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Barclay clearly does not understand the difference between blatant cheating and drawing a foul from an opponent in order to win a free kick or penalty.
If, as Shearer did against the Ukrainians, a player uses his superior skills to give an opponent no option but to foul them then that is clever play. The penalty in question was won because Shearer is a better player than Andriy Husin, and surely the better team should win.
I don’t remember too many people complaining when Michael Owen forced Mauricio Pochettino to foul him in the penalty area during the World Cup. The complaints were even less when David Beckham scored the decisive penalty.
Now compare this with Bilic throwing himself to the ground after being slapped by Laurent Blanc, causing the Frenchman to be sent off (not booked as Barclay claims) and suspended from the final of France 1998.
Compare Shearer’s penalty win with a man who deliberately punched the ball into the goal in the quarter-final of the 1986 World Cup. Even more frustrating was the fact that Maradona had no need to cheat to win games.
Shearer wins games because he is a great player, not because he is a cheat.
In the same article Barclay describes the dubious nature of Kyiv’s goal as an innocent mistake by the referee.
I presume that Alessandro Del Piero’s clear dive to win the free kick that led to Juventus’ first goal in Turin was also an innocent mistake, together with the incorrect decision to disallow Shearer’s header in the same game.
Amazingly he starts the article by saying that he has a soft spot for Newcastle, but the truth of the matter is that like many other national newspaper journalists he delights in having a go at Shearer.
But when Barclay is long forgotten the record books will still show that Shearer is the greatest goalscorer of his generation.
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