football quotes, humour and guff

We’ve already discussed the real (serious) teams, perhaps it’s time to reflect a moment on the topic that occupies the other 50% of every waking moment of J Giles’ and E Dunphy’s lives; the great players.

As is now customary in Big Cup week – there being little in the way of actual information the research-shy lads can impart on any of the participants performing in matches under their watch – much of the time was spent ruling out feckless modern-day footballers from the select echelon of greatness.

On Tuesday, during another spirited dismissal of Christiano Ronaldo’s claims to be a competent – never mind great – player, Gilesy reminded us once more of the founding members of the club:

“Pele, Bobby Charlton, Maradona and that.”

Fitting that only one performed during the lads’ punditry career and even then, Diego was, famously, “not a great player” right up until he repeated his “different class” goal in the World Cup semi against Belgium.

And so, having established on Tuesday that the last 20 years have produced nary a great player, Wednesday provided the first clue as to why this might be the case, as Eamo revealed for the first time, his patented charter of greatness:

“Greatness is three things. It’s talent, it’s brain, it’s concentration and spirit.”

And after Ronaldinho once again came up three or four items short, Eamo needed no prompting to thumb his well-worn list of great characters from other sports.

Naturally, Ruby Walsh, Aidan O’Brien and Kieran Fallon were to the fore and Tony McCoy made his first appearance of the season. Tiger Woods got the nod. And of course Roy Keane was in there.

But wait, there were two shiny new additions to Eamo’s land of the infallible: none other than flavour of the month egg-chasers, Ronan O’Gara and Brian O’Driscoll.

“These guys. They are up there.”

Apparently “tactical kicker” ROG doesn’t bottle European Cup Finals any more, therefore he now “sets the bar for sport in the modern age and Ronaldinho doesn’t measure up.”

Perhaps – just to be sure – we should get Ronnie to see how many times he can find touch during the return at Anfield. He might still not measure up but Momo Sissoko is surely on the cusp of greatness.

Although Eamo has predictably been coaxed to the dark side of Celtic Tiger Ireland’s new cocaine - where weak men invent teams and trophies and try to pick up what they cannot control with their feet - a skeptical Gilesy, to his credit, was less willing to allow “ball carriers” into his club: 

“The great players, or eh… great boxers or whatever else … have kept their standards up.”

And that has also always been the difference between him and Dunphy. Gilesy – while he’ll never tell you the name of Valencia’s right back – has never let his standards drop.

“Once you lose honesty of effort, Bill …  I hope I’m not boring people here.”

Sometimes you are Johnny, but would we have it any other way?
 

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Guffwatch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.