I truly felt sorry for Jake Livermore when I heard about his positive test for cocaine last week.
I have heard some say, ‘Serves him right, he got what was coming towards him. He is a footballer and they are all spoilt anyway, so good for him’
The truth is that cocaine is not a performance enhancing drug, but a social one.
Players who take it do not do it to cheat in a game, or to gain any unfair advantage over the opposing player in a game, or a teammate in training. In actual fact, it has a negative effect on those footballers who use it, denying them complete mastery of their senses, when under its influence, and most who take it go on to do other things: party, girls, alcohol and eventually land in hot water.
So why take the drug anyway?
What would make a person blow his career and £million fortune on wine, cocaine, booze, girls and fast cars?
Why would someone build something for ten years and just destroy it in a whiff?
Why would anyone work so hard to acquire something and then throw it away with ease?
Decisions, associations, and perhaps the state of mind?
The truth is that most footballers suffer performance anxiety – you get that match day, and depending on which games, the build up is from a couple of days and up until kick off – the pressure of performance, the pressure of winning, the pressure from the fans, the pressure from the media, the pressure from the coach, pressure from the board of directors, self imposed pressure borne out of competition for places, and the added personal issues they carry on their shoulders in day to day life.
Some might argue that most people are under pressure in their daily lives a swell, very true, but the difference is that once you sign up to be a footballer, your life and your job is not inside an office, alone on a desk or surrounded by a few people and supervised by a manager. It is in front of 50,000 people watching you, and over 1,000,000 viewers sharing their opinions as to how well or how terrible you’re doing your job.
Every mistake is analysed and scrutinised in the media, and you’re a soft target for abuse to which you cannot fight back verbally and say it ‘exactly’ the way you ‘feel’ and ‘see’ it.
Is it one of the most glamorous jobs in the world? Yes it is a fantastic opportunity, but with it also comes a lonely life that drives normal people to the brink of disaster, destruction, disillusion and disappointments .Enter parties, sex, drugs and lavish spending.
Most footballers argue that the pressure of performing on the park lead them to drugs. Some would say that ‘it’ was always just put by their way by so called friends.
When I was out injured as a player, I did work away from the group most times – gym, physiotherapist and fitness trainer- and because you don’t play games during your injury, suddenly you even have more time than you would normally have. I studied a lot each time I was injured, and I kept my bible close to me, but for most footballers this meant going out two or three times a week and then drugs, alcohol and women would always appear.
And when you’ve got that much cash sloshing around you get carried away.
I am not condoning what Jake has done, neither am I or suggesting in anyways that he has been unfairly punished, but what I am saying is that these footballers need help. They need someone to talk to them and prepare them for life during and after their careers, because many footballers live a life that is out of control but manage to keep it quiet, and they do so with the help of drugs, alcohol, sex, and the yes men all around them.
Truth is that Jake Livermore will be handed a hefty fine and a long suspension from the game that may end his career at Hull City, or even altogether entirely.
Would there be more? Of course there would be more players. Are there more? You bet there are.
But can football find a long lasting solution to this elephant in the room called excessive money, fuelled by the media, drugs, alcohol, sex and pressure?
HAS MESSI HAD THE FINAL SAY ON ANCELLOTI AND PEP?
Twenty minutes away from the Bernabeu on Sunday, there was a drama was unfolding at the Vicente Calderon, home to Atletico Madrid FC.
Two games to go to the end of the La Liga and Barcelona were bidding to take the LaLiga title back from the club who kept it for them the previous year. The irony? The game they were playing was against the same team that took the championship from them on the last day of the season, in their own backyard.
As Atletico once again proved very difficult to play, let alone beat, Lionel Messi paced, stood, ran, jogged and tried to outfox his markers but the game stood at 0-0 with a quarter of an hour left on the clock.
From a brilliant moment of mastery, Messi tucked the ball into the left corner of outstanding keeper Oblak’s goal. Even though Real Madrid were beating Espanyol, it was no longer enough to stop Luis Henrique from claiming his first title as Barcelona boss, and with the Champions League final and Spanish Cup still to come in few weeks, you cannot bet against a treble for this Barcelona team.
Not only have they passed on the title of ‘won nothing’ this season to Real Madrid, they ensured that Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munuch have once again crashed out of the Champion league for the second consecutive season, in the semi-final.
The Bernabeu is very brutal and the coaching seat is a turbulent one for that matter, to survive a season with an empty trophy cabinet is almost certainly impossible, especially with the array of million dollar superstars on the display cabinet.
Real Madrid have already asked Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp and Lopetegui of Porto about taking over from Ancelloti in the summer, so he looks almost certain to depart from Madrid.
As for Pep Guardiola, I am sure that the absence of Ribery, Robben and Alaba did not go unnoticed by the hierarchy in Munich, and may probably buy him some more time for another season, but surely the patient handlers at Munich Hollywood would not accept a third place finish in Europe next season, afterall Jupp Heynckes won the treble with this team.
The reason Bayern brought in Pep was to continue in the treble tradition, dominate Europe and play a special type of football. They are playing a special type of football but the treble and Europe have been absent for the past two seasons.
How long would the demanding fans and board put up with that? And knowing pep who is a confident assured man, he would not put up with any interference or ‘distractions’ from player or board. I hope Messi has not exhausted the patience of Rummenige, Beckenbauer and the others with his superb football in this year’s semi finals.
So who goes first? Pep or Ancelloti?