There are some things in sport that you’re just not allowed to say, lines that must not be crossed. For a long time it was more or less impossible to say in public that you thought Paul Scholes was simply a very good footballer, as opposed to a chasteningly complete distillation of perfection and a one-man anti-glam debunking of the Premier League star system. You might think this. But saying it out loud is still technically an offence under the Scholes Act 2009, punishable by being stabbed in the eye with a skewer by the Queen.
The same goes for Sachin Tendulkar, the most astonishingly hyped player in the history of cricket, a very good, enduring batsman whose po-faced messianic persona conferred a kind of devotional light on his fine strokeplay and solid defence. To point out that, actually, you’d rather watch Virender Sehwag is to admit not just to idiocy but to heresy, punishable by being publicly garrotted with a piece of twine by a group of sad, betrayed children. These are, of course, inappropriate opinions and anyone who holds them should be ashamed.
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There is a tribal element to this. With relentless monotony Kanté has been used as stick with which to beat Paul Pogba
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