Reaction to Champion and Waddle's commentary on Unirea 1 Liverpool 3

No sooner had the first whistle sounded, ESPN’s ‘dream team’ of Waddle and Champion were slating Liverpool. Like a broken record, Waddle harped on that English teams need to play with a high tempo in Europe as though this was true of every minute of every European tie involving an English club.

Forget the fact that Rafa has led this Liverpool team to victories over the likes of Juventus, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid by sending out his team to play with a high tempo from the kick off and has an outstanding record in European competition which would suggest he knows when to use a high tempo and when not to. Ignore the fact it is impossible for any team to maintain a high tempo for a full 90 minutes. Overlook the mud bath on which this match was being played. Disregard the fact that Liverpool led from the first leg and therefore did not need to score to progress.

According to Waddle, Liverpool should have immediately played with a high tempo against Unirea because they are an English team and English teams need to play high tempo football.

Tell me, why isn’t Waddle employed as a football manager at one of the top European clubs? Surely with insight like that, he would be a shoe-in for the England manager’s job? High tempo – simple. World Cups and European Championships would undoubtedly follow.

Since when did geography dictate how teams should play? Yes, Liverpool FC comes from England but the starting XI comprised of just two English players plus a Frenchman, two Argentineans, a Brazilian, a Dutchman, an Israeli, a Slovakian, a Dane and a Spaniard.
Between them, Champion and Waddle presented Liverpool’s failure to attack from the first whistle of a game they did not need to win as conclusive evidence that Liverpool and its manager are negative. When Unirea took a shock lead from a corner the criticism went into overdrive. ‘Zonal marking!’ they screamed. Forget the fact that this was the first goal from a set piece Liverpool had conceded in eight games since the equaliser at Stoke. Forget the fact Liverpool have kept six clean sheets in their last seven games conceding just once. Clearly it was a poor goal to concede but to me it came from a combination of an excellent delivery, an excellent finish and the fact that the nearest man to the goal-scorer (who did attempt to clear the ball) was Insua who was simply out-jumped by a player over a foot taller than him.

According to Waddle, Liverpool had “got what they deserved”. Apparently, you deserve to be losing if you don’t play with a high tempo and adopt a supposedly negative style of play regardless of whether the opposition deserve to be in front as a result of decent attacking play, dominating possession or playing with a high tempo themselves. Unirea were the home team and needed to score. Surely if any team should be criticised for not going all out to attack and for not playing with a high tempo, it should have been the Romanians? However, in Waddle’s and Champion’s eyes, Unirea might as well not have been there. This match was all about the failings of this Liverpool team and the ‘commentary’ was solely about the team in red.

“Sam Allardyce will be rubbing his hands with delight watching this!” squealed Champion suggesting that Blackburn – labelled a set-piece specialist team as, like any Allardyce team, it is their only means of attack – will enjoy a field day at Anfield on Sunday. When did Blackburn last win a League game at Anfield? 1993. But Allardyce is English so in the mind of Champion he is a better manager than “lucky” Benitez.

“English teams have to play with a high tempo”, droned Waddle. “But an English team with a Spanish coach?” jeered Champion inferring that Spanish coaches were negative (unlike British managers like Moyes, Hodgson and Allardyce whose sides apparently play expansive attacking football week-in, week-out). Surely this is a racist comment? To stereotype an entire nation’s coaches as negative as Champion did was as crude as it was ignorant. Spain is the country of Real Madrid and Barcelona, not to mention the current European Championship holders. It is the country of Fernando Torres, David Villa, David Silva, Xavi, et al. All of whom are lauded for their attacking brilliance. The truth is this thoughtless moronic jibe was not aimed at Spanish coaches; it was aimed solely at Benitez whom Champion regularly derides as a “lucky general”. Benitez is negative, is a poor manager, blah blah blah.

Well after Liverpool went through the motions to win 3-1 putting in a professional European away performance without really needing to play high tempo football and with one of the goals scored from a set-piece against a team marking man-to-man, I think Champion and Waddle both owe Rafa Benitez an apology. They won’t give him one as they are a pair of classless bores but at least if Rafa ever has the misfortune to listen to the tripe they spouted during the game, he will know his team exposed their ignorance.

EDIT: Paul Tomkins published this piece on his official website "The Tomkins Times" saying "The following post, by Dave Cronin (dcronin), summed up what I wished I’d wrote; once I read it, I didn’t need to continue with my draft."