da esoccer bet：
da 888：
Last season we were all led to believe that Benoit Assou-Ekotto had no care nor love for football, it was just something he was good at. Harry Redknapp described the left back as a “strange boy”, “hard work”, “highly strung” and someone who apparently did not know or care who his next opponents were. This was quite a damming assessment of the player, but since then the defender was worked his way back into his managers plans.
In an interview with The Sun on Saturday, Benoit Assou-Ekotto went into detail on what he believes to be wrong with football, and why he opts to take a back seat in it all. He believes the game is being ruined by players who have more care for money and material riches than wanting to set the right example.
“Because I am a defender I don’t like players who simulate. But there is more simulation in the game now than ever before.
“For a defender that is not good and for football it is not good either. I just wish players would try to be more honest… with themselves, the referee and, above all, the game.”
What Assou Ekotto is saying is right, we shouldn’t accept that diving is ‘part of the game.’ It would be very easy to label the left back as a hypocrite as we could all find instances where a Tottenham player has cheated in some way. However, Benoit Assou-Ekotto is not saying his team is perfect. He is calling for the whole game to clean up in this area, and if more professionals were as outspoken as the Tottenham left back, maybe professionals would stop trying to cheat each other.
[divider]
[divider]
Everybody has to take responsibility for what is happening. It is not good enough for managers to loose their heads when it goes against them, but not punish their players when they get a decision. It is also very easy to blame ‘foreigners.’ There have been numerous instances of English players diving to win penalties. Remember Wayne Rooney’s dive at Old Trafford that ended Arsenal’s unbeaten record? We don’t say anything if they are English, but if they are ‘foreign’ – its ruining the game. We have to get real. Professionals of all nationalities are cheating each other, and we need to put a stop to it.
As well as this Assou-Ekotto spoke of his disgust of some players behaviour off the pitch.
”When you are in football you live in a special world. We don’t live in the real world. If you drive a little way from White Hart Lane, there is the real world where people have a hard life.”
“I am not the type of person who meets a famous person once and then claims and acts like we have been friends for 20 years.”
Finally a professional in England is breaking ranks and criticising what professional footballers have become. Players have stopped living in the real world and the game needs to change. The defender clearly has a core set of values that he holds in his private life as well as his professional one. It is refreshing to read, a player who is in the game telling his fellow professionals that what they are doing is wrong. The defender sometimes goes to far, in the case of his verbal tirade on Wayne Rooney, but was the defender just expressing what we are all feeling. Why should professionals be expected to defend each others vulgar acts.
This interview is refreshing, and it is good to hear that the player does have a passion for football, but who could blame him if he had lost passion in recent years. It is refreshing that a player is ready to come out and blame his fellow professionals. He is saying what fans think and the left back should be applauded for that. The game can only change from within, and this is a start.
Like what you read? Subscribe to my RSS feed and contact me on twitter
*
Click on image below to see Wesley’s latest lady