Busy Doing Nothing

Time-wasting in football is basically a risk/reward exercise. Assessing it is a question of degree. I saw a lot of football at Barnet the season they were relegated from the league. About 3 games from the end of the season, they were leading Rochdale 2-1 in injury time when John Doolan saw the keeper off his line and tried to lob him from 40 yards. It was a good effort, but the keeper caught it and immediately launched it downfield. When the ball came down, Rochdale won a free kick on the edge of the area. They scored from it and the ref promptly blew up. Barnet were relegated on the last day of the season and spent 3 years in the conference.

So there's a case where, in hindsight, kicking it in the corner and trying to keep it there might have been a better option. What's more of a concern is where teams are habitually wasting time in situations where the reward is much less, and I stress that by and large QPR are no better than anyone else. By and large that is. I just came across this today. This is how far some people are prepared to go to for the tiniest of edges. If people can't/don't want to access the link, Luis Garcia is preparing to come on as a substitute with Liverpool a goal up away from home. He takes his wedding ring and puts it in his mouth. Shortly after taking the pitch, he puts the ring on his finger and makes sure that the referee sees it, causing a 20 second delay as he is sent to the touchline to take it off. (Correction : the score was 0-0 and there was half an hour to go).

I wouldn't recommend reading the comments from Liverpool fans on this blog as they are incredibly depressing. Several basically excuse it by saying that it hardly gains Liverpool much of an advantage. Well, to me, that makes it even more pathetic. And his manager is standing right next to him while he does it. Is this what we're paying £40 a throw to watch ? Fuck that.