by Ruud Gullit
It would make life easier for officials if they didn’t have to worry all the time about being ridiculed in the eyes of the entire country.
Italians and Argentinians are past masters when it comes to manipulating referees. When you get a corner against them, they hold you tight and the referee does nothing. If you, as a foreign player, grab hold of anyone it’s an immediate foul and a penalty. In Italy they fire these clever tricks at you from the minute you arrive, and there’s really no sense of embarrassment: gesticulating at the referee, a push, a pinch, a stomp on your foot, a boot to your ankle, shirt pulling, and so on. It’s all furbo.
Clubs are equally culpable. A relatively innocent ruse is messing with the kickoff time. AC Milan’s and Napoli’s games were always scheduled for exactly the same time: a Sunday afternoon at two thirty. It was standard for the Neapolitans to start a couple of minutes later: they simply delayed the kickoff. Either someone was still in the bathroom or he had the wrong boots on, or the wrong shirt. Maybe someone was still in the dressing room getting his bandages tied. They used every trick in the book. It seemed quite funny to me, I understood their reasoning. And the comedy was all part of the show.
When we won, it made no difference. If not, it would mean waiting a tense couple of minutes for the result to come through from Napoli. After all, a lot can happen in those final moments!
In Spain they know a ploy or two as well. I remember going with AC Milan in November 1987 to Espanyol in Barcelona for a second-round UEFA Cup match. It had rained all day but the pitch at Estadi de Sarrià was nevertheless reasonably playable. After warming up, we went back to the dressing room, where we waited for the signal to come out for the kickoff. When we got to the pitch, it was soaking wet. “What happened?”
In the intervening minutes Espanyol’s personnel had doused the grass with a water cannon. It made playing skilled soccer that much harder. After warming up I had put my studs on: they turned out to be the wrong ones for water ballet. We were slipping and sliding, especially me with my long legs. We had to make up a 2–0 deficit from the first game, and now there was no chance of that. A nice piece of gamesmanship by Espanyol, and it got them to the next round. In retrospect I can see the funny side. If you’re not strong, then be smart.
These days, stunts like that are forbidden and UEFA exercises far more control. At the time, clubs would organize matches themselves; now it’s UEFA that does the administration, or it’s all done under its auspices, and official observers are present to supervise. It’s not the club but UEFA that runs the stadium on match nights, and that works a lot better. There’s no room these days for funny business.
To dive or not to dive?
Diving is so difficult to combat simply because it is such an effective ploy. In the 2015/16 season the Belgian Christian Benteke deliberately fell in the final minutes when the score stood at 1–1 away to Crystal Palace. He got a penalty and took it himself: 2–1 for Liverpool. Jamie Vardy did something similar at Arsenal—Leicester City and also won a penalty. While Benteke tripped over thin air, at least Vardy managed to find an opponent’s leg to stumble over and there was some contact. He looked for a touch and he found it.
Smart as it may be, it is also shortsighted. Vardy—Leicester City lost the game, by the way—and Benteke were lambasted by the television pundits and in the press. English fans don’t like that sort of thing and for weeks both players were reminded of the error of their ways whenever they visited other clubs with a chorus of whistles each time they touched the ball. Which was also a pertinent reminder for the referee in charge, because his colleagues had been made to look foolish.
While English soccer fans never tire of reminding me of the way foreign players like to dive, now we know that Vardy, Rooney and Ashley Young are all proficient divers.
And yet—not every dive is a dive. That’s because there are players in professional soccer who are so good and have such brilliant skills that they know exactly what they are doing. Naturally they make mistakes, but there’s usually some idea behind their attempt.
For example, I dribble and pass my opponent, who makes a sliding tackle; I avoid the tackle, jump over the player sliding in, otherwise I’ll break my ankles. Every movement of my body is totally under control—we don’t train every day for nothing—and I know how I’m going to land. The only trouble is that my contact with the ball is based on not having to contend with a sliding tackle. So I’m no longer running at the same pace as the ball. In fact I probably won’t catch up with the ball at all.
What should I do? So I drop to the ground, otherwise I’ll lose my advantage over the player I just passed. In effect, it’s a dive. But what else can I do? Should I protect my ankles, or take a trip to hospital? It’s an easy choice. Simply put: to keep your advantage and avoid a nasty injury you drop to the ground.
A dive? It depends. The sliding tackle was itself an infringement: I avoided the collision by jumping, so no actual foul was committed, and so it’s my dive that gets punished . . . Whether the player touches me or not, either way I have lost the ball and so the other player’s foul has achieved its purpose. But a referee who has never played at that level doesn’t see things like that; neither do fans nor the media. Which leads to misunderstandings and arguments.
That is one example, but there are dozens more. Unfair? Yes, but it’s an illusion to imagine that you can ban diving.
Soccer isn’t fair
That refereeing mistakes are one of soccer’s charms is not something you should ever say to an American, who generally prefers watching traditional American sports. Americans consider soccer the most unfair sport there is. In the United States they like to analyze sports rationally, so they love collecting facts and figures. Meanwhile, we find faults and flaws part of the appeal. And soccer is a succession of errors. If no one makes a mistake nothing ever happens. That unfair advantage prevails is one of the reasons soccer is so attractive.
Clearly: soccer isn’t fair. If you care too much about errors and unfairness, then maybe soccer isn’t the game for you. You need to accept that sometimes the decision goes in your favor and sometimes it doesn’t.
Quite apart from the different interpretations you get, even with a video referee, I take soccer as it comes. That’s how I approached the game as a player. Referees never had trouble from me. I never lost my temper or went into a tantrum to insist that I was right and they were wrong. Of course there were times when I said: “Didn’t you see that? Incredible.” But in the end you play within the parameters set by the referee, and a little unfairness is par for the course.
Americans find it hard to understand; the English get it straight away. If I say a foul deserved a red card, they say: “He gave a yellow card, what are you talking about?” Then if I ask: “What would have happened in Europe?” they reply: “Well, then it would have been red.”
Some claim that Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV, Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus and other major clubs often have the referee on their side. It’s possible that some officials may experience a certain unconscious intimidation when faced by the reputation, the surroundings and the ambience of a top European club. You have to be immune to it as a referee, but this can be hard to put into practice. Nevertheless I don’t believe that any professional referee ever goes to a top club intending to give that club an advantage.
Moreover, before you start complaining, don’t forget that an attacking side will always have more chance of not being penalized than a defending side simply because of where the action is taking place.
Everything to win
I never had any training in how to survive the last fifteen minutes of a game, or how to go hell for leather to force a draw or a victory.
Survival is often a matter of improvisation and may not involve much discussion. Forcing a result generally implies parking as many tall and physically strong players in the opponents’ penalty area as
possible, then pumping the ball into the box and hoping it lands on someone’s head, foot, leg, stomach . . . anywhere but his hands.
When Manchester United wanted to force a result back in Sir Alex Ferguson’s day, they didn’t play long balls, but raised the pressure. Sometimes it was so intense that the only answer a keeper had was to kick the ball upfield. That meant that the opposing team’s strikers would have to sprint back into position. At that moment, the team doing the pressing is at its most vulnerable.
It stands to reason: all the players are helping to score that last-minute equalizer or winner, and many forget everything they’ve ever learned and—with the best of intentions—their task. It makes them even more ripe to concede another goal than to score. On the other hand, strikers who come and help in defense can be a dangerous liability. In addition, the more players in the penalty box, the greater the risk that the ball will go in.
(Un)sporting solutions
An effective way to break the rhythm of a team chasing a goal at full throttle is to simulate a foul. No matter how insignificant the infringement, you need to fall to the ground and act as if it’s a major injury. That means staying down. Have the doctor come onto the pitch. In the final stages it is essential to break the other side’s momentum. That requires shrewdness. There is no other way. In other sports there are regular opportunities to break a team’s momentum by asking for time-out.
I can hear the soccer purists complaining: “Yes, but that’s not fair.” Why not? You’re not doing anything that’s forbidden, or not in the rules. If you get kicked, you may fall and you may be injured. Tragedy or comedy, that’s up to the doctor. At the highest level you have to use tricks like this if you want to win. The referee’s job is to set the limits. I see the charm in that.
In England, fair play is key and the English find this kind of theatrics revolting. For Brits, it smacks of cheating. They have less trouble accepting a vicious kick than a player rolling around on the ground. In Italy and Spain they do both, but the Argentinians take it to another level. You often see it in the Champions League and Europa League, in which many Argentinians play. If you don’t join in their attempts to upset a game to force a victory then don’t be surprised if they come down on you like a ton of bricks.
Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United lost an opportunity to beat Chelsea and draw against Sunderland this way in the 2015/16 season. The team came under intense pressure but did absolutely nothing to disturb the other side’s attacking momentum. Not De Gea, not Rooney, not Blind, not Carrick, not Smalling, and none of the Dutch—British coaching staff raised a finger to help. Chelsea and Sunderland were allowed to pile on the pressure and as a result United gave away two expensive goals. That turned out to be the week in which Manchester United lost the opportunity to contend for fourth position in the Premier League—and so lost the chance of a place in the preliminary round of the Champions League.
If you are defending a lead in the final minutes and you get a free kick, don’t kick the ball into the penalty area. Of course that’s where you can score, but scoring isn’t the objective now: the aim is to guarantee three points. You can do that most effectively in the opponents’ half by kicking the ball into one of the corners. If you have a free kick, send the ball into the corner. There it’s far easier to waste time, to trap the other side in the corner and hope the ball rolls over the touchline.
If you have possession you may be able to force a throw-in, or a corner or free kick. You can also dribble the ball to the corner—anything to use up time before the final whistle. Often that causes desperation and infractions that may lead to a yellow or even a red card. Meanwhile, time marches inexorably on and the points are increasingly secure. However frustrating, inelegant, unsporting it may seem, this is part of the game, and has been within the rules for a hundred years.
As a manager it is maddening if your players refuse to acknowledge these rules and you concede a goal in the final moments because someone in the team decided he ought to act differently. On the bench or standing on the touchline, there’s little a manager can do except substitute players. Or possibly offer a suggestion here and there if the game comes to a standstill. During play hardly anyone hears what you say amid all the noise.
The most sublime example of naivety in the dying moments of a game happened on November 17, 1993. David Ginola, a gifted French forward, had come on as a substitute in the last World Cup qualifying game between France and Bulgaria. The score was 1–1 and it was in the ninetieth minute: France had one foot on the plane to the World Cup.
Instead of keeping possession and playing near the corner flag, Ginola slung the ball forward in search of a totally superfluous 2–1. The pass was far too long and a Bulgarian defender picked up the ball, quickly passed to Lubos Penev, who then sent a long ball to Emil Kostadinov, who was now in position. With a shot cannoned from an impossible angle at goal the striker and captain of Bulgaria propelled his country to the World Cup in the United States, ten seconds before time. As a result players like Marcel Desailly and Eric Cantona missed the World Cup.
Injury treatment
The manager is the club’s figurehead. It is up to the manager to appear a couple of times a week to say a few words to the media. Managers also oversee all the processes within a club and take ultimate responsibility. That is why they sometimes have to take tough action to keep everyone in line. And that includes medical staff, such as the doctor and physical therapists.
Internal differences are rarely aired in public. Not until recently. In the 2015/16 season, in a game against Swansea City, a much-discussed clash occurred between José Mourinho and the doctor Eva Carneiro, who was rudely rebuked, in her account, for treating an injured Eden Hazard on the pitch.
Carneiro followed the referee’s instruction to go onto the pitch to attend to Eden Hazard, which under the laws of the game meant he had to be brought to the touchline before he could go back on. Mourinho was furious. Carneiro’s intervention had left his team playing with nine against eleven—the keeper, Thibaut Courtois, had been shown a red card earlier in the game.
Without wanting to excuse José Mourinho’s conduct, I can understand his position. After all, it’s one thing to slow down the other side, relieve the pressure or break the momentum by faking an injury if you have eleven players on the pitch. With ten players it’s possible to carry on playing, but if there are only ten on the pitch and you take another player off, leaving only nine to continue, then you have a serious tactical problem, and that is exactly what happened here.
In the end, Chelsea kept Swansea at bay, there were no more goals and the score remained 2–2. But this is all about the moment, and Mourinho recognized the implication of that moment, though Carneiro was not at fault. Unfortunately, his reaction did not make pleasant listening. Chelsea were not in a good place, stories were leaking from the dressing room and Mourinho vented his anger in public. The manner in which he dealt with the incident ensured that it would come to play a role in his eventual resignation from Chelsea.
A coin caused me to lose the championship with AC Milan. That is the impact a single detail can have on the result of an entire competition. In 1989/90, the battle for first place was between Napoli and us. Four games before the end, Napoli were playing Atalanta Bergamo and the score was 0–0: they couldn’t break through the defensive wall. Fifteen minutes before the end, the Brazilian midfielder Alemão fell to the ground. He had apparently been struck on the head by a coin. The doctor came over and gesticulating wildly told him: “Stay down, stay down, stay. Don’t get up.” Then he shouted for a stretcher and Alemão was carried off.
The final score of 0–0 was later turned into an obligatory 2–0 for Napoli after a group of Atalanta fans had been identified by the Italian football association as having been responsible. At the end of the season we were left two points short and Napoli were champions.
Secrets and spies
Unlike in England a
nd Italy, the training grounds of the top Dutch clubs are freely accessible for supporters and the media. Almost all the training sessions are open to the public. In the Netherlands they preach transparency and people kick up a fuss if teams train behind closed doors. Even the national team: “What about the old guys who stand along the touchline, then? You want to deprive them of their morning walk and their cup of coffee?”
It’s all rather nice, but amateurish too: because professional soccer is bigger than that and it involves keeping certain things secret. It makes no sense to tell your opponents and the whole world more than they already know. With all the analysis in today’s professional game, managers know practically everything about their opponents, their tactics, lines of attack, the buildup, their favorite corner for penalties, different corner and free-kick variations and much more besides.
If you want to surprise your opponent with a new tactic or formation, then you’ll have to practice it with the doors closed. And as a manager you can’t tell everyone about it at the press conference before the game either. Your opponents are following every move you make.
At AC Milan we knew absolutely everything about our opponents and they hardly ever managed to surprise us. The club sent out spies not just to watch games, but to training sessions too. If the public weren’t admitted they had to find some other way of discovering what the club was planning. I think I prefer not to know how they did that.