Raheem Sterling criticism has to stop, football is ruthless too... if you want loyalty, put a Labrador on the wing

  • Raheem Sterling has pushed for a move away from Liverpool this summer
  • The young England star has been the subject of two bids from Man City
  • Sterling told Brendan Rodgers that he did not want to go on the club's tour
  • Winger has been criticised for his behaviour in his attempts to seal switch
  • Forward called in sick and missed training on Tuesday and Wednesday
  • Sterling has to prioritise his career over everything else in order to make it 
  • Players shouldn't be blamed if the chance to move is offered to them

So these are the things that have been levelled at Raheem Sterling: he’s selfish, he’s disloyal, he’s callow, he’s arrogant, he’s ambitious, he’s immature.

Well, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Newsflash: he’s a professional footballer. You know what they say about loyalty: if Liverpool want that these days, they better get a golden Labrador to play on the right wing.

Idealise your heroes if you want to but romanticise them at your peril. The reality is that most players who make it to the Premier League are hard men, emotionally as well as physically. 

Raheem Sterling has pushed for a move away from Liverpool this summer
The England international has been the subject of two bids from Manchester City

Raheem Sterling has pushed for a move away from Liverpool this summer and is wanted by Manchester City

The young Liverpool forward has been criticised for his behaviour as he attempts to push through a move

The young Liverpool forward has been criticised for his behaviour as he attempts to push through a move

Sterling trained  on Liverpool's first day of pre-season on Monday but called in sick the following two days

Sterling trained on Liverpool's first day of pre-season on Monday but called in sick the following two days

People like Sterling are survivors. They’re the ones who made the cut. They’re the ones who saw their fellow apprentices in tears when the youth-team boss told them they had no future in the game.

They’re the ones who sat outside in the corridor and saw the shattered hopes trudging past them down the corridor heading for a life in Palookaville. They’re the ones who smelled the fear but escaped the cull.

They learned all about loyalty back then. They saw how a club will dash a dream as quickly as a snap of the fingers. It’s not personal. It’s business. That’s the way the clubs treat it. They have to. Why should the players be any different?

Nobody’s playing a violin for them but, in their world, it’s sink or swim. Trying to make it as a professional footballer is a hard, hard school. There is no sentiment involved. It’s about proving your worth. 

Raheem Sterling reported for training on Friday and was pictured travelling to Liverpool's Hope Street Hotel
Sterling was in high spirits as he steps off the Liverpool team bus

Sterling did report for training on Friday and was later pictured travelling to Liverpool's Hope Street Hotel

Sterling informed manager Brendan Rodgers that he did not want to go on the club's pre-season tour

Sterling informed manager Brendan Rodgers that he did not want to go on the club's pre-season tour

People like Sterling, they’re the ones who left home in their teens, uprooted and sent to digs to live with families they don’t know, away from their mums and dads, knowing the odds are they’re going to be chucked on football’s rubbish heap.

Sterling lived that life. He lodged with the people he called his ‘house parents’, Peter and Sandra, when he moved to Liverpool from his home on a north London estate aged 15.

A lot of the kids who make it in football are hungrier than the others for a reason. Sterling had a difficult childhood. After he and his mum left Jamaica for England when he was five, his father, who he never knew, was murdered in Kingston. For kids like him, football is often an escape.

Sterling’s story is not untypical. Before he knows it, someone like Craig Bellamy finds himself in Norwich, about as far east of his home in Cardiff as you can get in this country, crying outside a chip shop because he has just got off the phone from his parents and the homesickness is killing him. 

Sterling, pictured after scoring in the 2011 Youth Cup, left his London home for Liverpool at the age of 15

Sterling, pictured after scoring in the 2011 Youth Cup, left his London home for Liverpool at the age of 15

Former Liverpool striker Craig Bellamy suffered from homesickness when he moved to Norwich from Cardiff
Bellamy started his career with Norwich before going on to star for Liverpool, Newcastle and Man City

Former Liverpool striker Craig Bellamy suffered from homesickness when he moved to Norwich from Cardiff

Or you’re another player I know, an apprentice when he made a senior pro look silly in training and found himself cleaning up a pile of steaming faeces from the dressing-room floor as punishment.

Or you’re the lad I know who was cut from Manchester City’s youth set-up at 15 and joined a lower division club on YTS forms. He moved away from home for the first time and found the demands of training hard. He had real talent but got a niggling injury. He was sent for treatment. The medics couldn’t find anything. He was told he had to play injured. He wasn’t used to that. He tried but his form never really recovered. At the end of his two years, they let him go.

The point is, it’s not easy getting where Sterling has. Top-flight football does not breed balanced individuals. It breeds single-minded, intensely driven young men who prioritise their careers over everything else because, if they want to make it, they have to. 

Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard (left) has criticised the behaviour of  Sterling this summer

Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard (left) has criticised the behaviour of Sterling this summer

So they shut everything else out, including friendships and relationships. A player has to be intensely selfish just to have a chance. They’re not particularly normal. Most of the time, the normal ones don’t make it. If you want rounded, grounded individuals, talk to a teacher or a nurse. Definitely not a footballer. Definitely not somebody who has cut himself off from most of society.

Sure, Sterling could have been more tactful in his dealings with Liverpool. Maybe he could have disguised the fact that he wanted to leave. Maybe he could have been more cute. But maybe he figures, why bother? It has to be that way if you’re going to make it like he has. If you’re going to play for one of the top clubs in the Premier League and the England team, then you’re going to have to sacrifice most of your youth for it.

Again, you won’t find anybody offering any sympathy for that. Nor should they. Just don’t expect these young men to play nice when they make decisions about their future. Sterling has no roots in Liverpool. He has no real emotional attachment to the club or the city. The media and the fans demand that attachment but the hard truth is that it’s an unrealistic expectation.

Sure, feel sympathy for the fans who take a player to their hearts, who idolise him and dream of him being the inspiration for a renaissance at their club. But don’t blame the player if he’s ruthless when someone offers him the chance to move on. It’s the way the system made him.

Sterling has no attachment to the city of Liverpool and shouldn't be expected to play nice about his future

Sterling has no attachment to the city of Liverpool and shouldn't be expected to play nice about his future

 

The WBO, one of the bloated alphabet organisations that have devalued boxing world titles, last week stripped Floyd Mayweather Jr of their version of the welterweight title he won when he beat Manny Pacquiao. Why?

Because he has not paid the £130,000 sanctioning fee the WBO demands. Mayweather’s attitude to money is rarely worthy of approbation but on this occasion he has got it absolutely right.

Floyd Mayweather (left) was stripped of the WBO title he won in defeating Manny Pacquiao earlier this year

Floyd Mayweather (left) was stripped of the WBO title he won in defeating Manny Pacquiao earlier this year

 

A funny thing happened in the court of the King of Tennis on Friday night. A journalist piped up from the back of the room. ‘Talk us through that unbelievable shot in the final set,’ he said to Roger Federer. For a second, Federer looked puzzled. He didn’t say ‘Which one?’ but he could have done.

Everybody laughed. Federer smiled. ‘The backhand?’ he said, eventually. Yes, the backhand, we all wanted to shout. A backhand that was the sweetest touch of genius in a match full of Federer’s mastery.

A shot most of us have rarely seen before, a shot that dispatched a drive-volley from Andy Murray back past him, a winner delivered not so much with a swing of the backhand but a nonchalant flick, the impossible made possible.

Roger Federer was mesmerising in his victory over Andy Murray on Friday to reach the Wimbledon final

Roger Federer was mesmerising in his victory over Andy Murray on Friday to reach the Wimbledon final

Federer (left) shakes hands with Murray at the net after the Swiss star booked his place in Sunday's final

Federer (left) shakes hands with Murray at the net after the Swiss star booked his place in Sunday's final

That backhand was another reminder why the best ticket in sport is not at the Nou Camp or the Sydney Cricket Ground. It is not at the Maracana and nor is it at Fenway Park. The best ticket in sport is anywhere you can watch Federer play.

It has been that way for the past decade or more. Roll up and watch a man whose style and grace is so far ahead of his rivals, so far ahead of anyone who has ever played the game, that you do not just admire him, you wonder at him.

Maybe somewhere, he keeps a picture of himself in an attic, corrupted, hideous and decayed, because there was also a magnificent agelessness about him in his destruction of Murray.

Federer is supposed to have been overtaken by the gym rats and the musclemen, the men who awe us with their stamina and their shot-making. But he is still nullifying stamina with elegance.That is why the Centre Court crowd will be cheering for Federer on Sunday. He has already won the men’s singles title at Wimbledon seven times and with others that might give rise to suggestions of monotony. It is not that way with Federer.

No one means it as a sign of disrespect to Novak Djokovic but most people who love sport will be hoping Federer makes it a record eight this afternoon.

Federer looked focused during practice on Saturday ahead of Sunday's showpiece against Novak Djokovic

Federer looked focused during practice on Saturday ahead of Sunday's showpiece against Novak Djokovic

Most sport lovers will be hoping Federer beats Djokovic (pictured) to clinch his eighth Wimbledon title

Most sport lovers will be hoping Federer beats Djokovic (pictured) to clinch his eighth Wimbledon title

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