Every now and then, football remembers who it belongs to. Not the owners, not the sponsors, not the marketing executives, not the broadcasters – it has belonged, and always will belong to the fans and the players.
In Spain last weekend, the people who actually do the playing finally said enough is enough and took a stand against the latest attempt to globalise the sport.
For 15 seconds at the start of every La Liga match, the players stood still. No passing, no running, no tackling, but most of all, no pretending everything was fine. Just the deafening silence of a quiet protest against the ridiculous plan to stage a Barcelona vs Girona league game in Miami.
La Liga called the overseas game ‘innovation’, when what it really was, was greed. The bright idea was to take a Spanish fixture, strip it of its supporters, and sell it to an American audience that has probably never even heard of Girona.
To the players’ immense credit, they refused to play along. They took a stand for what’s right and for the people who pay to watch them every week. And against all odds, it worked. La Liga backed down.
Barcelona said afterwards that they respected the decision but regretted the “missed opportunity” and the fact that American fans had been denied the chance to see an official game in their country. Translated into normal English, that means they were disappointed they couldn’t cash in.
Because if this was about fans, why go to Florida and not Kenya or India? There are plenty of supporters of Spanish football in those countries too, but apparently their wallets aren’t big enough.
The truth is, this was never about inclusion, it was about revenue. Another stunt in football’s never-ending race to squeeze one more market, one more sponsor, one more meaningless global ‘activation’.
The players saw through it. They knew what it meant for the fans who travel, who save up for tickets, who live for their team. Those people don’t want their club treated like a travelling circus, they want to see them play at home.
So well done to the players for reminding everyone that the game still belongs to the people.
And when the Miami idea inevitably crawls back with a new logo and a new slogan, let’s hope the players stand still again. For 30 seconds this time, or maybe a minute.
Just to make sure the message gets through to the men in suits who mistakenly believe football is a commodity, not a sport.
Even if you aren’t the very best, you can still be relevant if you focus on guts, graft and determination
Forget Lionel, copy Harry
Ask any kid kicking a football in the school playground which player they want to be when they grow up and the pool of answers will be highly predictable.
Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé, Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal, Jude Bellingham, Vinícius Júnior. Maybe one or two will chuck in a Gianluigi Donnarumma or an Alisson Becker if they happen to be more inclined towards a life wearing gloves.
And I understand that. When you are young and impressionable, it’s all about the glory, the superstars, the goalscorers and the glamour.
But if today’s aspiring players want to take inspiration from someone who epitomises what being a real footballer is all about, they should stop looking at the Harry Kanes and focus their attention on the Harry Maguires of the game.
For the last few years, he’s been football’s favourite punchline – the internet meme that never stops giving, with slow-motion replays of every defensive calamity plastered across social media; a man booed by his own fans, mocked by rivals and written off by pundits.
And yet, here we are, in October 2025, and Maguire has once again proved you can’t keep a good man down, bouncing back from everything he has been through to score the winning goal at Anfield and secure United’s first victory there in nearly a decade.
Think about that for a second. The same player who was told to leave Old Trafford, stripped of the captaincy, shopped around to other clubs, and politely advised by everyone with an internet connection to try another sport.
Lesser players would have crumbled. Maguire stood firm.
He stayed strong when Erik ten Hag benched him. He stayed strong when Gareth Southgate had to defend him like a defiant father at a parent-teacher meeting. He stayed strong through every headline, every jeer, and every ‘Harry Maguire’s head is on backwards’ post. He didn’t sulk and he didn’t throw his toys out of the pram. He just waited, knuckled down and kept fighting.
What I love about Maguire is that he’s not built for the social-media era. He doesn’t pout, doesn’t post cryptic emojis, doesn’t turn up in a cardigan worth more than a small car. He just plays football, quite well, for one of the biggest clubs in the world. He’s the anti-influencer; a man who reminds us that you can still have a career without a brand strategy.
There’s a lesson in all this. Kids shouldn’t be told to play like Messi or emulate Ronaldo. Those guys are freaks of nature, genetic outliers who were probably scoring overhead kicks in the womb. Kids should be shown a reel of Maguire’s mistakes and then another one of his goals, his last-ditch clearances, his headers off the line, his match-winning celebrations. They should be shown that even if you aren’t the very best, you can still be relevant if you focus on guts, graft and determination.
Maguire is a proper man and a proper footballer. The sort of player around which you build a dressing room, not a marketing campaign. He’s had five managers at United and not one has ever questioned his professionalism. And that is what being a great footballer should be all about – standing up for yourself, believing in yourself and never letting the doubters win.
Football is rarely about perfection, it’s mostly about persistence, effort and doing your very best. And there is no greater role model for those qualities than Harry.
This month’s manager is…?
For most football fans, a conversation about ‘manager of the month’ focuses on which boss has scooped the coveted, if potentially cursed, Premier League award.
For Nottingham Forest fans, however, it’s more literal than that.
Their new manager of the month is Sean Dyche, who was appointed to replace Ange Postecoglou, who had, in turn, been appointed just 39 days earlier to replace Nuno Espírito Santo.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has turned firing managers into a very expensive hobby, although given Postecoglou’s appalling record over the last month, the Australian’s sacking surprised nobody.
Dyche at least brings gravel-voiced authority and an iron stomach to the role. He once kept Burnley up with a squad fuelled entirely by tea and shouting, so the chaos at the City Ground shouldn’t faze him.
But even he will be aware that the countdown to his dismissal started the moment he walked through the door.
A poor run of results, a misplaced comment to the press, a drastic loss of form, or a behind-the-scenes argument with the big chairperson, and Dyche will be the latest addition to Marinakis’ growing bonfire of discarded bosses.
It will happen. The only question is how long Dyche can hold it off.
E-mail: Jamescalvertmalta@gmail.com
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