ve got a decent amount of pace but I don’t rely on it. At any level I’d do a job."

--- Dele Adebola, 24th May 2008.
Described as 'less than stellar' and 'tank-like', Adebola is another journeyman. At 32, he reckons that he can hold his own in the Premiership.

In the match in Grenoble, Flynn told Ramsey to “do a job” on Gourcuff defensively and to get beyond him offensively.
“Aaron was absolutely brilliant, completely outplayed Gourcuff, who ended up being substituted.”

--- Brian Flynn, May 22nd, 2008.
Did Aaron Ramsey's brilliance go above and beyond the parameters laid out by Brian Flynn in his pre game instructions? In this sense, doing a job seems to be a negative endeavour, tending towards stopping the opposition playing.

"At 31 I am fully fit and feel I could still do a job in the top flight. However, I don't think I will get an offer from the SPL after leaving Queen of the South but I think I could be a success in the First Division."

--- Jim Lauchlan, June 2nd, 2008.

Lauchlan reckons he could do a job against better opposition, but be 'a success' in the lower tier.
Are the two diametrically opposed? Is doing a job closer to mediocrity than success? Is there a reason why no SPL team wants to sign him?

"Steven has got great potential and he probably will move on over the next few years but if he does there will be someone else who can come in and do a job."
--- Pat Stanton, 17th June, 2008.

Even if Steven Fletcher leaves Hibernian, the odds are that someone can take his place. Is this overly optimistic doajobism?

"I'm not the most mobile but I can definitely do a job"

--- Julian Alsop, June 18th, 2008.

Similar to Adebola, Julian Alsop acknowledges that he has shortcomings but reckons that he can still perform some sort of function for Cirencester of the Southern League South and West. However, it is telling when he remarks that 'I can no longer commit to full-time football.'

What does all this mean? While the above only scratches at the surface of what is no doubt a huge volume of doajobisms, there are some trends. First of all, you generally do a job when little is expected of you, usually for a perceived lack of skill (however, this is not always the case). Secondly, doing a job, or being asked to do a job, is generally an instruction to do the best you can, even if this is not very good at all. Thirdly, it's worth noting that while some people consider being deemed capable of doing a job praise indeed (and quite the confidence boost), most see it as something less than stellar.

I'll wager that something was lost in translation with Guus. Doing a job is a clarion call to mediocrity. Fitting in. Acceptance amongst those who you know are not your equals. Aspiring to something better? Not quite. Doing a job is more a case of giving it your best shot despite an acute sense of your own limitations, and crossing your fingers for the best.

Lets all hail the ubiquity of doing a job, just as prevalent amongst the Russian squad at Euro 2008 as it is at non-league Cirencester town.

Research, anyone?

Nobody should be surprised to hear Eamon Dunphy trying to say something provocative on RTE's coverage of the Germany-Portugal game last night. I suppose the only surprise was that it did not concern Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo (presumably, he's exhausted that thread). Instead, Dunphy questioned Chelsea's decision to hire Luis Felipe Scolari as their manager.

What form did this criticism take? Did Dunphy spend a week doing research and compile a dossier,as he famously did when arguing against Terry Venables' candidacy for the Ireland manager's job? No. Instead, he extrapolated far too much from one isolated incident in the game, namely, Germany's second goal, a Klose header from a free kick which was very poorly defended.

'This fella [Scolari] could be a con man' was Dunphy's judgment. Really? What else do you know about Scolari, Eamon? I presume Chelsea did a little more research into Scolari's credentials when giving him his £27 million contract than Dunphy did before making his declaration. Sure, defending set plays is a basic prerequisite for building a sound team. It seems crass of Dunphy, in his capacity as an 'expert', providing 'expert analysis', would pass judgment based on one incident.

RTE's football coverage is the best, because the panellists are never afraid to call things like they are. The discussions between Dunphy, Graham Souness, John Giles, and occasionally Liam Brady, can make for television gold, given the right subject matter. And as a rule, I find Dunphy's pantomime villain posturing amusing. However, every now and again something like the aforementioned will crop up, and I find myself wondering aloud if ITV are really that bad after all...

Jimmy Magee is bad at Commentating on Football Games

[This was originally posted at firejimmymagee.wordpress.com in a pique of rage at the inadequacies of Mr Magee's commentary at Euro2008]

Listening to Jimmy Magee do commentary is reminiscent of watching sports coverage from behind the Iron Curtain. Everyone can recall watching a football game broadcast from Kiev, Moscow, or Bucharest, where the image had an elusive grainy quality to it (for reasons which were never quite apparent), and where there always seemed to be a five second time delay between image and commentary.

Jimmy Magee, surely ironically nicknamed ‘The Memory Man’, must long for these heady days of Soviet dominance, because not only does he incorporate his own five second time delay into commentary by dint of his own ineptitude with player recognition and general lack of football knowledge, the complete effect is to render the image granier than it would appear on any other television network. Fact. The man is clearly some sort of optical illusionist.

Events like the European Championships are a brutal reminder of just how deficient the man is at commentating on football matches. It is sometimes easy enough to overlook this when he does a five minute segment on RTE’s Premiership programme (a little careful editing can take care of the time delay), but when a major tournament thrusts him into commentating on a full length, live game, between - gasp - foreign football teams, well, one can be forgiven for coming across all Father Jack and shooting the TV. Or, at the very least, putting up with Mark Lawrenson’s inane musings on the BBC.

There seem to be two key components to the typical Magee commentary, which cumulatively create the ‘time lag’ and ‘fuzz’ effects.

1) Mispronunciation: Ok, so it’s not always easy to pronounce the names of foreign athletes. We can accept and admit this much. However, when you have been commentating on international football tournaments since 1966, when you are paid to have a basic knowledge of those taking part in said game of football and to at least provide some sort of insight which those watching supposedly cannot, well, Jimmy’s activities are inexcusable.

For example: During the Italy-Romania game, the Italians brought on Fabio Quagliarella as a late substitute. Magee, presumably having laid eyes on the name for the first time in his life, got no further than making a ‘Qu’ sound, which was prolonged for three or four seconds (perhaps to allow Italy coach Roberto Donadoni time to change his mind and bring on Antonio di Natale instead?) before giving up. He can’t even commentate on substitutions in real time.

2) Lack of player recognition: Magee clearly can’t distinguish between the majority of footballers on the pitch, a deficiency which is unfortunate given his chosen profession. This generally leads to, as usual, huge gaps in commentary while Jimmy rustles through his notes to find out who the number 3 for Romania is (actually, given his lack of preparation, I’ll wager that the notes belong to the unfortunate Mark Kinsella). Of course, once he positively identifies Razvan Rat and butchers the prononciation (easier in this case), the play will have moved on.

So, what Jimmy does to avoid this hugely embarrassing situation (which still occurs, by the way), is play a high stakes game of roulette, memorizing the names of three or four footballers on each team, then taking his chances each time that team gets the ball that the player in possession is one of his men. During the Italy-Romania game, it seems that Jimmy’s ‘chosen ones’ were Grosso, Zambrotta, Chiellini, and Toni, whose names he quoted seemingly at random. One important point must be made: Jimmy’s ‘chosen ones’ seem to be picked for ease of prononciation, and not because he has any particular proficiency in recognising these players when they actually have the ball.

This method is particularly effective where player names sound somewhat alike - so in the case of the Romanians, Nicolita and Nicolae are interchangeable. Seeing as two players share the surname Nicolae, if Jimmy mumbles ‘Nicolablerghsplaat’ he has a reasonable chance of being vaguely correct. But the ball will invariably have gone. Given all this, surely Jimmy’s dream commentary gig would be a game involving the Welsh rugby union team, with its abundance of men named Jones (eight in the most recent squad). But I digress…

Jimmy Magee holds a position where he is supposed to enlighten, and all he does is plunge the viewer into darkness. On discovering that he was doing commentary on the Austria-Germany game earlier, I somewhat flippantly remarked that watching no football at all would be better than watching football with Jimmy doing ‘commentary’. And I love my football. However, I also value my sanity quite highly, and for that reason, Jimmy needs to make this tournament his last. The only possible excuse I can make for the man is that he quite likes the idea of replicating those broadcasts from far flung Soviet outposts in the 1970s and 1980s.

So, either the man is lazy with his research and generally poor at his job, or he longs for the brutal repression experienced behind the Iron Curtain. Either way, Jimmy, it’s time to go.