IT'S BEEN a sad week for football, one that could only have been made worse for me if I'd been born Irish.
First of all one of my favourite players of all time, Thierry Henry, is caught blatantly cheating in a game of such monumental significance that his reputation will forever be tarnished. I have always loved the way Henry plays. His skills, his speed, his courage and his apparent lack of guile made him one of the few players (Zola being another) who had the ability to make football a true joy to watch and play.
Now he's a cheat. At least he had the courage to acknowledge it. But he's still a cheat.
Move forward a couple of days to Friday night at Hindmarsh Stadium and I was unfortunate enough to watch the reputation of Gold Coast and the fate of my beloved Reds suffer a similar nosedive.
Kristian Rees and Zac Anderson robbed Adelaide of two goals with the type of 'professional' foul that should demand further sanctions from any association serious about promoting attacking football and exciting scorelines.
Rees got the ball? Yes - but only after he'd pulled Leckie back so that he had time to get his foot in. Clear red card. He knew Leckie was past him and, rather than take the consequences of his lack of pace and placement, he flouted the rules of the game to prevent a goal.
Anderson's was, if anything, even more blatant. Same scenario. Same player. Same result. Same intention. Incredibly, no red card. More of that later.
Let's be honest, players don't have to do this. When they do it leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Cristiano's blatant dive last year was also sickening. It says all the wrong things about our beautiful game and teaches all the young players exactly what not to do.
When a player displays honesty, it lifts the crowd and it lifts the game. Remember when West Hams' notorious and ill-disciplined Paulo DiCanio chose to catch the ball and stop play when he could have scored - because he'd seen the keeper down and hurt. It made headlines around the world because it was the right thing to do and displayed a rare humanity that has become increasingly uncommon in professional sport. As a West Ham fan I was shocked and delighted all at once.
On Friday I was sick to the heart. Cheats destroy sporting contests.
Referee Chris Beath would not be the first ref to have bottled it when faced with the tough decision to reduce a team to nine players or less. But we have rules for a reason. A red card offence is the same however many players are on the field. He obviously saw it because he gave Zac Anderson a yellow. Sorry, Chris - not ok. You get paid to enforce the rules, not some personal, arbitrary sense of merciful justice.
As for that game, well GCU defended well and Adelaide can't finish. Nor can we play 90 minutes of football. Viddie got his subs wrong - again - and Travis Dodd showed us all that 30 minutes of petulant sulking with hands on knees is unlikely to lift the team you are honoured to captain.
We will all have versions of what could or should have been done. Unfortunately what was done wasn't enough. That's our season in a nutshell. Not enough and at the wrong time.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
So Viddie made an unwise, unfunny and ignorant remark when replying to a question from a journalist. Then he was made aware of his indiscretion and publically apologised. Then his own club fined him $10,000 and suspended him from coaching games for two weeks. Does anyone else smell a rat here?
The journalist in question is the senior football writer for Adelaide's only newspaper. He seems to have been using that position to conduct a campaign against Viddie for well over a year now.
He's winning. Aurelio let himself down, but the club let Aurelio down.
Where was the club statement supporting Viddie while regretting his remarks? Where was the offer to rest Viddie from media activity while he underwent some professional training? Instead we got a hugely overdone sanction and public telling off.
Maybe Viddie shouldn't be surprised though. It's what he's been doing to his players lately. What goes around...
Simply put, there seems to be deep and dangerous cracks appearing in the Adelaide United structure. Petty politics are dragging down a team that the fans love - and pay to love. It's not good enough.
Sack Viddie if you don't want him anymore - but if you do (and I still do), then support him. Viddie, drop the players you don't rate, but don't publicly humiliate them.
You see, some of us care about this. Some of the thousands who turn up and pay for our seats each week because we love this team and our football. We don't like what we're seeing and hearing. We won't put up with 'old soccer' politics and bullshit. We will leave. If you want to keep us then get your shit together. Fast.
We might not behead people in Australia but we do a pretty fine job of stabbing them in the back.
