Playing Cards

It is the 34th minute of Chelsea’s crucial Champions League clash with Barcelona at Stamford Bridge. Teenage Argentinian genius Lionel Messi is flying down the right flank with Arjen Robben scuttling along beside him in that familiar style of his. Robben is not looking at the ball. His eyes are fixed on the Barcelona player and he has two or three none too subtle attempts to knock him off balance. Down by the corner flag, Robben executes a scything tackle, but Messi has already eluded him.

At this point, Chelsea left back Asier Del Horno, who has given the impression that he has received instructions to let Messi know that he’s playing, steams into his opponent and catches him high on his body. He is not even close to the ball. And as soon as he has made contact, Del Horno collapses to the ground in apparent agony and begins to roll around, much as Michael Essien had done recently after one of his ‘X’ rated challenges. Not to be outdone, Messi rolls too. It is a sure sign that both players are fine. Seriously injured footballers do not roll around, as Manchester United’s Alan Smith would readily confirm.

By this time a large crowd of players from both sides has congregated, quickly dividing up the duties of making representation to the referee and his linesman, and jostling one another. It seems like an age but before Del Horno (who after all is supposed to be stricken) gets up, the referee produces a red card, and Chelsea are down to 10 men.

Stamford Bridge is seething with the ‘injustice’ of it all and after the game, the Special One condemns the decision of Norwegian referee Terje Hauge, insisting that it was responsible for Chelsea’s defeat because it “changed everything” and implying that Messi was ‘acting’.

Now that is fascinating and more than a little ironic. When Jose Mourinho was manager of Porto, it was not unknown for his players to be accused of feigning injury, taking a dive or two and doing the odd bit of time wasting – as followers of Manchester United, amongst others, would attest. And somehow, these tendencies have been replicated at Chelsea – in, for instance, the tackles (and subsequent ‘injuries’) of Michael Essien, the ‘asides’ of Arjen Robben (known, when accompanied by the appearance of pain and a few rolls, to provoke the occasional red card), the dramatic tumbles of Hernan Crespo (from which he always recovers quickly) and the thoughtful way the Chelsea players cluster round the officials to offer assistance with any finer points of law that might bring sanctions to the opposition.

Amidst all the outrage, the railing against injustice, there is the unmistakable background note of hypocrisy, the sense that Chelsea are inclined to condemn in others what they condone in themselves. And if that is the case, it inevitably diminishes them and all of their achievements.