IT IS TIME to forget everything we used to believe about Brazilian footballers.
Gliding around a pitch, Samba soccer, tiny sky-blue shorts, lovers, philosophers, 40-a-day smokers. Gone.
Matheus Cunha was sent off for lashing out at Milos Kerkez[/caption]
He had scored a spectacular goal earlier in the game[/caption]
He smoked regularly during his playing days[/caption]
Consigned to the dustbin of history in just a few weeks. Matheus Cunha has replaced all that with the 2025 version.
An eye-bulging, fist-swinging, raging street-fighter looking for a tear-up on the cobbles of any market town.
Those who grew up in the late 1970s and 80s have fuzzy childhood memories of Socrates, Zico, Falcao.
Football at a snail’s pace. Ice-cool virtuosos waltzing while the Europeans combusted under searing sunshine at World Cups.
Even if they didn’t win, they lost in style and with good grace.
Socrates was more than an elegant midfielder.
He got through almost as many women as fags, was married four times and loved a beer.
And it only further romanticised his reputation during the politically incorrect 20th Century.
A left-leaning intellectual, Socrates wouldn’t punch a four-eyed, ginger-haired, Ipswich steward.
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And rather than kick s**t out of Bournemouth’s left-back, he would light up a B&H and consider Karl Marx while performing keepy-ups.
Wolves’ irascible striker should take note as he awaits the outcome of a second FA misconduct charge in less than two months.
The Brazilian is facing an extended ban[/caption]
Grabbing Milos Kerkez by the throat and appearing to launch his head towards the young Serb in last Saturday’s FA Cup tie felt quite un-Brazilian.
Then fighting the friends trying to save you from further trouble is simply not done down in Rio.
And if you harbour ambitions of a move to clubs like Arsenal, who are taking a serious interest in Cunha’s abilities, it might pay to be a bit more Socrates and a little less sock it to ’em.
For years Brazil maintained a dignified position as the intelligentsia of the game. Brazilian footballers were a beacon on the South American continent.
They were not the snappy Uruguayans overly-aggressive Argentines — they were jazz musicians in football boots.
Even hot-headed ex-Chelsea and Wolves striker Diego Costa opted to represent Spain despite being born not far from Brazil’s Atlantic coast.
It’s not that silly to think his government quietly suggested he switch nationalities because his fiery temper would ruin their reputation.
Cunha is not all bad news.
The sensational goal scored with a tiny backlift of his right boot prior to his latest meltdown would win serious approval from the ghosts of Brazil’s silky past.
Which begs the question why such a talented player is so far removed from the Samba stars of yesteryear?
The closest to an answer is that prior to pre-globalised football, the transfer rat-run between Latin America and Europe was a barely-trodden path.
Socrates spent one season outside of his homeland — playing roughly two dozen games for Fiorentina in Italy.
Plus a cameo role as player-coach of non-League Garforth Town in his 50s.
Zico played less than 40 times for Udinese, also of Italy, then wound up his career in Japan.
Falcao managed 100 or so appearances at Roma over two years.
But the vast majority of their careers were spent safe from the Europeanisation of their approach to the beautiful game. That has all changed.
Real Madrid’s dynamic winger Vinicius Jr was shipped to Real Madrid’s youth set up at 18.
Willian was carted off to Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk at 19 on a pathway to England. It’s a now familiar pattern.
Cunha quit South America before kicking a competitive ball aged 18 to join Swiss side Sion.
From there he headed for RB Leipzig, Hertha Berlin and Atletico Madrid, before landing up in the Black Country where he is now fighting the world to avoid Premier League relegation.
Perhaps he has just been tainted by the European model of pumped-up, win-at-all-costs football.
REF’S SLOT OF BOTHER
Arne Slot has been fined for his outburst at Michael Oliver after the Merseyside derby[/caption]
LET us all stop and think of David Coote for a moment as Liverpool boss Arne Slot goes back to work £70,000 lighter.
Slot’s incendiary outburst at ref Michael Oliver at the end of last month’s fiery Merseyside derby showed what officials have to put up with at times.
And it has parallels with his predecessor Jurgen Klopp raging at Coote for not awarding his team a penalty against Burnley some years earlier.
As indefensible as ‘not sober’ Coote’s racist remarks were, he didn’t come up with the idea of letting rip at the German for a bit of fun.
It was a reaction to the kind of in-your-face verbal violence Oliver had to swallow at Goodison Park when Slot’s team had simply drawn a match.
This was Slot’s first serious offence in the Premier League, so let’s give him that.
But referees are human despite what many people think. They have feelings.
And long memories.
CIT IT OUT
Nico O’Reilly helped Man City past Plymouth in the last round of the FA Cup[/caption]
ANYONE else an ABC in the FA Cup this year? Anyone But City!
It’s not their fault but to reinstate some romance back into the competition, can one of the other seven quarter-finalists win it
Manchester City have won the Prem four times in a row, FA Cup twice in the past six years and the bloody Champions League.
Any two from Preston, Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Fulham, Brighton, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest would make for a refreshing final on May 17 — and a memorable day out for their fans.
JURGEN’S JACKPOT
Jurgen Klopp admitted he was out of energy as Liverpool manager[/caption]
JURGEN KLOPP said he had ‘run out of energy’ so needed to quit Liverpool at the end of last season.
Yet the club’s accounts show Klopp and his staff still trousered a whopping £9.6million pay-off.
I know you can get money for voluntary redundancy but were Liverpool looking to cut numbers like Manchester United are? And even if they were, would Klopp have been ‘at risk’.
Such generosity. Not so much You’ll Never Walk Alone as you’ll never need a loan. Not with that kind of golden goodbye anyway.
WAD-ING IN
James Wage beat Luke Humphries at the UK Open[/caption]
STORY of the week has to be darts’ lickgate scandal where James Wade was called ‘disgusting’ for licking the neck of rival Luke Humphries at the UK Open.
Perhaps that is what they mean by ‘tongue-sten shafts’?
