Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
Have you ever been stood at a bar patiently waiting to be served a drink, only to see everyone else around you get theirs first? Or in a meeting, continually making points that no-one acknowledges? If so, you know what it is to be Kaka this week. The poor boy must be convinced that he's become invisible.
Manchester City are telling anyone who'll listen that spending Spain's annual GDP on the Brazilian midfielder is a perfectly sane thing to do, AC Milan are leaking stories to the press suggesting that it really is quite a lot of money and they'd be foolish not to at least think about it and, in the midst of everything, Kaka is waving his arms begging for someone to listen to him.
"I want to grow old in Milan," he told reporters on Wednesday. "My aim is, at some point in the future, to become captain of this team. I know there is a pecking order with Maldini at the front and Ambrosini, but after that..."
Does this sound like a man who sees his future in rainy Lancashire? He's even got a running order of who he has to outlast in order to get the armband! Compare his comments to Cristiano Ronaldo's thinly veiled machinations in the summer and this is hardly a wantaway superstar, is it?
Even after it transpired that negotiations were at an advanced stage, he practically chained himself to the dressing room radiator.
"If they want to sell me," he said, "I'll sit down and talk, but I can say that as long as the club don't want to sell me, I'll definitely stay."
He really doesn't want to go, does he? Most transfer deals come unstuck when the footballer concerned starts making unreasonable wage demands, but Kaka, encouragingly, is aware that he has more money than he could ever spend anyway. Take the cash out of the equation and this is like linking Wayne Rooney to Bologna. When Kaka looks behind him at the San Siro, he sees Paolo Maldini and Andrea Pirlo waving back. If he moves to City he'll have Michael Ball and Gelsen Fernandes. No wonder he doesn't want to leave.
It's all a little too close to the sad story of Ronaldo, the original one, and his move from Barcelona to Inter Milan.
"I couldn't understand why he should even consider leaving," said Bobby Robson, his manager at Barcelona, in his autobiography. "I told him I didn't want him to go and he said that he didn't want to go either but his agents had told him that he was here to play football and they were here to make money. 'I have to do what they say,' he told me."
Ronaldo left Barcelona as the best player in the world by some distance with, "all of Catalonia in his pocket," as Robson wrote. In Italy he was unhappy. He struggled with the language, with the style of the game and with injuries. He was never the same player again.
If Kaka does come to England, you won't see him cavorting with whores or tumbling out of nightclubs like other expensive imports. He is happily married, settled in Italy and he adores playing for AC Milan. As the debate about the astronomical figures rumbles on, wouldn't it be nice if someone actually stopped to ask him whether or not he actually wants to move? I suspect that the reason they won't is that they already know what the answer will be.
Manchester City are telling anyone who'll listen that spending Spain's annual GDP on the Brazilian midfielder is a perfectly sane thing to do, AC Milan are leaking stories to the press suggesting that it really is quite a lot of money and they'd be foolish not to at least think about it and, in the midst of everything, Kaka is waving his arms begging for someone to listen to him.
"I want to grow old in Milan," he told reporters on Wednesday. "My aim is, at some point in the future, to become captain of this team. I know there is a pecking order with Maldini at the front and Ambrosini, but after that..."
Does this sound like a man who sees his future in rainy Lancashire? He's even got a running order of who he has to outlast in order to get the armband! Compare his comments to Cristiano Ronaldo's thinly veiled machinations in the summer and this is hardly a wantaway superstar, is it?
Even after it transpired that negotiations were at an advanced stage, he practically chained himself to the dressing room radiator.
"If they want to sell me," he said, "I'll sit down and talk, but I can say that as long as the club don't want to sell me, I'll definitely stay."
He really doesn't want to go, does he? Most transfer deals come unstuck when the footballer concerned starts making unreasonable wage demands, but Kaka, encouragingly, is aware that he has more money than he could ever spend anyway. Take the cash out of the equation and this is like linking Wayne Rooney to Bologna. When Kaka looks behind him at the San Siro, he sees Paolo Maldini and Andrea Pirlo waving back. If he moves to City he'll have Michael Ball and Gelsen Fernandes. No wonder he doesn't want to leave.
It's all a little too close to the sad story of Ronaldo, the original one, and his move from Barcelona to Inter Milan.
"I couldn't understand why he should even consider leaving," said Bobby Robson, his manager at Barcelona, in his autobiography. "I told him I didn't want him to go and he said that he didn't want to go either but his agents had told him that he was here to play football and they were here to make money. 'I have to do what they say,' he told me."
Ronaldo left Barcelona as the best player in the world by some distance with, "all of Catalonia in his pocket," as Robson wrote. In Italy he was unhappy. He struggled with the language, with the style of the game and with injuries. He was never the same player again.
If Kaka does come to England, you won't see him cavorting with whores or tumbling out of nightclubs like other expensive imports. He is happily married, settled in Italy and he adores playing for AC Milan. As the debate about the astronomical figures rumbles on, wouldn't it be nice if someone actually stopped to ask him whether or not he actually wants to move? I suspect that the reason they won't is that they already know what the answer will be.
