MARTIN SAMUEL: How's that for history then, Javier Mascherano?

Published: 12 Mar 2010 - 07:48:39

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MARTIN SAMUEL: How's that for history then, Javier Mascherano?

Henry Ford. You wouldn't want him on your pub quiz team but hecertainly knew how to run a business. It must go forward. It must beevolving and improving constantly. Football clubs are the same. Everyone knows Ford's pithy historyquote, but he regularly expanded on the subject to great effect. 'Wedon't want tradition,' he said. 'We want to live in the present and theonly history worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.' And this brings us to Javier Mascherano. Last month, when Liverpoolwere playing Manchester City in what some misguidedly believed was adecider for the fourth Champions League place, Mascherano had someinteresting things to say. He joined in a familiar Anfield refrain andannounced City had no history. Lost empire: Wigan have no respect for pedigree after bringing Liverpool and Mascherano to their knees 'Maybe if City got into the top four they would build on that as Chelsea did,' opined Mascherano. 'But I will tell you one thing: youcan buy players, but you cannot buy history. At Liverpool, we play withthe history of the club. We don't have the money they have, but we areproud to play for Liverpool. I don't want to play for Manchester City.' This is an increasingly popular theme at a club where history hasbeen redefined along exactingly narrow parameters to mean not allevents that happened in the past, but success attained in a previousexistence. Chelsea do not have history either, apparently, despite beatingLiverpool to a European trophy by two years in 1971. Manchester Citybeat them into being by five years, to the FA Cup by 61 years, to theLeague Cup by 11 years and to a European trophy by three years. Liverpool certainly made up for it after that but it is a bitdisingenuous to regard history merely as events that took place overtwo specific decades. Every club has history, even Milton Keynes Dons. It may not be a history that is particularly memorable or in thecase of MK Dons, palatable it may not be worth a tinker's damn asFord would say, but it is there none the less. Hugo's boss: Rodallega rams home Wigan's winner on Monday Manchester City are trying to buy success and a slice of whatMascherano calls history, but this is hardly new. Of the 26 players whorepresented Liverpool in four European Cup finals between 1977 and1984, only seven were home grown. The stellar names Kenny Dalglish,Graeme Souness, Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson, Ian Rush were bought.These were different times and many arrivals were relative bargainsfrom smaller clubs but back then that was the way even the biggestteams operated in the transfer market. More from Martin Samuel... MARTIN SAMUEL: Why none of us will ever be free of the Bulger murder11/03/10 Amy Williams knows no fear: Not afraid of spiders, snakes... or racing down a death track at 90mph on a tea tray. That's why she's a golden wonder11/03/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: How Ronaldo's exit turned Rooney into the real deal10/03/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: Come in Number 52! Nicklas Bendtner's time has come09/03/10 Martin Samuel: Red Knights? Let's go one better and send for Barron Knights07/03/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: The schoolboy error of thinking MPs are clever04/03/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: Terry wins over the England fans as nobody does it better04/03/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: It's time the boo boys stopped hanging John Terry out to dry...02/03/10 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE The principles were the same. Liverpool bought the best players fromScotland, the smaller First Division clubs and the lower leagues, andthe best players delivered the best history. Now City are trying to dothe same, but the market has changed so the process is considerablymore expensive and scouts now trawl only upmarket shops. 'We have some very good players and we will fight to the end,'Mascherano added, prior to the Manchester City game. 'Then we will seewhat happens.' What happened was that Liverpool and City played out one of thedullest goalless draws of the season, while on the same day TottenhamHotspur defeated Wigan Athletic 3-0 and Aston Villa beat Burnley 5-2.Tottenham have subsequently taken three points off Everton, whileManchester City have achieved their marquee result under thestewardship of Roberto Mancini by winning 4-2 at league leaders Chelsea. Liverpool squeaked past Blackburn Rovers at home and lost to Wigan away. They are a point behind Tottenham, who have a game in hand, a point behind Manchester City, who have two games in hand, and three points ahead of Aston Villa, who have three games in hand. Tottenham meet Manchester City for their extra game, so the best-case scenario for Liverpool is that two teams are two points clear and the worst is that one team is six points clear and two are four points clear. And the strangest twist in the plot is that Mascherano, the history man, is now talking about his career at Liverpool in vague terms. 'I am very happy at Liverpool,' he says, 'but I want to know what the club's plans are and then we will see if, at this moment in time, I can renew my contract. Plans, Javier? Aren't plans the stuff of the future? What about all that lovely history? Shouldn't the conversation go, 'I know we appear to be travelling backwards; that lesser teams present a serious challenge to us, I know we were removed from the Champions League at the group stage and may not even qualify for the tournament next season but, hey 11 league titles and four European Cups between 1973 and 1990, you can't say fairer than that. Now, where do I sign?' History today: Ford History is more or less bunk, said Ford and, deep down, Mascherano must agree. Barcelona's interest in him is well known and if he leaves he will no doubt couch his departure in terms that are consistent with his desire for substance and grandeur. We know the reality, though. Liverpool have history, yes, but Mascherano also fears they may be history unless the financial fortunes improve, and he has no desire to spend another season skirmishing in the Europa League or even contemplating it. Nobody is blaming him, just spare us the lofty dismissals of Manchester City, or any club that dares to have ambition. For a player whose arrival in English football involved him being parked at West Ham United while waiting for a bigger, richer employer to come along, Mascherano appears to have ascended very quickly to the high ground. One imagines that in his disappointing first season, had Chelsea and not Liverpool expressed an interest, he would have dismissed these tiresome parvenus and returned to the welcoming arms of the West Ham reserve team, where he had been consigned by noted football genius Alan Curbishley. The reason Mascherano can haughtily turn down Manchester City apart from the fact that they have not tried to buy him is that he knows he has a more substantial suitor in Spain. Rafael Benitez, the Liverpool manager, mocked Sam Allardyce at Blackburn, saying Barcelona were looking to copy his style, but within days the joke rebounded. Head in hands time: Mascherano and Rafa Benitez have seen Liverpool's season progressively decline Allardyce responded smartly by producing statistics that showed Blackburn's pass completion rate was just 0.7 per cent less than Liverpool's, and his players had spent more time in the attacking third, despite it being an away game. According to the Prozone figures, Blackburn also had more shots on target, more crosses and more penalty area entries. Blackburn are no Barcelona but neither are Liverpool this season and they haven't been for some while. Liverpool play a direct style but with better players and there is not a person in football who would consider Mascherano to be taking a step down by swapping Anfield for Nou Camp. Even Benitez chose Barcelona as his reference point when he sought to belittle Allardyce. If he thoughtLiverpool's football was in the same class he could have said 'we' are looking to copy Blackburn, instead. There was a time when Liverpool were considered the acme of the European game. This is the era to which Mascherano refers, in which the club made history. Unfortunately, nothing, even history, stands still. Since then, there has been more history, much of it less than glorious. And even the events of Monday, March 8, 2010 are part of the annals now. It will go down as the night on which Liverpool lost to Wigan: for the first time in their history, in fact. Mascherano: I'd never be tempted by City's millions, says Liverpool starLiverpool boss Rafa Benitez demands big improvements after dismal Wigan loss Why we will never forget the missed drugs testsLloyd Cowan, coach to Olympic gold medallist Christine Ohuruogu, wishes it to be known that he is not a cheat. Happy to oblige. No cheat: Cowan One of his athletes, Callum Priestley, may well be, though, because he has failed a test for a banned substance, clenbuterol, has been suspended and has had his funding stopped pending a hearing. He faces a two-year competition suspension and a lifetime Olympic ban if the charge is upheld. Ohuruogu did not fail a test, but she did fail to turn up to be tested three times, earning a one-year ban, before returning to run personal best times and win gold at the World Championships and Beijing Olympics. As has been frequently stated, however, she missed the test not for nefarious reasons but because she was a silly old scatterbrain. Just like Rio Ferdinand of Manchester United, now the captain of England. What a pair of chumps, eh? Thank heavens we know there was nothing sinister going on. Except we do not, and we never will, and when an athlete who shares a coach with Ohuruogu fails a test, it throws into sharp relief the shallow and self-serving poses of those in athletics who chose to detail supposition around her case as fact. Nobody has ever said that Ohuruogu was taking performance-enhancing drugs. There is no evidence. It is impossible to even infer the results of tests that never took place. Yet that cuts both ways. We must also say we do not know what would have been revealed; just as we do not know with Ferdinand. When you miss a test that is the stigma: you leave greyness. The difference is that with Ferdinand, and in particular Ohuruogu, there have been many attempts to shade it in with unfounded speculation based on character traits. The most dangerous attitude to any missed test is presumed forgetfulness. Yet right from the start, in both cases, it was the fashion to think the best. The world of athletics assumed its default position on Ohuruogu and to stray from the party line was to be branded inexpert, or worse, a football writer. Glory: Ohuruogu celebrates winning 400m gold at the Beijing Olympics It was as if it needed a season ticket at the Gateshead International Stadium to fully understand the implications. England's footballers were the same, talking of a strike because the Football Association, placed in an impossible position, withdrew Ferdinand from a European Championship qualifier with Turkey. Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association became involved, blind to the slightest possibility that there might have been a reason Ferdinand wanted to slip away and switch off his phone. Gold medals and the captain's armband have adorned Ohuruogu and Ferdinand since. This is old ground and we have moved on, is the argument. Until one reads that an athlete in the care of Ohuruogu's coach has failed a drugs test and we are right back where we came in. If only we could be like the athletes and just forget it.