Evra v Suárez

[erwin]

This is looking a bit nasty.


(I actually noticed on Saturday that Liverpool fielded no black players in their starting line-up. Were there any on the bench? Do they currently have any on their books? - This is just curiosity, and not a pre-judgement.)

[Moonlight Shadow]

Evra v Suárez

Just a thought but Suarez is a spanish-speaker whilst Evra is a French speaker. In the former language black is "negro", which might or might not be offensive when used to talk to a black person. However, in French, the word for nigger is "negre" and it's common usage to use a modified version that would sound just like "negro" too. There is no doubt as to how offensive it would be to a French speaking black person.

[ursus arctos]

Evra v Suárez

That was my immediate thought as well.

[ursus arctos]

Evra v Suárez

Perhaps he was bemoaning the recent "black for black's sake" trend in third kits.

[erwin]

Evra v Suárez

I agree that any variant of 'black' when actually addressing someone must be offensive.

I don't know about the words (they should get a lip-reader on it), but I did see Suárez give Evra what looked to be a very patronising pat on the head (after the ref had had a word with them), and Evra angrily pulled away from that.

Also, at one point, Evra appeared to be getting some stick from a section of the crowd near the touchline (might have been racist, might have been "tosser!"), to which he responded with an angry gesture and a kiss of the badge.

[Satchmo Distel]

Evra v Suárez

It would be interesting to get a lipreader to study 1970's soccer videos.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Evra v Suárez

It's not an exact science though. In 2006 a deaf man utd fan claimed that Steve Finnan a Nigger, but Evra didn't know anything about it, and other lipreaders disagreed with the fan. Another allegation about racism towards Evra centred on the fight he had with the chelsea groundsman, but it was Mike Phelan (I think) who made the complaint, and evra didn't hear it so that charge wasn't proven.

I think it's fairly clear that luis suarez is the sort of footballer who would bring his granny onto the pitch, douse her in excrement, then petrol, and set her on fire, if he thought it would get a free kick or an opponent sent off.

I suppose it's perfectly possible that he tried to wind him up, without realizing that "racially charged" language is a major no-no in the UK.

I mean I would be very unimpressed if Evra was making this up, but on an occasion when he could had an easy opportunity to use it as a way out of a long ban, he deliberately didn't.

I suppose we'll see in due course.

by the way, what an unbelievably shit game that was. I watched it with Garcia and the supergrass. Rio Ferdinand is a very lucky boy that charlie adam made such a meal of falling over. The only bit of really good football in the game was the run by hernandez in the lead up to his goal.

Why did ferguson pick a carling cup team?

[ursus arctos]

Evra v Suárez

You are asking us?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Evra v Suárez

erwin wrote:

(I actually noticed on Saturday that Liverpool fielded no black players in their starting line-up. Were there any on the bench? Do they currently have any on their books? - This is just curiosity, and not a pre-judgement.)

Well you can't blame them for offloading that typically lazy N'Gog, as Big Ron would have said off-mike.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Evra v Suárez

You are asking us?

Well, I'm prepared to entertain all suggestions.

[torres]

Evra v Suárez

I paid a visit to the game on Saturday and I must just say that it was the lowest quality Liverpool ManU encounter I have seen since 1974.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Evra v Suárez

also, do we have any thoughts about liverpool's very aggressive approach, basically saying that anything short of conclusive video evidence and they want evra banned?

Given the very inexact nature of lip reading, and the patchy nature of coverage, (Why would there always be a camera traced on suarez's face?) makes this a very difficult thing to prove. Not proven won't necessarily make this a false allegation.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Evra v Suárez

I must admit suarez's reaction is kind of hilarious.

"I'm upset by the accusations of racism. I can only say that I have always respected and respect everybody. We are all the same. I go to the field with the maximum illusion of a little child who enjoys what he does, not to create conflicts."

In the world of PR and crisis management, you're supposed to avoid issuing statements that make people laugh at you.

[EIM]

Evra v Suárez

I think it's fairly obvious that Suarez is a definite racist.

[Sam]

Evra v Suárez

In fairness to him, assuming he made the statement himself in Spanish and someone translated it, 'maximum illusion' is as lazy a false cognate as you'll get. Although the 'little child' bit is pretty funny.

Carnivorous Vulgaris wrote:

The question would remain though as to why Suarez was using the word "black" in heated conversation with Evra.

Not necessarily heated. In Rioplatense Spanish especially it's a fairly frequently used pet name, rarely with any kind of racial aspect (unless he called him, for example, a negro de mierda). Argentines use it to each other all the time, and there's pretty much no such thing (read: around 30 in the last census) as a black Argentine. So it could be that Suárez was just being... well okay, 'friendly' in this context is obviously unlikely. But it could very well be that Evra misunderstood him quite considerably.

That being said, as TAB said further up the thread, it wouldn't surprise me if he was in fact trying to rile him. I don't think he's a racist at all, but this is Luis Suárez we're talking about.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Evra v Suárez

Oh I assumed the maximum illusion was a bad translation, but it's the image of him playing with the carefree abandon of a labrador puppy, is absolutely fantastic.

[ursus arctos]

Evra v Suárez

Maximum Illusion sounds like the name of a drag queen reality show.

[HORN]

Evra v Suárez

I wondered if he'd confessed to stealing some kid's model aircraft then tucking it into his shorts.

[ad hoc]

Evra v Suárez

If Ferguson was resting players in advance of a tricky encounter against Galati, it's clear that he hasn't actually bothered to check out how appalling they are. He'd have been far better off resting the players from the Romania trip and going with a full on reserve team in that match.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Evra v Suárez

Yeah, I got that impression as well. Something that is worth considering is that ferguson sometimes deliberately picks young players in big games to give them experience.

His attitude is that if these players are going to be good enough to make it, they have to be able to be deal with big games. Johnny Evans' first league start for man utd was against chelsea. So maybe he decided to stick in welbeck, and jones, with some more experienced minders.

[Jah Womble]

Evra v Suárez

In fairness to him, assuming he made the statement himself in Spanish and someone translated it, 'maximum illusion' is as lazy a false cognate as you'll get. Although the 'little child' bit is pretty funny.

Well, it's very often the case that quotes can appear 'amusing' to other cultures - but, let's be honest, it doesn't read like the kind of statement that a spokesman would've made for him.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Evra v Suárez

Sam Kelly wrote:

there's pretty much no such thing (read: around 30 in the last census) as a black Argentine.

I once got into a slight argument with a Brazilian friend who said this. My argument was that to my eyes, Juan Sebastian Veron had to have some African blood in him, enough to make him look black as opposed to latin-American.

The "Negro" excuse is crap. Admittedly, informing students that the n-word is hugely offensive in English is always an up hill struggle because "negro" is the politest direct way to generalise people of African heritage by the colour of their skin. But you'd never refer to anyone directly as "negro", it would be extremely rude, whereas "preto/a" (black) is offensive in Portuguese. But again, it's the way you say it.

[G-Man]

Evra v Suárez

Patrice Evra, at the karaoke on Saturday night.

[Third rate Leszno]

Evra v Suárez

I was away this weekend and haven't seen the game, but if Suarez was prone to this sort of thing, you'd think it might have surfaced while he was playing in Holland? Also, had Evra reacted strongly and obviously to something being said during the match (like Zidane v. Materazzi), it might have looked more likely than waiting til after the game and then raising it. Just hypothesising, obviously....

[ooh aah]

Evra v Suárez

Well he didn't look a happy chap during the game, and wasn't happy with Suarez at all, though that could well be just a natural reaction to being within 30 yards of Luis Suarez.

With all this fuss over Suarez, and the free kick which Charlie Adam won, one thing that has been overlooked is Stewart Downing's dive in the first half, which is quite possibly the most laughable dive I've ever seen. He must have been 4 or 5 metres away from Evra at the time. But of course honest British pro's never do that kind of thing, he and Adam both slipped.