YOU knew this day was coming, we all knew this day was coming. and normally we don’t do much on a player when they have left, but allow us to break the pattern if we may because Dimitar Berbatov signed for Fulham Football Club a short time ago. We normally don’t write about departures because by the time they go it’s either Fergie admitting they were not up to the job and they’ve already been on loan for 2 of their 4 year contract, OR they became a proper worldy and everyone and his dog knows they are off…to Madrid.
Dimitar Berbatov not for the first time, breaks that mould. He was and is a classy player. Whatever is channelling through his veins when he is on a football pitch it’s close to cosmic, his contact with a football is at times spiritual. He is as artistic a player as we have seen since Eric. Eric needed a stage and Manchester United were ready to give him that, the planet’s aligned for the Frenchman. They did not for Berbatov, at least not for as long as we or he would have liked.
Irrationally we would have liked to see him at Old Trafford for the rest of his career. He had all the time in the world when he touched a football, he seemed to slow down time for his own needs. It was an art form, but then again rational thinking bursts that bubble and tells us that he had to leave for his career, we couldn’t keep something that special on the bench and he wasn’t getting in the team for any length of time with the other attacking options we had.
In reality his departure may not weaken Manchester United but we should acknowledge that we have had to let something very special through the Old Trafford exit door. Not weakened, but less than, not as much, reduced.
Fulham are a very lucky football club today and I hope they realise that. I hope Berba plays and plays lots, I hope he never goes near a bench again and I thank him for remaining dignified in the harsher recent times. Yes they get well paid, but when you can do things to a football that make me want to be one, you should be on a field doing those things as often as you can be; money doesn’t come into it.
Manchester United thanks Dimitar Berbatov.
GTS
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Given to Score 