Persecuted
I know that the scarfy, nervous mess trolling the Eastlands touchline is looking for solace amid a difficult fortnight, but something tells me that a comment like this to the rabid English media isn’t going to help his case.
“The tabloids rage against us because City are headed by an Italian. I’m sorry to say, but the English are nationalists in football.”
This was Mancini chatting to the Italian paper Il Seccolo XIX, a fine Ligurian publication. While he’s right that the British media and punditry councils are dismissive of foreigners in the sport and enjoy a bit of casual xenophobia from time to time, I think this is one point where they couldn’t care less where you’re from. If it was, wouldn’t they be stood outside picketing the Arab owners first?
I mean, City have lost three in a row in all competitions, and for a team that’s spent in excess of the Congolese GDP* to build an unbeatable dynasty, that’s not too acceptable. Losing streaks happen and bad luck plays a factor, but I feel like other managers have been canned for a lot less.
Fact is, Sheikh Mansour is seeing his team in the headlines a lot lately, none of it for anything particularly good. With this much tied up in a plan for global soccer domination, the manager is always the first to feel the wrath, and Mancini’s held enough high-profile gigs to understand that.
At a time when Mancini is struggling for friends and positive PR, pithy comments like this become the tipping point and the beginning of the end. Tabloids have more ammo, Roberto shows sign of weakness, and it’ll continue to swirl around the team and serve as a major distraction.
Then again, chairman Garry Cook has made a cottage industry out of saying and doing stupid things, and he still has a job, so maybe Roberto’s right all along.
Ryan, defend your boy!
/Kornheiser’d
Far be it from me to defend an Eyetalian, but can someone name an English (not Scottish) manager who’s been successful lately? The only one I can think of is McLaren winning the Eredivisie with Twente. Is that it?
Some bloke called ‘Arry Redknapp seems to be doing alright lately.
Yeah, that was a pretty stupid thing to say.
–
I hesitate to make this next point given my recent history of being loudly and outrageously wrong, but I do think we’re a long long ways away from him being sacked.
–
Also, for those playing the “Hughes was doing better at this stage than Mancini is” card, look at Hughes Premier League results from November until he was sacked: Draw, Draw, Draw, Draw, Win, Draw, Loss, Win(day he was sacked).
–
Finally, you’ll get no argument from me on Garry Cook’s propensity for sticking the ol’ foot in the mouth. However, the more I hear about the Hughes sacking, it sounds like it was more of a Marwood decision, and Cook really didn’t want to do it.
Per capita GDP of the Democratic Rep of Congo is the lowest in the world ($200-$300, depending on whose calculations you like).
But with 70M people there, City have a ways to go before they get to the GDP for the country as as whole.
Perhaps you should’ve gone with the Republic of the Congo rather than DRC.
/For the record:
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:COG&dl=en&hl=en&q=congo+gdp#met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:COG:ZAR
Pah. These are the intertubes. Being loudly and outrageously wrong gives you credibility. See: All of UF.
Look who’s had extra kibbles today!
@JT: :*