Regarding Gattuso, and Tottenham fans' huge hostility towards him, I'm a little lost about what makes them special compared with AC Milan (one of the great clubs of Europe), Napoli and Fiorentina (two huge, famous old Italian clubs).

Maybe those 3 clubs let bygones be bygones?
Trial by social media is beyond tiresome. It's also rather creepy - like living in East Germany.

He's a football manager. He's not Wittgenstein. And any society which demands football managers (and footballers) are 'role models' has something very very wrong with it.
There is also context to his past comments, however offensive they are to many.

1. Barbara Berlusconi was in the job because she's Silvio's daughter. No other reason. She didn't take the job at all seriously and got into a relationship with Alexandre Pato, a player at Milan.
Gattuso was actually correct that her promotion was profoundly disrespectful to Adriano Galliani, Silvio's right hand man and the biggest single reason behind Milan's long period of success.

Then we come to the racist chants. Bear with me on this please.
Italian football ultras are well, weird. A law unto themselves. These are people who often don't actually care whether their team wins or loses - many of them are in it for profit. Selling tickets and merchandise, becoming very powerful individuals, running protection rackets.
And the way they behave at football matches is simple: explained perfectly by Tim Parks in the magnificent 'A Season With Verona', the best book ever written on Italian football.

"What's the best way of sending the other side's fans into paroxysms of rage?"
This means that when it comes to chants and songs, NOTHING is off limits to them. They'll sing about earthquakes if they're playing somewhere that had one; they'll sing about tragedies; and sadly, yes, they'll make racist chants too.
That doesn't make it OK. It's just the football culture there (and often in South America too).

So when Gattuso said "there are no racists here", what he meant was: "These people aren't actually racist. They just do it to provoke the opponents". He's mostly right in that.
Is Italy some backward nation compared with the rest of Western Europe? For all its problems, no: not at all.

It just has a very different fan and football culture - which Gattuso has been part of all his life.

We in England are far too quick to judge, hector and condemn.
I can assure you that most of the rest of the world HATES that about us. Hates our post-imperial superiority complex and frequently, our hypocrisy.

For the record: when Paolo di Canio became Sunderland manager and David Miliband resigned from their board, I found it laughable.
He'd already been Swindon manager; no problem, apparently. Miliband, meanwhile, had voted to bomb Iraq, oversaw torture and special rendition... but the political opinions of the manager of his football club were too much for him?!

Please.
Further, while I wanted Glenn Hoddle out for footballing reasons - we'd fallen apart thanks to his betrayal of his players in his bloody book - I was horrified at his treatment when he was forced out for something which had nothing to do with football.
He was as good as sacked by Tony Blair from Richard and Judy's comfy sofa. It left me wondering if Blair would be calling on the Dalai Lama - whose views Hoddle mostly shares - to consider his position.

This is football. These people aren't politicians or businessmen.
True, some footballers are becoming far more political: with Marcus Rashford the leading example. But I really don't care about things people said in the past.

Rino Gattuso is a football manager, not Lucifer. By all means question his record - but the rest of it leaves me cold.

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More from @shaunjlawson

20 Jun
THREAD: National anthems.

There's many things I love about major sporting tournaments. In my opinion, nothing in the world is better than the World Cup: during which, I'm like a child on Christmas morning every day for a month.

Sporting tournaments are also great for... anthems
The 1988 Olympic Games first introduced me to a good number of them, and 10-year-old me was captivated. In this list of my 20 favourites from around the world, two of them make it because they had such an impression on me at those Games in Seoul.
Before I start, a few addendums:

1. God Save The Queen is an appalling dirge which should be disposed with forthwith and does not make this list. There's bazillions of reasons for the England football team's endless failures - but GSTQ must be one of them. It's awful.
Read 49 tweets
19 Jun
2 rounds in, and only one team has played excellently on both occasions. On pure performance, Belgium - all over the place in the first half v Denmark - would rank 2nd overall!

Major tournaments are not won during group stages. But fair play to Italy for setting a fearsome pace
England's position - four points from two games - doesn't look half as bad as last night, after watching Portugal get pummelled and Spain run around in ever-decreasing circles.

But the temptation to play for a draw on Tuesday night is very real.
The temptation for Italy to throw their game tomorrow will also be very real. They're likely to benefit hugely in the knockout stage draw if they do so.
Read 4 tweets
18 Jun
Disgraceful performance. Ridiculous formation, absurd failure to change it, taking off Foden was insane - and on the sidelines, Southgate and Holland looked clueless about what was blindingly obvious.

Gareth Southgate: you are now, officially, a typical England manager.
Scotland deserved to win. If a poorish English were the better side in the first half, Scotland had much the better of the second half. Steve Clarke's worth his weight in gold.

But England? Garbage. Appalling. I'm quite sure we won't be as bad as that again - but inexcusable.
That straight swap of Grealish for Foden alarmed the hell out of me.

Yes, we needed Grealish (who contrary to his many admirers, is not Superman) - but we also needed Foden. Really fearful from the manager: which spread to the players.
Read 5 tweets
31 May
This is the story of Philosopher Pigeon.

He wasn't the first to appear on my balcony way back in January - he popped up a bit after that. But what I noticed immediately was:

- He had the patience levels of a Tibetan monk
- He was completely isolated and ignored by the others
- He'd just sit in the same spot for hours and hours, thinking (hence my name for him)
- His face would kind of sink into his body, making him look really old and sad

My cleaner thought he was ill. I insisted he wasn't - well, not physically, anyway. He was depressed though.
Yes, pigeons do get depressed. There are the most awful, shocking videos on YouTube of them committing suicide: jumping to their deaths. 😭

I also kept having this image of Piggy's fate in Lord of the Flies in my head. Rather like this 😮😱😭😭😭

Read 9 tweets
31 May
These are Uruguay's preliminary vaccination results, published by the government last week.

Uruguay is well advanced in its vaccination programme, but most of the population have had Sinovac. (I've had Pfizer because of underlying health conditions).
Pfizer has been 75% effective in reducing cases; Sinovac, 57%.

Interestingly, Sinovac is a whopping 97% effective in reducing death numbers. Pfizer is 80% effective.
In stopping patients needing to be admitted to intensive care, Sinovac is 95% effective; Pfizer is 99% effective.
Read 5 tweets
30 May
"Kanté played 37 games as Caen remained in the top flight... He recovered the ball more times than any other player in Europe....

... By the end of 2015-16, Kanté had managed 175 tackles (31 more than any other player) and 157 interceptions (15 more than any other player)..."
"Kanté was offered a deal where a part of his salary would be transferred into an offshore account to avoid taxes.

Kanté chose to refuse the deal, with his lawyer stating in an email: "N'golo is flexible, he simply wants a normal salary"".
"Kanté revealed he decided against moving to PSG and said, "‘Sometimes we do not necessarily know where we want to go, but we know what we have.""
Read 7 tweets

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