Hello and good morning, sports fans. I hope you’re well, in good health and looking after yourselves. For those of you from a certain time frame, age group, or school of thought, you will be familiar with the fact that there was a time when there was such a thing as a player biding his time at one club.
On this topic, honourable mentions go to Sergio Ramos and Steven Gerrard, as well as Gianluigi Buffon. Why do I mention these three gentlemen? Well, all these guys have shown long-term loyalty to one club, but didn’t end their careers there.
In this article, this is a tribute to the Carlos Puyols of this world, the Ryan Giggs, the Paul Scholes or Gary Nevilles, and one can’t forget one of the most famous examples of them all, one Mr Francesco Totti.
Roma captain Totti had many glamorous offers. One came from Real Madrid, but the Italian World Cup winner declined the Spanish side’s advances. Such loyalty doesn’t exist anymore.
One reason for that, well, maybe it’s social media and the emergence of new leagues such as the Chinese Super League and the Saudi Pro League. After a hard-working career, why not finish it with a nice bumper pay packet at the end?
When one puts it that way, one can’t begrudge someone, can they? It’s just a football world where set-pieces have come back into fashion and teams may not be deploying tiki-taka as much as they have been, so maybe another thing could return to the game: the one-club man.
One man who I thought seemed set to do it was Tottenham legend and England captain Harry Kane. One-club managers have never been a thing, as far as I know, but long-serving ones are.
Pep Guardiola left Man City after 10 years, and Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta is in his 10th season with The Gunners. OH, football nostalgia, what you do to me!
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