WOULD YOU RATHER LOSE 6-5 OR WIN 1-0?

Apparently it’s only worth winning a football match if the score is at least 4-0. Before you are allowed to score a goal, you have to precede it with a 4,000-pass interchanging movement, follow that with three players juggling the ball on their noses, then finish off with a blind-folded, upside-down, back- heel bicycle kick. I mean, you would rather lose 6-5 than win 1-0, right? Chelsea followers don’t tune in from around the world to watch their team win, they do it to be entertained. You don’t make the fortnightly trip to the Bridge because you passionately love the Blues, because your dad took you when you were six, or because you fell in love with Ossie in the seventies. You just want to be excited and impressed. So now we’ve worked that out, you may as well go to the cinema every Saturday at 3pm for an hour and a half instead. Or Saturday at 5.30pm or Sunday at 4pm or whatever time kick-off is this week. Have you ever heard such nonsense as that spouted by those pundits and ex- players who say things like, “Of course the fans of (insert club name here) don’t just want to win, they expect their team to play with a certain style and panache and will demand…” I don’t believe a word of it. My friend here in New Orleans is Brazilian, and she still talks about 1994 when she was in Sao Paulo when the Samba Boys won the World Cup. She said the whole neighbourhood / city / country went wild, truly mental as it had been 24 years since they last lifted the trophy. Similarly, I had friends in a Brazilian rock band who that night celebrated at their gig like, well, crazy South Americans. As anyone who remembers that showpiece will testify – I vividly recall watching it in Los Angeles – it was the most turgid, awful game imaginable that would have bored a non-league crowd. The fact that the fanatical followers of the magical and mercurial lads in yellow and blue didn’t care a bit should tell you all you need. Did Kevin Keegan try to bring an attacking style to Newcastle in the mid- nineties? He sure did. Were they frequently good to watch? Definitely. And how did that turn out? Would Toon fans swap all their 4-3 defeats to Liverpool and 5-0 thrashings of Manchester United for four scrappy 1-0 wins to lift the League Cup? In a New York minute… Oh I’m sorry – does my team’s style offend you, Stoke fan? Are you complaining because it is not sexy enough, that it is unpleasant to your palate? I don’t care. If a Chelsea game is on at the pub and it does not get your heart all aflutter then don’t watch it. I certainly don’t watch Everton play Hull Siberian Huskies or whatever when it’s on. All I care about is my team, and if you don’t like to watch them then I won’t be losing any sleep over it. It would be great if in every Chelsea performance they dazzled and dribbled, entertained and enthralled. But I’ll take a gritty boring win over a flashy defeat any day.