Fail in England, fail in life

As league titles are decided, thoughts turn to the next season. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Barcelona who have lost not only their league title, but also their scion of Johan Cruyff's Dream Team, Pep Guardiola. His successor Tito Vilanova has, according to the gossip and rumour pages recently, identified David Luiz as a key signing for his first season in charge. Cue much hilarity from the British press. "Ha ha ha, he's terrible at defending". "Tee hee hee, he done a blunder a couple of times this year". So it goes.

This isn't the first example of such a phenomenon. Juan Sebastian Verón copped much the same after not being at his mercurial best in spells with Manchester United and Chelsea. Diego Forlán was written off as failure on the back of his time with United despite scoring absolute bucketloads of goals wherever else he's been in his career. Indeed, whenever he's featuring in a game on UK TV, hearing mention of the fact that 'he failed to set the Premier League alight' is rarer than not, presumably because someone feels that that's the benchmark by which all careers should be measured.

Luiz has his faults - that much is clear. But to focus on that does the man a disservice and blinds the observer to the things that a club like Barcelona see in him. In a back three, he's absolutely ideal. Like Gerard Pique, he's very accomplished on the ball, has a bit of pace and can pick a pass. That latter point is absolutely crucial in the Barcelona system where Pique is as much a quarter-back as he is defender. With Carles Puyol approaching the end of his career, it's a move that screams sense.

If it does go through, expect him to be labelled in the UK as a Premier League flop for the rest of his life. He could win countless trophies and personal accolades, but if he comes back to this country for a European fixture or an England v Brazil friendly, expect the phrase to appear before the anthems are over. The appointment of Roy Hodgson to the role of England manager was the same - his entire 35-year career overlooked for nine months at Liverpool, a basket case of a club at the time and one which £120m of players made appreciably worse.

Yes, you can file this under S for 'stating the bleeding obvious'. It's still worth saying though and is a reason why we in this parish watch so much football from abroad and will watch the Euros with the sound down. We want an appraisal of the football we're seeing, not speculation as to how much one of the Manchester clubs will offer for the genius that is Mats Hummels. We wonder, though, if it is the same elsewhere. Was Dennis Bergkamp known as a 'Serie A flop' by the Italian media after he left Inter? What of Gary Lineker at Barcelona, where Rinus Michels played him as a winger? Or is it just the British that are willing to write people off on the basis of a tiny proportion of a career with no appreciation of the rest of it? A genuine question.

The Languid XI

You know the sort. The player who looks like football is just a bothersome task that gets in the way of looking effortlessly cool. Like exerting oneself is the worst thing a person can do. Like they could take to the pitch with a cigarillo and a brandy, do something amazing without spilling a drop or knocking the ash off the end.
Here's our Languid XI, lining up in the formation of languidity, 3-4-3:

Goalkeeper:
Vitor Baia
Goalkeepers are normally highly strung individuals, bawling and shouting a lot, flinging themselves about and blaming everyone but themselves for their failings, which made our search for a suitable custodian difficult. But the former Portuguese number one gave off such an air of calmness that he was the obvious choice. No histrionics, no pretending he was really a midfield general but was just helping out by going in nets, economy of movement and stylish hair.

Defence:
Paolo Maldini
Mats Hummels
Gerard Pique
All three of our defence exude casual brilliance. It's one thing to be brilliant, quite another to be brilliant while looking like you just don't care, like the fact you're better than the rest is actually quite banal. Hummels being flagged for offsides is not uncommon, and we all love a centre-back being offside, though his obvious delight in the Netherlands falling apart in front of him betrayed his lack of inner languidity. Pique is very similar - a midfield stroller trapped in a centre-back's body.
What else is there to say about Maldini? Just look at him...

Midfield:
Andrea Pirlo
Sócrates
Juan Sebastian Véron
Rui Costa
Sócrates is the coolest person ever to pull on a pair of boots and the captain of the coolest team the game has ever seen. His grace of movement was completely at odds with his gangling frame, but it was off the field that he became cooler still with the drinking, smoking, philosophising and democracy activism. What a guy.
The renaissance in Pirlo's career since leaving Milan has been quite staggering. The movement has become even more economical with age, but if anything that's made him more dangerous as a player. Feared, respected, admired, bearded. It doesn't get much better than that.
The latter pair exemplify the archetypal midfield stroller. Socks half-way down shins, pads flapping, cruising around the middle of the park like they owned it and spraying passes around for fun. Those are the guys young lads aspire to be, the players that make you fall for this often stupid game in the first place.

Forwards:
Giorgios Samaras
Dimitar Berbatov
Bryan Ruiz
Sleeves down below hands? Check. Lank-haired (or formerly lank-haired) masters of the stroll? Check. Routinely shouted at by fans for not doing enough and then go and do something totally bloody amazing? Check. If you want any more than that from your front three, you have a heart of stone. Of course, Ruiz and Berbatov are now team-mates, regularly competing for the award for doing the most brilliant thing while also looking a bit bored by it all. And they have that dreamy away kit - the black with the white and gold sash. All properly languid teams should wear the sash, the kit of cool.
Samaras is a lot better than people give him credit for. Like many of our team, his apparent lack of effort weighs against him in terms of image, but he's alright, y'know, and stylish with it which is, of course, far more important.

Would this team win many games? Who cares.