FUNNY
OLD
GAME
Comedian
George Lewis
reflects on the
week’s actionWhen you think about
football management you
probably imagine a life spent
watching training-ground
drills, discussing tactics and
wearing a nice big coat on the
touchline shouting: “Get back!”
But if you’re Rafa Benítez,
there’s a lot more going on.
You wouldn’t know it from
his unassuming facial
expressions, but his is a life full
of drama. Things behind the
scenes at Everton are
turbulent, he is constantly
linked with his billionaire
admirers in Newcastle and in
the most bizarre development
yet, he is now the subject of a
hip-hop diss track.
The former Liverpool
forward Ryan Babel decided to
write his autobiography last
year but instead of adopting
the conventional format, Babel
opted to release his book as an
eight-track rap album. This
must be one of the most
unusual decisions a footballer
has taken since Darren
Huckerby decided to write an
autobiography.
The album is called The
Autobiography — Chapter 1. He
clearly used all of his
inventiveness by the time it
got to the title, so didn’t follow
the standard rules of the pun-
based title. Some of my
favourites: Jason McAteer —
Blood Sweat and McAteer, Neil
Ruddock — Hell Razor, Alan
Hansen — Tall, Dark and
Hansen. Seriously, that’s what
it’s called.
There is no other genre that
I read more than the
footballer’s autobiography. But
there is also no other genre of
book that I give up on more
through boredom. Because
although there are some
brilliant ones (Gary Neville,
Pat Nevin, Tony Cascarino) it
is also true that being a
talented player and having an
original and gripping authorial
voice can in fact sometimes be
mutually exclusive.
From an autobiography,
what you really want is
originality or scandal. Babel
gives us both. You can’t
question the inventiveness of
releasing it as a (pretty catchy)
album and he also bad-mouths
a healthy amount of people,
most notably Benítez, whom
he feels didn’t nurture him
properly at Liverpool.
You probably want to know
what he says about him. Well,
I’ve listened to the track a few
times and have concluded that
it’s definitely in Dutch. So, I
can’t tell you the specific words
he uses, but it sounds insulting.
Rafa has a lot on his plate,
but every hip-hop fan knows
that there is only one way to
respond to an insult like this
and that’s with a rebuttal track.
If Benítez wants to save face,
he needs to start spitting bars
and he better get going soon
because it will take a while to
figure out what rhymes with
“poor on-field decision-making
and generally underwhelming
performances”.IAN
HAWKEY
European Football
16 1GG Monday December 6 2021 | the times
How far do you forgive an individual at the
summit of his game for mistakes made when he
was still young and aspiring? German football
found itself wondering that yesterday as it
reacted to some candid remarks from an English
teenager.
Jude Bellingham had, like most of his Borussia
Dortmund colleagues, come off the pitch at the
end of Saturday’s 3-2 home defeat by Bayern
Munich in high dudgeon. Various refereeing
decisions seemed to have fallen in favour of the
visiting German champions. The final whistle
blown, Bellingham was button-holed for an
interview by Norwegian television, always keen
for a post-match word with Dortmund’s Erling
Haaland or any of his friends.
Haaland, who had come on to the pitch to
speak with the referee Felix Zwayer as the match
finished, told Viaplay Norway: “I think it was a
scandal when it comes to the referee. But I need
to calm down a bit now. He was arrogant. I will
not say more.”
Bellingham did say more. He addressed
Zwayer’s performance and suitability for the
most resonant fixture in the Bundesliga schedule
with a calm, measured voice, some barristerial
shrugs and a piercing punchline. “You can look at
a lot of the decisions in the game,” Bellingham
said, live on Viaplay. “You give a referee, that has
match-fixed before, the biggest game in
Germany: What do you expect?”
What nobody in Germany expects when
Zwayer, a former Bundesliga referee of the year,
officiates matches in the Bundesliga, or for that
matter the Champions League or World Cup
qualifying, is that a player might bring up an
infamous episode in Zwayer’s past.
The match-fixing incidents Bellingham
referred to took place 17 years ago when Zwayer
was a 23-year-old officiating in lower-division
football. He often acted as an assistant to Robert
Hoyzer, who became a friend. For a period of
their association, Hoyzer was taking bribes from
a match-fixing syndicate. After suspicions were
raised by a now notorious German Cup match in
which Paderborn, then of the fourth tier, beat
top-tier Hamburg, Hoyzer was exposed. He
would serve a custodial sentence.
Among those who reported Hoyzer to the
German FA was Zwayer, although he was later
suspended for failing to alert the authorities
earlier. There is no suggestion he ever acted
improperly during a match, but according to
German FA documents disclosed by the Die Zeit
newspaper almost a decade after the scandal, he
was accused by Hoyzer of having received
€300 (now £256), from Hoyzer. By the
time of that revelation, Zwayer had
worked his way up the refereeing
ladder, reached Fifa’s list and was being
assigned senior Uefa matches.
Ought the perceived delay in
reporting his suspicions about
Hoyzer have prevented
Zwayer, a highly rated
referee, moving so far up
the hierarchy? Manuel
Gräfe, a respected and
recently retired
Bundesliga referee,
believes so. “Anyone
who accepted money
and kept quiet about
Hoyzer’s fixing for six
months should not be
officiating in professional
football,” Gräfe told Zeit
this year.
Bellingham’s remarks wereless explicit but Dortmund acted yesterday to
defend him against any possible punishment
from the German FA. The club’s chief executive
Hans-Joachim Watzke asked that it be borne in
mind the comments came from a teenager,
uttering out loud what is regularly muttered
within dressing-rooms.
“His statement is not untrue, even if he doesn’t
need to say it,” Watzke said. “It’s also down to the
emotions you expect from an 18-year-old. Jude
caused no offence to anyone. He stated a fact. I
would not expect any action against him.”
Most of those involved in the management of
Dortmund usually only mention Bellingham’s
age to emphasise how startlingly mature he is as
a footballer. Less than a year and a half after
leaving Birmingham City in the Championship,
he has established himself as their go-to
midfielder, an all-terrain dynamo who
keeps all
Bundesliga
referees busy
— for entirely the
right reasons. No
player in the top division has been fouled more
this season so far.
No player pushed his team closer to a share
of the points against Bayern — a win would
have taken Dortmund top — at the Westfalen
stadium. Bellingham, who had been a doubtful
starter because of a knee problem in the build-
up, set up Julian Brandt’s opening goal after
five minutes of a see-saw Klassiker with an
astute diagonal ball. Bellingham’s reverse passinvited Haaland to equalise for 2-2. Those were
his seventh and eighth assists of his club season.
In between, Bellingham and Zwayer had their
minor points of difference, the energetic
Englishman tumbling under challenges from
Corentin Tolisso and Dayot Upamecano and
indignant they were not given as fouls. He was
just in front of Mats Hummels, defending a
Bayern corner with a quarter of an hour of
normal time left, when VAR suggested Zwayer
review the ball’s contact with Hummels’s elbow
as the corner dropped.
Zwayer gave Bayern a penalty. Robert
Lewandowski converted. With that the
champions moved four points clear of their
strongest challengers.
Immediately after the penalty, Marco Rose, the
Dortmund head coach, was sent off, Zwayer
showing him a second yellow card. The first
followed heated protests at a challenge on Marco
Reus, the Dortmund captain, by Lucas
Hernandez inside the Bayern penalty area.
There may have been a tight offside in the
build-up but Rose and several Dortmund players
criticised Zwayer for not scrutinising the
Hernandez tackle.
The referee did make several good calls during
a combative evening. Like the fourth of the six
yellow cards he issued. It was for a superfluous
barge on the captain of Bayern and Germany,
Manuel Neuer, by a bumptious, bold, tireless
teenager in the 86th minute. Bellingham did not
argue about his booking. He was saving his
choice words for later.Dortmund defend Bellingham for
dragging up ‘match-fixing’ ref ’s past
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