It's Only A Game

I remember the wry smile that spread itself across my face when reading Paolo Di Canio's autobiography around the age of 12 or 13. Anicdotes of selling his brothers bicycle in order to buy pizza and ice cream for all of the kids on the estate, as well as telling Giovanni Trappatoni, possibly the most prestigious figure in Italian football at the time to go and f*ck himself are just a few of many comically absurd highlights.

The vervacious Italian's honesty about his susceptability to, ahem, 'injury' on the eve of big away trips was however something that managed to offend me rather substantially. It was something that, as a 13 year old aspiring footballer I found rather offensive. Having said that, if there was ever to be one exception, it is without a shadow of a doubt the prospect of the recent away trip that Brazil's former stars had to endure, in order to play a one-off charity match.

In this day and age, when imagining the prospect of 'retirement' for a professional footballer, a series of rather paridisic images tend to engulf the mind's eye. Perhaps a brief spell in Qatar running rings around the standard of the domestic football league whilst getting paid the same wages as Cristiano Ronaldo? Something along those lines anyhow.

I dread to think what went through the minds of Cafu and Roberto Carlos when they were asked to play the charity match in question. Maybe, 'oh well, I guess a TV appearance is a TV appearance, even if Peter Reid and the other B-list celebrities in ITV's "The Match" are going to kick me for 90 minutes'.

It was to be nothing of the sort. Instead, the boys from Brazil were on their way to Chechnya to confront a makeshift national team captained by President and former militia leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Somehow, a team made up of Romario, Dunga, Bebeto and Cafu but to name a few managed to come away with a thumping 6-4 victory somewhat unscathed. Fantastic viewing, but also a true testament to any footballers out there who tend to shy away from the tough away trip.