JULIO Arca voted for Ronaldo in the PFA player of the year ballot. He said so in the Manchester United programme, even though he admitted that some of his Boro team-mates were "not happy" at the Portuguese prima donna with the spring loaded spine.
Ronaldo was a shoe-in for the players' gong because, despite his RADA acrobatics leaving furious fans feeling cheated in his wake, he has been head and shoulders above the rest. Technically he is brilliant. He skills are sublime. He devastates opposition defences with his mercurial trickery but he is not just a fancy Dan: he is athletic, effective, astute and has a fierce will to win. Those are the qualities that the players have voted for in droves, even those who have left the pitch fuming at his penalty box theatrics because - and here's the rub - professional footballers see wha the does as not cheating but 'gamesmanship'.
Unlike fans, the players are not morally outraged by Ronaldo's ability to win free-kicks in the most dubious of circumstances in the way supporters are. In fact, they see it as a skill that is central to the armoury of the professional. In essence ALL players cheat.
All players appeal for throws when they know they put the ball out. They obstruct, kick, pull, push and trip the opposition whenever it will gain the advantage and they actively think about it and make those judgements carefully. There is a calculated approach to bending the rules that is seen as an integral - if unspoken - part of the game. If individuals they are not prepared to do it, or are not good enough at doing it instinctively they will not get in the team because coaches need to win games and will pick the players most attuned to a "by all means neccessary" mentality.
Fans can be self-righteous about the opposition players' transparent cheating all they like but if they looked hard enough they would see happens routinely and systematically among their own heroes too. In recent years we have seen examples of Boro players go down as if pole-axed by the swish of air from Nobby Solanos flick of a gloved hand, a player go down injured and then roll back on the pitch to get the play stopped, goals punched in and some classic examples of "inviting the challenge" to win penalties, one of which was instrumental in getting past Roma in the UEFA Cup and which we all celebrated with gusto.
Our own double-think allows a culture of cheating to flourish - and also undermines even the most sincere and impassioned condemnation of the cheating of others on those occasions when it is so embarrassingly obvious and when it proves decisive.
For the players it is admiration for the ability of opponents to create match-turning moments of brilliance that either fools players into making mistakes that can be exploited or fools the ref into making a wrong decision that allows the culture to go unchallenged. Ronaldo's accolade has validated the dark side of his art as much as his stepovers and shin cannons. How can players be expected to tackle cheating in the game when they are voting to praise the most prolific and proficient divers?
And it will get worse for fans with a some shreds of conscience left because it is almost certain that the "football writers", a self appointed coterie of sycophantic national paper big-hitters, will also vote for Ronaldo in their own discredited awards. Even the two faced, unprincipled ones who spent most of last Summer in a bigoted and bile spattered hate campaign to prevent him ever kicking a ball in the Premiership again, so grievous was his crime against English football will vote for him. The long ago abandoned objectivity and any notions of being the guardians of the game in favour of becoming glamour groupies and cheer-leaders for the big clubs.
If there was a fans' award Ronaldo would not win. He has antagonised, and sickened and turned away more people from the game that he has won admirers. Plus, fans have long memories and know how to hold a grudge. We do not object to skill, even when it is used to hurt us. No one ever railed against Denis Bergkamp, or David Beckham, or Ian Wright or even Roy Keane. We appreciate the good side of the game and deplore the bad. Objective fans who care for the game, however jaundiced they can be at times, are the last bastions of fairplay.
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