Fowler: “Simeone exists to prevent others from playing football”

In England it still stings last Tuesday, the elimination of Manchester United from the Champions League by Atlético de Madrid. Like two years ago when the red-and-white team beat Liverpool, in the same tie, the round of 16, a Liverpool champion, Liverpool that was ‘coconut’, the rival to beat, and for weeks, months, the English press was filled with laments of Klopp, of accusing fingers to the game of Atlético, of Cholo… Well now it has happened again. The online Mail today published a news under the following title: “Football should take a page out of the rugby book and stop the clock when the game is paused to avoid cheating like Atlético de Madrid“. “Football legislators should introduce an independent timekeeper for matches. Too often we see teams trying to cut down the time once they have taken the lead. The current referee system that keeps track of stoppages is not fit for purpose.”

It is not the only media that echoes serious criticism of the rojiblancos’ style. A few days ago Gary Neville asked United to make an effort to hire Simeone as coach. He wondered how much it could cost to hire the executioner of his heart team in the Champions League and urged United to make the effort. The reply has come from the hand of Robbie Fowler and he has been very harsh against that idea. “I laughed this week when I heard Gary Neville shout that his old club should appoint Diego Simeone as his next manager. Honestly, come on. I’m not saying he’s against football, but he is some of the antics his team does, some of the horrible things they do and the tactics they pursue. It is not for Manchester United. Fans would call him out in a matter of weeks, and even if he really did gain things from it, they wouldn’t put up with it for long. United have a certain expectation of how they should play, which was set by Sir Matt Busby and Ferguson,” Fowler explains in his Mirror column.

“There’s a reason players don’t fake injuries in any of rugby’s codes. It’s because it’s absolutely useless. In rugby, the clock stops when players receive treatment for injuries. And neither is it an imaginary clock that exists inside the head of a match official. It is a real watch. A real one that everyone can see, in the stadium and in the corner of the TV screen at home. So players could dive and roll and whoop and scream as much as they wanted, but they would do it knowing that it would get them nowhere. As soon as they were done with the nonsense, they stood up to find the game no further than when they started,” Ian Ladyman, author of the article, begins writing.

Después de esa exposición, una pregunta: “So they don’t do it. Who would have thought it? (So they don’t. Who would have thought?)”. “EAtlético is a good team. They have enough talented players to leave Luis Suarez on the bench. They are organized and can play with a plan. But they also game the system and our game allows them, and others, to get away with it. At Old Trafford, the Slovenian referee, Slavko Vincic, was weak and gullible and walked into all the traps set for him by the Spanish team.”

“The system we use is not adequate”

“Every time an Atlético player fell to the ground, he would come running like a worried aunt“, he continued. “As a result, the ball was in play for just 11 minutes and 19 seconds in the final half hour of the game as Diego Simeone’s team defended what turned out to be a winning lead. That’s a staggering statistic, one that should open everyone’s eyes to a problem that has become endemic to our sport, to varying degrees, at all levels. On a night like that, everyone is fooled. Fans inside the stadium, viewers and this time the losing team, United. When a game stops as often as it stopped, it becomes less of a contest and more of an occasional pass or tackle trade, “he lists.” The system we use is not fit for purpose. The referee keeps track of what he thinks have been improper stops and adds that amount of time to the end. For example, we have 30 seconds for one of those completely useless substitutions when the game is almost over, regardless of whether a player has taken longer to leave the field. It’s essentially a system open to abuse and, modern football being what it is, it routinely is,” he says.

“After 90 minutes last week, the fourth official indicated that there were four more to play.. In the second half there had been six rounds of substitutions that add up to three of those minutes. That means that the whole performance of Atlético had cost them a minute. It’s easy to see why teams do it, right? So let’s solve the problem. Put the timing in the hands of an independent timekeeper. In stadiums where it can be accommodated, link the clock to the scoreboard. When the game stops due to injuries, substitutions, VAR checks and goal celebrations, the clock stops. It is easy. Rugby does it and it works. Come on football, it’s time to draw attention to the tricks“, It ended. Perhaps preparing what is to come. The next tie. Against Manchester City.