Overreaction Monday ft. Sportswashing to rescue, Pele’s overrated legacy and a glorified World Cup
SportsCafe
Overthinking and over-reacting to situations is the human way but when it comes to football, something clicks in a person that makes things comical, ludicrous and rarely sensible. That being said, after an empty weekend of hysterical fans in England, there were bound to be a few hare-brained ideas.
The FIFA World Cup is a glorified pot luck
In what was a debate about who’s better between Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona, somehow the argument turned to the World Cup being a glorified pot luck.
SC Take: Somehow calling Maradona idiotic and lazy for doing nothing but winning a “FIFA World Cup”(s) wasn’t enough. They went and insulted the tournament calling it nothing more than a glorified pot luck. That’s pushing it a bit far and can most definitely be classified as a bonafide overreaction. It’s the phrase one uses when losing an argument that shouldn’t really be taking place in the first place.
But calling a tournament that takes nearly everything a team, a nation and even a group of players to win while singlehandedly bringing more revenue to the host nation than anything else glorified is ridiculous. Sure, the quadrennial tournament has been put up on a pedestal too high but there’s a reason that it is up there.
Pele wasn’t as good as people claimed because he never won a European Cup with a “big team”.
With no football to make people lose their minds over, the world has instead decided to attack Pele with the claim that he simply wasn’t as good as he’s touted to be. Why? Cause European Cups, sorry Champions Leagues, matter.
SC Take: Now you, me, and a lot of people living on this planet have never personally seen Pele play live - either on TV or in a stadium. While that’s on us for being born too late, it also doesn’t give us the right to claim that he’s the greatest ever. Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and the rest are fine but Pele is out of bounds especially when you claim that he’s overrated because he never won a European Cup.
First of all, the first European cup was played when Pele was 17. Secondly, scouting systems were as good as they are now and clubs, during that era/period, were dominantly formed of players from that particular country with Brazilians not as well known as many believed they were. Secondly playing at a World Cup, back then, was the greatest honour for a player which meant that international sides were built with the best players from that country. Take from that what you want.
Marcus Rashford aka the most overrated player in the Premier League
After multiple comments, quotes and other stuff about Marcus Rashford, the interweb has taken to claiming that the United star is the most overrated player in the English top tier.
SC Take: First of all, calling Marcus Rashford 'overrated' has some semblance of truth to it. Have Manchester United fans rated him far higher than they should? They have but which club’s fanbase hasn’t done that too a player and Rashford is certainly talented. At 22, he’s one of their best but more importantly, this season at 22 he’s been leading the charge, alone. Anthony Martial has been Tony Martial, struggling through injuries and consistency and that has seen Rashford’s support system essentially made up of Fred, Daniel James and Juan Mata.
Jesse Lingard has been there about, Paul Pogba has been injured for large parts of the season which has effectively left Rashford without any support system. And yet, somehow he’s managed to score 14 goals and create four more for teammates and got over-worked, plus played through an injury. World Class? He may not be but overrated is something he is definitely not.
‘Sportswashing’ will inadvertently save football
Amidst what has been a financial crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus, many believe that sportswashing or questionable sources with human rights issues splurge money, will help the league.
SC Take: Somehow, this makes sense. Shocking but sportswashing or aka where countries/companies/billionaires with questionable and shady pasts dump money into clubs might actually help the Premier League run. They may not survive as well as they wanted to in the past but a club like Newcastle could not just become competitive but also become a major player on the European market both on and off the field.
Furthermore, PSG, Chelsea, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, and even AC Milan’s owners could potentially watch as their investment doesn’t just improve but change football as we know it. Shocking but it could certainly be an answer, especially with FFP, the prospect of no broadcasting income and the lack of matchday income destroying clubs. Especially for the smaller sides, it could certainly make a massive difference.
