A Fraction Of The Whole: Malky Mackay

Celebrating the game’s minutiae, one tiny fragment at a time

As Cardiff City recently celebrated winning the Championship, I was reminded of last season’s Carling Cup Final. At that time the Welsh side were fighting on two fronts, contesting their first League Cup final while also hoping to achieve the promotion that had been elusive for four frustrating years.

Liverpool would eventually beat Cardiff on penalties, but not before the Welsh side put up a fight. They took a first-half lead through Joe Mason, before goals from Martin Skrtel and Dirk Kuyt restored the natural shape of the giants/minnows axis. With players tiring deep into extra time, Cardiff’s players were still gamely battling away, trying to find a way back in.

Somewhere around the 115th minute, the ball went out for a throw-in. Cardiff’s Aron Gunnarsson approached the touchline to retrieve the ball from his manager, Malky Mackay. Rather than hurriedly flinging the ball back to his player, impatient in the desperate search for an equaliser, his manager simply waited for his player to trot over on dead legs, before slowly and calmly handing it back to him, and telling him to take his time. Two minutes later, Cardiff defied the odds once more to equalise.

In that second, a mere atom of the final, Mackay demonstrated a faith in his players to get the goal they needed. There was no panic, no anxiety, nothing to fluster his team. In such situations we are used to seeing frantic managers gesticulating wildly, often while jabbering inanely. Gunnarsson himself would play a part in the goal, knocking on a corner towards Ben Turner, who gratefully slammed home a goal that warranted the Gold VIP shirt-off celebration, reserved only for the most dramatic of strikes.

There can be no telling precisely how influential Mackay’s subtle intervention was. Such a minuscule incident will have been forgotten, not least because Cardiff would go on to lose the subsequent penalty shoot-out as Liverpool went on to lift the cup instead. But this moment of sangfroid from Cardiff’s manager was emblematic of the approach that would eventually serve the club well. After years of collectively ruffling overpriced footballer haircuts against the glass ceiling, Cardiff have finally joined the elite. They will attempt to establish themselves with a squad largely made up of players who will seek to prove themselves in the Premiership for the first time. The likes of David Marshall, Kim Bo-Kyung and Peter Whittingham have excelled in the Championship, but will now be given the chance to mix it in England’s top tier.

If they are to succeed, they will require more of the belief and composure that Mackay demonstrated last season at Wembley. Such leadership has steered them through the haze of previous disappointments, as well as the turbulent change of colour decreed by the club chairman, Vincent Tan. It will take Cardiff some investment, greater application and diligent preparation, but if Cardiff are to thrive next season, don’t be too surprised if they grab some points by fighting until the very last minute, taking their time once more.

A Fraction Of The Whole: Samuel Okunowo

Celebrating the game’s minutiae, one tiny fragment at a time

You probably haven’t heard of Samuel Okunowo. If you had heard of him, it’s likely that you’d forgotten anyway. Currently playing in his native Nigeria for Sunshine Stars FC, he had a front-row seat for an iconic goal whilst playing for Barcelona, as Manchester United’s strike partnership of Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole reached its dizzying zenith.

You probably will remember this next bit. Roy Keane rolls an innocuous pass infield to Yorke, who allows the ball to run through his legs for Cole. The men then exchange a one-two that is as devastating in its speed of execution as well as its sheer simplicity; such an easy thing to do, and yet not, like any true act of genius. The finish from Cole is typically cool, with the sort of ruthless inevitability typical of those rare moments when the opposition would probably stop to applaud if their pride could allow it.

Okunowo adds some memorable punctuation to this moment, cast as he was as the slapstick fall guy. Yorke’s return pass reduces the young defender to a picture of befuddlement, as he struggles to comprehend what’s just happened. As he spins on the spot to contemplate his uselessness, he throws his arms to the heavens in a gesture that could be attempting to say many things, chiefly among them, this: “Just what in the hell is goin’ on here?!”

The gesture itself is barely perceptible unless you’re looking for it, but once you notice it, Okunowo’s flailing arms are remarkable. He turns from Cole to Yorke and back again, and is left with blood so twisted that he seems to be literally grasping for something to maintain his balance; like a weak swimmer reaching for the side of the pool, this is a man well and truly out of his depth, and has probably forgotten his towel as well. Until Carles Puyol should decide to turn out for the blaugrana in a pair of rollerskates, Okunowo will surely retain the title he secured that night of Most Frank Spencerish Barcelona Defender.

It may seem harsh to castigate the man’s lack of sangfroid given the extraordinary telepathic skill that had unpicked the defence, but it’s interesting to note his subsequent career path: loaned out to Benfica the next season, CD Badajoz the season after that. Greece, Romania, Albania, Ukraine, the Maldives and England’s Waltham Forest would eventually take their turn in playing host to a career heavily stalled by injury. After leaving Barcelona he would only achieve appearances in the double-figures just once in his career.

There lies a perverse sort of glory in this. Who knows what might’ve become of Okunowo, once trusted to start a Champions League game between two of Europe’s most storied clubs, had he not been plagued by injuries. If he does nothing else in his career (something he appears to be well on his way to achieving) he will at least be able to say that he was caught in the eye of a perfect storm, as a fleeting but fabulous partnership reached it’s perfect peak of destruction. And while he was powerless to stop it, he managed to contribute to the spectacle with his sheer hopelessness, which for so long remained concealed by the brilliance which spawned it.

A Fraction Of The Whole: Paul Merson

Celebrating the game’s minutiae, one tiny fragment at a time

Past Michael Owen raises the bar impossibly high, while Present Michael Owen watches on YouTube for the millionth time on another one of his days off, lamenting the fact that Twitter hadn't been invented yet in 1998, as this would've made for a cracking tweet.

It was the day of my thirteenth birthday when Michael Owen scored a career-defining goal against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup. I remember every glorious detail without needing to consult a replay. The brief look up from David Beckham as he plays the ball in-field. Owen’s first touch with the outside of his right boot. The dip of the shoulder that fooled the Argentinean defence. The onrushing Paul Scholes arriving in vain. Owen’s expression of assured disbelief as he runs away with energy still to spare.

Another detail swept up in the drama of the moment is something I recall just as easily, and it comes from the substitutes’ bench. Synonymous with the memory of that goal is the reaction of one Paul Merson, who rises with the rest of the squad to celebrate Owen’s strike. As he leads the applause, he turns around to be captured by the camera as he says something to Teddy Sheringham. It’s too quick to be lip-read, much less heard, but you can see everything you need to know in his face. A mixture of incredulity and wonder at what he’s just seen, transmitted to a global audience as everyone else marvels at what’s just occurred.

The reason I recall Merson’s face with such fondness is because of the way it communicates so much in such a short space of time – he is seen for a mere second before the picture cuts back to a breathless Owen jogging back to resume the game. At such a young age, I felt as if this was the commencement of some exciting new dawn. I had watched my first World Cup four years previously, when England failed to join the party in the USA. Even at the age of eleven I could acknowledge the patriotic power of home advantage offered by Euro 96.

But Owen’s goal was something I had never seen before. England had just shown that they had something no-one else did, a weapon that could cause whatever damage was necessary, as long as it was deployed in the right direction. It seemed so easy, as if England had just discovered a cheat code on a video game. It seemed so incomprehensibly fortuitous that suddenly we had someone that could just do whatever he wanted, and he just fell into the lap of every future England manager that would be able to select him. My mind, swamped as it was with nascent hormones and birthday cake sugars, could not process the significance of this goal. It was more than just one goal in one game. This was something seismic and I knew that straight away.

That brief moment, where Merson giggled and shook his disbelieving head for the world to see, was like looking into a mirror. Merson looked the way that I felt, and it would later offer succour in the face of England’s eventual elimination. To see an actual professional footballer react just like I had… that meant that it wasn’t just youthful naivety on my part. It meant that I was right and that eventually he would elevate beyond the prescribed heights of the England team, and together they would do something amazing.

Of course, it wouldn’t quite work out that way. The goal would weigh heavily on Owen’s shoulders, and the intrinsic declaration of promise would unwittingly taint public perceptions of his career (Click here to read more on Owen’s dubious legacy). For all that, the excitement, shock and joy I felt at that moment, mere hours into my teenage years, is something I will always remember, because Paul Merson is there as a totemistic reminder of the chemicals that rushed through a brain yet to be sullied by hormones, adolescence, and the crushing reality of being an England supporter. And I shall forever be thankful that Owen did not hit, to use Merson’s Soccer Saturday parlance, the ‘beans on toast’.

A Fraction Of The Whole: Scott Parker

Celebrating the game’s minutiae, one tiny fragment at a time

When Spurs threw away a two-goal lead against Arsenal earlier this season, there was little for away fans to celebrate. They eventually capitulated 5-2 at the Emirates, and gave their north London rivals the impetus to reverse a dire run of form. As it stands, Arsenal are now in the driving seat to claim third place in the Premier League, and the Champions League accoutrements that it brings.

There was, however, one shaft of light beaming through the gloom. When Scott Parker was sent off for a second booking after steaming into a tackle with Thomas Vermaelen, it capped off a miserable day for Spurs. The tackle, while not malicious, was fully deserving of censure, and symbolised a desperate day for his team.

Rather than trudging off in self-pity (the conventional method of walking off after a red card), Parker would momentarily remain on the pitch without complaint, to check on his fallen opponent, to ensure that the tackle didn’t inflict any significant damage. He then shook the player’s hand to show that there were no hard feelings.

While Spurs fans would be forgiven for not caring about such a gesture (indeed, it will be entirely forgotten if Arsenal do go on to claim third spot), it was a pleasure to witness as a neutral. All too often we hear the strained epithet “He’s not that sort of player”, the flimsy integrity of which can be summarised by this diagram:

With this in mind, in a game blighted by inflated egos, astronomical salaries and Adrian Chiles, it was good to see a rare moment of genuine sportsmanship, even if was borne of a moment of frustration.

A Fraction of the Whole: Brian McClair

Celebrating the game’s minutiae, one tiny fragment at a time.

Brian McClair once tapped the ball to David Beckham near the halfway line in a match between Manchester United and Wimbledon. It would prove to be the flap of a butterfly’s wings that would precipitate the onrushing typhoon of Beckham’s subsequent career, incorporating as it did Premiership titles, a Champions League victory, the England captaincy, Galactico status, a century of international caps, Brand Beckham, Los Angeles, and Olympic aspirations.

McClair would’ve had the best view of anyone alive that day, as he unwittingly watched Beckham set both the ball and his career on a dramatic trajectory that, some fifteen years later, is only just showing signs of slowing. Of course, there is no telling whether he would’ve become the household name that he did had he not scored that goal. History remembers it as the moment he dramatically booted open the saloon doors of world football to announce that a new gunslinger was in town; In reality, he had emerged for Manchester United the season before, finishing as a league and FA Cup winner, prompting hushed talk of a possible last-ditch call-up for England’s Euro ’96 squad. After the Wimbledon goal, no doubt buoyed by the adrenaline boost to his confidence, impressive goals became his stock-in-trade (He would score twelve goals that season, all from outside the box).

Would he have had the same impact that season had he not broadened the parameters of his self-belief with the goal at Selhurst Park? We’ll never know. Which is why I look back on Brian McClair’s assist with more wonder than I would for just any other inconspicuous two-yard pass. I also wonder how often Beckham himself, if ever, quietly thinks what might have been if McClair had passed it to Jordi Cruyff* instead?

“Hello, Brian McClair here. I’ve just received the ball from a Ronnie Johnsen tackle. We’re two-nil up away at Wimbledon, so all is well. There are minutes left to play. Three points in the bag, a great start tae the season. I nudge the ball two yards to my right, into the path of David Beckham. We all expect big things from…he’s hit it! The ball is just hanging in the air, amazing how time slows down at times like these. If this goes in it will be replayed forever. This goal could be an all-time….it’s gone in! No way! No WAY! Look at that. Unbelievable. Big goalie must be gutted. What a goal though. My assist! Wonder if they’ll cut out my pass from all the replays in years to come? Hope not. Wow.”

(*Cruyff had tried a shot from a similarly audacious range earlier in the match, possibly planting the seed in Beckham’s head, Inception style)