The words 'team', 'one' and 'man' can be arranged in two ways in the popular football lexicon. The first is a form of praise; there is no higher title of admiration than to be labelled a 'one team man', a player who has stayed at one, and only one, club throughout his career. He is supposedly a worthy throwback to a bygone era of men who put the club above themselves, loyalty above glory, and fans above finances. Jamie Carragher, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs are much discussed as bastions of fidelity, although the latter admittedly only when on the pitch. The second arrangement is the 'one man team', and here we hit upon far darker connotations. It is thrown as a dirty smear from the terraces and twitter; the notion that without that one star the team would be abject, that he alone holds the others on his shoulders, catipulting them to whatever glorious victory they have achieved this week. Bale, van Persie, Suarez are supposedly the only thing that stands between their clubs and oblivion. Even Barcelona suffer mutterings about the overhwleming value of Leo Messi, the greatest player in the greatest team that has ever played the game (which despite losing to the most expensively XI on the planet they remain). Whatever happened to players being great in and of themselves, as opposed to the only worthy thing in successful sides? The truth is they, of course, still are: the notion of 'the one man team' is as redundant and vacuous as the 'one team man' is exceptional and praiseworthy.
I apologise for opening with United, but not only did the Telegraph this week run an excellent dismissal of Spurs being Gareth Bale and 10 others, but the Mancunians offer a striking appraisal of the recent history of the concept. It was not long ago that Ruud van Nistelrooy was the only thing keeping his side loitering towards the upper echelons of the table. When Ruud departed, by some quirk of fate another rose within the side to assume his mantle of the only decent player in an otherwise atrocious bunch of misfits; Wayne Rooney. Rooney was them himself briefly replaced by the preening talents of Cristiano Ronaldo, thankfully on hand to bestride the English game and elevate his mediocre peers to dizzying heights, before Rooney resumed his role after Ronaldo shimmied his way to mega-wealth in Madrid. Now Rooney defers to Robin van Persie, previously famous as the one man of 'one man team' Arsenal, where he was shoehorned in between the one men of Henry, Fabregas and, now, Wilshere. Confused? You should be. All that you need to know is that there is a maddening trend for rival supporters to dismiss clubs as one man teams despite the presence of several excellent players, and then inexplicably apply the same critique to that side once their star has been departed and replaced by another within the ranks. The one man team is, for lack of a better phrase, fucking moronic.
"Look at the stats", cries the 14 year old Chelsea fan, "they prove once and for all that Spurs and United are nothing but one man teams", ironically unaware of the poster of 'JT' that glowers above him in his room; the real archetype of a club dominated by the iron will of one man. To be fair to this admittedly imaginary racist-worshipper, the stats are interesting. RVP has been involved in 30% of United's goals, while Bale leads him with 32%. If we play a naive game of subtraction their respective teams would plummet down the table without this input. Yet to take such statistics at face value is to fatally misunderstand the nature of a team game. Both players depend on quality supply from team mates their goals, and strong finishing from their peers for assists. Leighton Baines, who has created more goalscoring chances in Europe than anyone else this season, has only 4 assists this season, in the shadow of Marek Hamsik's 11 for Napoli, to cite but one player. The difference is Hamsik can shine because he has Cavani to feed, whereas Baines has a misfiring Nikita Jelavic. Context is everything. In the 2011/2012 season Rooney, who used to be his team's one man but is now officially crap according to twitter, scored 27 goals in 32 games as United finished agonisingly behind City. Right, that's that, they were a one man team, concludes the old Liverpool fan in the pub. But hang on, interjects an Arsenal fan at the table behind, Antonio Valencia provided 13 assists that season, more than anyone else in the league, surely he is the real power in that team. Maybe so, muses a Sunderland fan who has returned from the pool table, but Valencia could only roam forwards because Rafael matured into a top right back that season. Evans made Rafael look better than he is defensively. Carrick shielded Evans, he was the real key. Carrick only got space because teams tracked Rooney, who scored 27 goals. Ah, but Valencia set up 13...
And on, and on, and on. Football is a team game. To suggest one man can single handedly propel a side forward is nonsensical; an out and out rejection of the tactical nuances which dominate the modern game. Every player is crucial in the chain, which is why a weak link is so much more important to the outcome of a game than a doubly strong one.
Of course, it would be equally naive to suggest that some players are not more important than others. RVP and Bale are central to their sides' success, if not quite the only cause of it. Yet, even when this point is ceded, to disparage clubs for over-reliance on one central star seems absurd. Football is, basically, the accumulation of good players to play in a good tactical system. Players who particulalry excel should therefore be praised by other sides, not maligned as the only reason for victory. No-one would complain "we would have beaten you today if we had 11 better players than you", but apparently saying "we would have beaten you today if you didn't have Bale" is acceptable. RVP 1 - West Ham 0 is the height of satire, its creater cackling to himself as he types, slobbering his pot noodle down his Lee Evans t-shirt as he guffaws. Tottenham obviously have Bale, it is to their credit they found him and have deployed him effectively, ditto RVP and United They should not be castigated for fielding a dynamo and playing to his strengths. "We'd have beaten you today if you didn't have Bale" should be met by nothing more than a brief pause, then a heartfelt "thank you, we have indeed accumulated better players than you in this game of player accumulation, your complement is appreciated". That'd shut the Chelsea fan up.
They'd be rubbish without Mata anyway.
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