I OPTED-OUT of the BT Sport coverage of Rangers v PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday night, choosing instead to view the BBC iplayer stream of the European Athletics Championships from Munich. I think I chose well. Olympic Champion Marcell Jacobs absolutely oozed class in winning the Men's 100 metres, while Welshman Jeremiah Azu surely delivered the most over the top celebration of a bronze medal in history, however unexpected it was.
However, on the night, it was a case of Deutschland uber alles. Even Katherine Merry – who knows her athletics – felt, at best, home favourite Gina Luckenhemper could get into the medals mix, she still had the two British girls: Dina Asher-Smith and Darryl Neita, along with Switzerland's Mujinga Kambudji as more likely to end up on the rostrum. But, the German lassie flung herself at the line, ended up bloodied on the track, but got up to collect the gold.
That result reinforced a feeling I've had for a wee while, British Athletics needs to invest in a top-class sports psychologist. Too often, talented Brits falter on the biggest stage.
But the win of the night was surely Niklas Kaul's in the decathlon. A record 76 metre javelin throw in event nine was followed by a 1500 metres win which even the likes of Seb Coe or Steve Ovett could have applauded – from the way it was achieved, if not on time - to win another German gold.
Like most occasional viewers of athletics, I tend to disregard the field eventers – the real glory is on the track. I admit my favourite discus thrower has always been the great Ukrainian Faina Melnik – mainly because of the legend, confirmed to me by Sergei Baltacha, who witnessed the incident, when she flattened iconic Ukrainian football coach Valery Lobanovsky, after he tried to remove her from Dynamo Stadium and she hadn't finished her training session.
However, I gained a new respect for Croatia's Sandra Perkovic, who silenced the partizan home crowd to relegate two German girls to the minor medals and, in the process, won her sixth European gold medal. Her day job is as a member of the Croatian parliament.
As I said, no regrets at passing on the events at Ibrox. I did however switch over in time to catch the last 15 minutes or so of the action. I missed it in real time, but was shaking my head at the replay of the PSV equaliser. Not for the first time at Ibrox in recent years: the cry was no defenders, as Rangers failed to deal with a set piece.
If there is one thing you can practice, it's defending free-kicks and corners. Perhaps it's because they face so few in domestic competition, that the Old Firm duo don't seem to do this, then get caught-out in Europe. Just putting that out there.
Mind you, I honestly find 2022 football a hard watch. Barry Ferguson used to get pelters for the number of square balls he played in his Rangers' career. The current lot could do with him, because, on last night's viewing, they have two or three players in midfield whose first thought is to pass backwards. Maybe GVB should dig out and show his midfielders some examples of Jim Baxter defence-splitting passes.
The House Jocks within the membership of the Scottish Football Writers Association keep salivating at the skills of Ryan Kent. To my mind, watching him last night and reinforcing previous opinion, there's a very good reason why he's plying his trade at Ibrox rather than Anfield.
He flatters to deceive, sure, he has talent, but, little or no end product. Jurgen Klopp didn't rate him and off-loaded him. I'm with Klopp.
My Auld Hun of a faither follow-followed Alan Morton, Dave Meiklejohn, Bob McPhail, George Brown, the Iron Curtain defence, Brand and Miller and, like me, he worshipped Baxter. He had an expression of disgust - “NRC – Not Rangers Class.” I think Kent is one of several in the present day squad on whom he would hang that label.
Another thing which puts me off modern football is this emphasis on ball-retention without really trying to attack. OK, I can understand the reasoning behind, having taken the ball all the way to the edge of the opposition's penalty area, the ball is then played all the way back to your own box, in an effort to open-out some space; but, it's boring as hell.
I have often thought, why not adopt the basketball rule whereby, once you have taken the ball into your opponent's half, you cannot retreat out of it. Let's encourage positivity.
Also, given Association Football is the most free-form of the various football codes which are popular world-wide; shouldn't the Laws be the most-stringent, as a means of better protecting the top talent? Maybe if a lot of the things which are now let-go were penalised, we'd have a better game.
For instance, when last did you see a defender inside the penalty box, being penalised for a shirt tug? It's almost as if pulling an opponent's shirt had been legalised. Let's also think of bringing in the likes of green cards for technical offences, or for cynical law breaking – as we see in other sports such as hockey.
In other sports, teams are penalised for such things as “delaying the game,” or for not taking set pieces within a set time. Let's sort that out. Or, maybe we should think of making a match last 90 minutes “Ball in play time.” That would cut-out time-wasting etc.
As I wrote above, modern fitba is a bit of a turn-off for me, and a lot of my contemporaries feel the same. Having seen, in the flesh, the likes of Baxter, Law, Jinky, Dalglish – remembering Gemmill's Goal – today's game leaves a lot of us cold. Maybe we should do something about this?
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