Differing standards

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This article was published 04/10/2024 (385 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There was a headline this week, in the hours after UEFA’s club competitions completed Matchday Two, that appeared on the front page in a major European centre.

“We have hit rock bottom.”

Overheard by a reporter, it was an unusually candid declaration made by a manager in front of his players, who, mere moments before, had trudged back into the visitors’ dressing room, dejected after dropping points on their travels.

Given their dismal 3-3 draw with Porto, and the manner in which they relinquished a 2-0 lead away from home, one could reasonably assume that Manchester United were the team in question, and Erik ten Hag the manager who made the remark.

One would be mistaken.

The speaker was Carlo Ancelotti, and the audience — at least the intended one — was the squad of Real Madrid. The same Real Madrid that won both La Liga and the Champions League last season; the same Real Madrid that are second in the Spanish top flight, still unbeaten, ahead of today’s match at home to Villarreal.

Rock bottom?

Well, yes; depending on one’s standards. There are no standards anywhere, in any sport, on any continent, as high, as testing and as merciless as Real Madrid’s. It’s not even close.

In the third episode of the Emmy Award-winning documentary Beckham, there’s an interesting sequence in which some club legends inadvertently point to those standards when recalling David Beckham’s first match for Los Blancos in 2003.

“Real Madrid are obliged to win,” states Roberto Carlos. “There’s a pressure to win which is crazy.”

Ronaldo, “O Fenomeno,” meanwhile, admits to having been nervous before Madrid matches. David Beckham, himself, concedes he wondered if he was good enough to play at a club like that, with standards like those.

Beckham, don’t forget, was coming off a fourth Premier League title in five seasons with Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United. Talk about standards.

No, really. Talk about them — about how they don’t exist at United anymore, and haven’t for some time. Someone, anyone, talk about them. Ten Hag?

“We’re switching off,” he reflected post-match in Portugal. “That’s also to do with some willingness in some moments.”

Willingness? At Manchester United? Nevermind some of the very basic football fundamentals quite glaringly lacking among too many players who are clearly not good enough. That’s not on them; they are what they are.

At bare minimum, however, one would expect they’d at least some fire in the belly, that they’d not want to embarrass themselves.

Again, one would be mistaken. They cannot be embarrassed — it’s impossible — as they’re not being measured against standards that tell them they should be.

Naturally, there are exceptions, and captain Bruno Fernandes is one.

Fernandes has also been sent off in each of his last two appearances — his first red cards, ever. On Thursday, having picked up a second booking at Estadio do Dragao, the cameras followed his fuming, frustrated frame as he walked off the pitch.

Now, it’s hardly an uncommon opinion Fernandes should not be wearing the United armband. Fair enough.

Counterpoint: for all his faults, he is also one of the only Red Devils who cares, who actually gets embarrassed when the team embarrasses itself.

He should also be transferred out of the club. Not just him, of course, but every figure associated with the depletion of standards at Manchester United.

Easier said than done. This isn’t a video game, where squads can be made over at the gamer’s fantastical will. Even so, chief executive Omar Berrada has targeted the club’s 150th anniversary in 2028 as the occasion that will see it win a first Premier League title since Ferguson’s retirement.

The 2027-28 season begins in less than three years. By then, Berrada and fellow administrators Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox will have had to remove an entire squad, coaching staff and club culture, root and stem. Maybe the video game analogy isn’t so unrealistic, after all.

They could, for starters, begin the process by following some simple criteria. Listing the players according to tenure, strike off the longest-serving quarter of the squad. Then add the oldest quarter to the heap.

That’s Shaw, Rashford, Lindelof, Dalot, Maguire, Heaton, Casemiro, Eriksen, Evans and, yes Fernandes, out the door. And don’t be nostalgic about it. Marcus Rashford, for example, may be the standout player in that group, but he is also, more than anyone else in the squad, emblematic of United’s decline.

The erstwhile England forward’s entire career essentially coincides with the dwindling standards at Old Trafford. His debut was one of desperation, with injuries requiring his promotion to the first-team bench, and Anthony Martial’s warm-up knock requiring his subsequent promotion to the XI.

Then minor successes disguised the rot within the club, and the Glazer family that retains majority ownership allowed it to creep while making personal withdrawals instead of reinvesting in team, management and physical infrastructure.

It’s the only Manchester United that Rashford has ever known, and as its senior player by tenure he inadvertently carries the club’s diminished culture with him.

In another, idealistic scenario, it would be the 26-year-old grabbing his teammates by the collar and demanding more intensity, or what ten Hag terms “willingness.” Doing so wouldn’t even occur to him, as the level of effort he sees is all he’s ever known.

Once again, that’s not on him; he’s not that player. But that United don’t have that player only reveals the extent to which standards have fallen.

Rebuilding those standards is a gruelling, even upsetting process, and once they’re in place they have to be protected game-to-game, not season to season or manager to manager. Literally game to game.

Like at Real Madrid.

During a recent speaking engagement, Ancelotti mused that while “winning is very complicated,” it was every Madrid player’s “duty to compete in every game as always at this club.”

It’s why he could sincerely describe Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat to Lille as “rock bottom,” even as his team looks to go nine games unbeaten in La Liga. It was rock bottom, as bad as it gets, because it was a bad performance – and bad performances are unacceptable at Real Madrid.

When standards are enough to make Ronaldo nervous and Beckham self doubt, they’re standards worthy of the name.

When a team has players who aren’t fit, who walk instead of run, who know they can get away with the bare minimum; and when a club can go years with positions and roles unfilled by players natural to them, well, the downward cycle will take some stopping.

Real Madrid and Manchester United have hit rock bottom. What that means to each club reveals all there is to know about the standards to which they hold.

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