Source: Daily_Mail
Piers Morgan: You can't kid Liverpool, Rafa Benitez
How many times have you woken up in the middle of the night,sweating and shaking, wondering if your football team is going to winthe Europa League? Nope, me neither. [LNB]Yet Rafa 'I'm the Bizzo' Benitezclearly does. Because last week he apparently decided it was moreimportant than coming fourth in the Premier League and playingin next season's Champions League. [LNB]Make no mistake, the moment he yanked Fernando Torres off in the65th minute of the 1-1 draw against Birmingham, Benitez was showing usall where his priorities lie. Andthey lie entirely with himself.[LNB]The cunning Spaniard knows full well that the only way he's going tobuy himself another year at Liverpool is if he gets a trophy in theAnfield cabinet.[LNB]Come in No 9: Benitez replaces Torres after his two-goal haul against Benfica[LNB]So he's chasing the Europa League with the kind of desperate lustnot seen since Phil Brown caught his own reflection in a mirror. [LNB]But The Kop aren't stupid. They know that winning the Europa andfailing to play in the REAL European League next season is likeflirting with Beyonce and ending up with Heather Mills. [LNB] More from Piers Morgan On Sport... Piers Morgan: Harry Redknapp, the True Brit is playing the patriot game03/04/10 Piers Morgan: My 10-point solution to Arsene Wenger's Mission: Impossible27/03/10 Piers Morgan: So which chump of a billionaire decided to drive Jose away?20/03/10 PIERS MORGAN: Beckham's green and gold stunt was a load of tosh13/03/10 Piers Morgan: John Terry wins the Oscar for best original score, the Inglourious B*****d!06/03/10 Piers Morgan: John Terry is nice to kids, so they say... but so were the Krays!27/02/10 Piers Morgan: Tiger Woods: Saying sorry is easy. The hard bit is looking like you mean it20/02/10 Piers Morgan: Youngsters just want to talk about Ferraris, says Alexander 13/02/10 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE So do the players, which is why winners like Steven Gerrard lookedso bemused and angry when Torres, the most predatory striker in theLeague, was removed from the fray against Birmingham before victory wassecured. It was the most cretinous, incomprehensible substitution sinceGraham Taylor withdrew Gary Lineker in that infamous Euro 92 tieagainst Sweden, and I suspect will have the same consequences for theoffending manager. [LNB]I tipped Liverpool to win the Premier League at the start of thisseason, but Torres was absolutely right in his analysis of why theywon't. They sold some brilliant players in the summer (Alonso, Arbeloa,Hyypia) and replaced them with lesser mortals. Add a few key injuries(to be fair, I did say that my prediction would come true only ifTorres and Gerrard were fit for the whole campaign), and the closestthey've been to the races is Aintree this week.[LNB]And for a man who has spent as much money as Benitez, at a club as big as Liverpool, this is just not good enough.[LNB]It doesn't matter if they win the Europa League, because nobodycares. If they don't qualify for the Champions League, then Benitezshould be fired, and Senor Torres should come and play for the team he confesses that he loves to watch Arsenal. I'm sure we can fit him in when Bendtner and Eduardo aren't available.[LNB] Sir Alex Ferguson's 'typical Germans' jibe at Bayern Munich made me chortle.[LNB]Not because I found it offensive. As the author of the headline 'ACHTUNG! SURRENDER, For you Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over' when England played Germany that year, I am in no position to take the high moral ground on his latent xenophobia.[LNB](We lost anyway, but part of me, the silly part, still wishes I'd gone ahead with plans to dive-bomb the German training camp with a Spitfire, dropping the front page on their heads the mission was aborted on the runway.) [LNB]No, it was more the fact that Sir Alex and the Germans have a lot more in common than he might care to realise. [LNB] Don't mention the score: Sir Alex Ferguson shows his frustration as Manchester United's Champions League dream slips away[LNB]Both, and OK, I'm generalising a bit here, but I've met a lot of Germans, and they are all pretty similar, share laudable character traits of hard work ethic, resilience, determination, organisation, efficiency and a desire to win at all costs. [LNB]Both also share the rather less laudable qualities of obstinacy, lofty arrogance, an overt superiority complex, regular sense of humour failures, and a tendency to be quite spectacularly bad losers.[LNB]And I just know for a fact, though I have no anecdotal evidence to support this, that if I was on holiday at the same resort as Sir Alex, and we were both favouring the same area of the poolside for our lounging, he'd be down there at 5am each morning, spreading his towels, lotion (extra large bottle of Factor 50 for his angst-inflamed proboscis), and well-worn copy of his own autobiography, to preserve his preferred sunbed.[LNB]So when he said 'typical Germans', what he should have added was, 'they're just like me!'[LNB] Selling Tiger hits a new sick lowNike's new Tiger Woods commercial, starring his dead father, is the sickest, mostshameless, disgraceful advert in the history of sport. And that's saying something.[LNB]The repulsive s?ce-like video (why don't you dig up the old man's rotting bones while you're at it, Tiger, and turn them into a set of clubs so you can accurately say 'I feel like Dad's with me through every round'?) merely serves to confirm my suspicions that the sex-addicted I'd quite like to catch that disease, wouldn't you? golfer's ego is now so stupendous that even David Beckham is planning to 'av a word in his shell-like,' and tell him to pipe down the self-adulation a bit. [LNB]But Earl 'Lazarus' Woods does raise some intriguing questions for his son, including: 'Did you learn anything?' [LNB]Well, Mr Woods, since you're apparently still around, allow me to enlighten you.[LNB]What your son has learned is that you can cheat on your wife with 16 (currently) hookers, strippers and neighbours, she'll stay with you because you're a famousbillionaire, and, after a brief spell in sporting purdah, you'll return in glory to even more applause and attention than you had before, and your commercial partners will literally stoop into coffins to sell your shameless little a** even more aggressively than ever.[LNB] The little genius is simply the bestMy eldest son, Spencer, an Arsenal season ticket holder but massive Barcelona fan, too, summed up the Messi massacre best. [LNB]He was at the Nou Camp, and texted me afterwards to say: 'We played well and were equal apart from The Messi-ah. I feel lucky to have been there and seen his performance.' [LNB]That, weirdly, was exactly how I felt. Man for man, Arsenal did OK, especially considering how many of our best players were absent through injury. But Lionel Messi was on a different planet, playing a different kind of football.[LNB]And agonising though it was to watch him kill our dream, it was also exhilarating to see this extraordinary little genius strut his stuff.[LNB] Sensational: Messi[LNB]As to where Messi now sits in the pantheon of greatest players ever, I can only base my view on the best I have seen play in my lifetime. [LNB]And they would be, in order: Diego Maradona, Cristiano Ronaldo, George Best, Pele, Dennis Bergkamp, Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho, Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten and the fat Ronaldo. [LNB]But right now, I would put Lionel Messi above all of those. In fact, I find it very hard tobelieve that a better football player has ever existed.[LNB] Alec Bedser, the legendary England cricketer who died this week, had the biggest hands of any sportsman I've ever met great big paws that engulfed mine like a gorilla greeting a monkey. [LNB]Shane Warne also has enormous hands, as do from my personal experience the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Lennox Lewis, Daley Thompson and Ernie Els.[LNB]If you ask me why all these guys have excelled so well at their chosen sports, I'd say that a rare genetic gift allowing them to grip a ball, club, steering wheel, discus or glove better than most people would be pretty near the top of the checklist.[LNB] Have your sayYour story on Harry building the team around English players at Tottenham is incorrect. Harry did not buy all those players, the majority came from Martin Jol. He was the man responsible for the English grit at White Hart Lane. [LNB]MIKE JAMES[LNB]Piers says: 'Fair point. Harry's kept them all, though, and added even more.'[LNB]Is it a coincidence that Bournemouth, West Ham, Southampton and Portsmouth have all been left with financial problems just as Harry Redknapp conveniently leaves them? Watch out, Spurs, you're next! [LNB]ANDREW (Portsmouth)[LNB]Piers says: 'Spurs go bust? It's not Christmas already, is it?'[LNB]Morgan, how dare you be nice to my beloved Spurs and try to dilute my hatred for you?[LNB]TOM (Bulgaria)[LNB]Piers says: 'Sorry, Tom. If it's any consolation, I still think all Tottenham fans are revolting, cerebrally challenged, aesthetically abominated wastrels.' [LNB]Why do they give this clown column inches? His style is tired and his opinions are boring. Stick to insulting helpless people for a living.[LNB]JONO (Cambridge)[LNB]Piers says: 'You're right, Jono. You helpess little berk.'[LNB]Email Piers: piers.morgan@mailonsunday.co.uk[LNB] [LNB]
