Jemsym wrote:Good perspective here from this ESPN web page:
http://www.espn.com.au/soccer/english-l ... ish-teacup
the article ends with:
"...... if spying on the opposition might be seen as a typical South America ruse, there are few things more characteristically English than moralistic media outrage." Too true
Here's another quote from this piece:
"Bielsa accepted afterward that he has a responsibility to adapt to the norms of the country in which he is now working."
This is what I find annoying about the whole thing.... and it was started by Lampard when he said something along the lines of "I don't buy this different culture excuse".
There's a little bit of the 'dirty cheating foreigner' undercurrent going on. The way people like Collymore and Andrews are going on you'd be forgiven for thinking that England occupies the moral high ground where everything is whiter than white....
Our own Howard Wilkinson, who went on to work for the FA and was also the head of the League Managers' Association was also not averse to methods that woman-beater Collymore might not have approved of and Wilkinson is as English as they come.
In Dave Simpson's book The Last Champions about Leeds 1992 League success, Carl Shutt and Assistant Manager Mick Hennigan separately revealed that Wilko / Hennigan developed good relationships with the hotel managers in both Sheffield (when they were at Wednesday) and Leeds.
They used these relationships to get room lists of opposing teams when they were staying at these hotels in order to see who hadn't travelled (and was therefore injured).
If the opposing team was also careless enough to leave their flip charts detailing formations / free kick / corner notes on the A frame clipboards in hotel conference rooms, the manager would pass on these precious tools as well.
The book also details how the home dressing room had a connecting door to the laundry room which was adjacent to the away dressing room, so they were able to listen to team talks through the wall.
Now I know this is mostly Leeds related, but if Wilko was doing it, I'm sure the likes of Venables, Ferguson, Clough, Shankly and all the rest were at it too, so for me, there's quite a lot of hypocrisy going on here.
Football has always been a sport where you try to get away with what you can.... e.g., whenever there's a 50:50 situation such as an unclear throw-in, both players appeal yet one usually knows that he touched it last...
Let's not forget that Bielsa has never criticised a referee or an opposing manager unlike 99% of mangers here... Should Bielsa "adapt to those norms" too???
what part are you from?
