Souness was a ‘kickey’ c***; there’s a very famous photo of Vinnie Jones grabbing Gascoigne’s ‘midriff’? Neither of those are the embodiment of Latino heritage. The irony that he couldn’t recognise this? Even the language of ‘leave one on him’ which is very much a part of the dialect of English football from the 70s / 80s is still the same point. It seems - to me - there’s a massive lack of awareness that pretty much all elite sportspeople will do whatever is required to win. How is ‘taking one [yellow] for the team’ in the last minute to prevent a goal different to a ‘cynical foul to stop the opponents playing’? Or ‘play-acting’ to get a player sent off? It’s not.
Possibly it’s left over from that weird cultural stereotype of ‘British sense of fair play’ which is basically just whining that non-British players are winning against us. It gives an excuse and vilifies the opposition, denigrating their approach, but ignorant of the fact that many of the rules of modern sport were made by the British, so obviously were designed to benefit us. Even going back to WC ‘66, you have ‘dirty [fouling] Uruguay’, but we praise the ‘tough-tackling’ of Stiles and Charlton? Leeds in the 70s are seen as a great side, despite being fouling bastards. We still complain about playing football in hot countries in summer as it disadvantage Northern Europe, but don’t show sympathy for players more used to warmer climates playing in the erratic European summers? In fact, we are delighted at the advantage or a ‘levelling of the playing field’ (which is, in fact, an advantage).
One thing that Britain does really well (see Brexit etc for examples) is make themselves victims when - in fact - on a global scale that’s not the case. It’s about self-victimisation and justification of failure and / or approach. If Britain is the ‘winner’, then we did what was necessary (see Owen dive vs Poch); if we lose, then it’s the cheating foreigner (see Maradona - who did cheat - but also could have had his career ended by (I think) Samson’s attempted lunge / tackle for his wonder goal in the same match which is not discussed).
Souness should have apologised, and did so, and hopefully won’t mention it again so the issue’s dead and buried for him, for me. However, the fact that it relies on stereotypes, but we’re not prepared to explore them and consider that they may be cultural part-truths, at best, suggests we’re desperately trying to hold onto that sense of ‘other’ which is - essentially - a diluted xenomorphism from the 1800s, is a missed opportunity.
When we are in an environment where you have players taking the knee before every game; where there is another push on ‘Show racism the red card / say no to racism’, isn’t it time to reconsider the inherent bias in our language and beliefs? No judgment, here - I agreed with Bobby Moore when he was talking about the behaviour of South American people in the 1970 WC. Now - I think he was trying to find a narrative to justify their different approach to the game.
Anyway, enough of the essay. We’ve got a game later. COYS