The goodbyes keep on coming

David Beckham. Photo: Reuters/Ian Hodgson

I don’t think I can remember a season where so many football legends have decided to walk away from the game at the same time.

Players and managers retire every season. Of course they do. But you wouldn’t normally expect more than one or two big names to depart each year.

However, this season it feels like they are queuing up to get out of the sport.

Sir Alex Ferguson is obviously top of the list. His decision to abdicate his Old Trafford throne after 27 years in charge of United sent shockwaves through the game.

Slightly less shocking, but equally significant, were the announcements that three of England’s greatest players of their generation – Paul Scholes, Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen – would be hanging up their boots. The contribution this trio has made to the English game over the past 15 years or so has been immense.

They probably have only one regret – that their illustrious club careers were not replicated for their country

Then, just as we were coming to terms with those four farewells, a fifth and equally dramatic name was added to the list: David Beckham.

To be fair, this was not entirely unexpected. Beckham is 38 and, despite his brilliant fitness levels, time was inevitably going to catch up with him sooner or later.

But the very fact that he is bowing out while playing for Paris Saint-Germain at the highest level of European football is testament to the man’s seemingly endless love for the beautiful game.

After leaving LA Galaxy, it would have been easy for him to either call time on his career or head in the direction of an ‘emerging’ league for a final huge pay day.

Instead, he signed for PSG, donated his salary to charity and went on to help the French club to the league title. A fairy tale ending to what has been a fairy-tale career.

He always wanted to bow out at the very top and he has done just that, especially when you take into consideration the fact that PSG had actually offered him another season.

As Scholes, Beckham, Owen and Carragher play out their final few minutes of professional football, they probably have only one regret – that their illustrious club careers were not replicated for their country.

Three of those players (Carragher was, unfortunately in my opinion, always a bit of an outsider for England) formed the backbone of the so-called golden generation of English football.

Yet that incredibly talented crop of players – which also included Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Ashley Cole – never lived up to expectations.

They flattered to deceive on occasion and did give us glimpses of what might have been. But even with Beckham leading from the front, as he did for six years as captain, they never fulfilled their potential.

As unfortunate as that may be, it doesn’t change the fact that this fantastic four should be incredibly proud of what they achieved during their careers.

It has been a pleasure watching them.

A little magic returns

Wigan’s unexpected triumph in the FA Cup last week injected a bit of much-needed romance back into the occasion.

Once upon a time the FA Cup was the ultimate object of desire, the most coveted trophy in the English game – even more so in some respects than the league title itself.

Now it has become little more than a sideshow, a tournament that some of the top teams don’t even respect enough to field their strongest elevens, especially if doing so could jeopardise a league match.

The increasing financial dominance of the Premier League has left the FA Cup fighting for relevance in a crowded domestic calendar.

Where once it was the season finale, a rousing ending to the domestic programme, it is now squeezed in at 6.15pm on a Saturday evening, so the Premier League can have ‘final weekend’ glory.

Other changes haven’t helped its status either, like holding both semi-finals at Wembley, for example.

Half the beauty of the cup was that teams were fighting for the right to play on the hallowed turf for the first time. But now teams get to do it in the semis as well, which has made the final much less unique and special. It’s less ‘wow, we’re here’ and more ‘oh, here we are again’ these days.

As the financial strength of the Premier League continues to grow, I fear the FA Cup’s importance will continue to fade. It won’t ever die, of course, but it will become increasingly marginalised.

Unless, of course, something radical happens that brings it back to the top of everyone’s agenda. Like awarding the winners a Champions League slot for example.

Sorry, just dreaming.

Martinez good but not great

Talking of Wigan, I actually find it quite amusing how everyone seems to think Roberto Martinez is the best manager in the world these days.

The truth is that his record at Wigan is really quite appalling. He has been in charge of the club for just over 150 league matches and has only won 38 of those, barely a quarter.

I appreciate he has had limited resources at his disposal and has been forced to sell his best players on numerous occasions, but the same can be said about many clubs outside the top five or six.

And if he is such a great manager, why did it always take his team until the last few weeks of the season to start playing? Surely if he was such a genius he would have found a way of motivating them a bit earlier in the day.

I’m not trying to take anything away from his achievement this season of winning the FA Cup, because it was truly brilliant. However, I just think he may have been ‘bigged’ up a bit too much by the media.

Frankly speaking, I’ve got a little bit fed up with everyone gushing over how Martinez “plays football the right way”.

As far as I know, the only ‘right’ way to play football is a way that wins games and saves your team from relegation.

Martinez has done too little of the former this season and absolutely none of the latter.

What more do they want?

There was a time when winning a trophy meant a manager had something close to a job for life at their club.

Those days are no more.

The unceremonious sacking of Roberto Mancini last week means the winners of the four most important English cups last season – Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Championship – have all been sacked less than 12 months later.

Mancini was the last to go of a quartet that also included Kenny Dalglish, Roberto Di Matteo and Brian McDermott.

It would appear that instead of satisfying a chairman’s hunger for glory, winning something only makes them even greedier for success these days.

All’s well that ends well

When Rafa Benitez walks away from Stamford Bridge today, it will bring to an end one of the most unlikely, tempestuous and shortlived marriages in football.

The Spaniard was only in charge of Chelsea for a few months and during that time the fans – understandably to a large extent – never warmed to him.

Yet he leaves the club having secured Champions League qualification and won the Europa League – pretty decent achievements all things considered, and ones that will have served to raise his personal stock.

It was a relationship that was doomed from the very start but, now that the dust is settling, I think both parties will agree that they actually came out of it relatively unscathed and, in some ways, slightly better off.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade