The Donnys - Cynical Foul End of Season Awards
There are many footballers out there. Many I hate, many I loathe, many I even like. It's time to pay tribute to the best and worst of them regardless.
As the curtain draws down on the 2022-23 season we all have a lot of things to be thankful for. This last season saw some great moments, hilarity, pain, suffering, profound suffering, and even some football.
With the season finished I have decided to be self-indulgent and package some mini-rants as a little end-of-year awards piece. Aptly named, the Donnys.
A Donny Award is a fine thing. It’s an award of excellence that cannot be bought, sold or given away. You must have been really something to get one of these I tell ya.
It means you’ve earned the approval, or disapproval, of this one internet lunatic. Either way, I guarantee it’s at least as prestigious as The Best FIFA Football Awards. Isn’t that what football is all about? I think so.
The Eric Bailly/Alfredo Morelos Legacy Award for Funniest Player - Richarlison
If you know me, you know this award is the biggest honour I can bestow. There is no greater prize than being the funniest man going in a world of footballing robots. We like the heroic players, but we love the funny ones. The two men for whom this most prestigious is named are perfect examples. One of these men managed to be funny enough that people don’t really care about him once getting 5 red cards in a season as a striker (a boatload of goals helped). The other literally hospitalised a semi-pro in a cup game this year after planting six studs in his chest and the only reaction people had was “Haha, classic Eric”.
In this regard you must understand that this award isn’t for players who make jokes, this is for players who are funny. Humour pervades their being. This season I would struggle to name any players less funny than Richarlison. Where Morelos and Bailly are cartoonishly classic funnymen in the vein of Popeye, 2022-23 Richarlison comes more in the sad clown variety. He is funny because funny happens to him.
Take, for example, his last-minute near-equaliser vs Liverpool in April. Unfairly maligned by previous manager Antonio Conte, and granted limited minutes throughout the year, Richarlison scores an equaliser in the 90+3. Cathartic chaos ensues. Taps aff, group celebration, hero status confirmed.
Then Liverpool score almost directly from kickoff. 4-3. Tap firmly back on.
Did I mention that it was only his first goal for Spurs? Funny, yet sad. Richarlison also scored a bicycle kick at the World Cup for Brazil, and absolutely nobody remembers it. If they do, they aren’t letting on anyway. Funny, yet sad. Charlie Chaplin once said: “Life is a tragedy in a close-up, but a comedy in a long-shot”. Mr Chaplin would’ve adored Richarlison, and so do I. Keep on going to the circus Pagliacci, maybe you’ll win another one of these next year.
Most Unserious Manager - Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones is a phenom the likes of which the Premier League has never seen. The former Luton man walked into a struggling Southampton team like an old cowboy walking into a dusty saloon. Things weren’t great when he walked in, and they sure as hell were worse when he got booted out.
94 days was the duration of Jones’ tenure on the south coast. In that time he managed not just to send his team on the way to a financially crippling relegation, but also disgrace himself. The Welshman managed 8 league games, winning once. This in itself would be unserious, but the man he is only furthered this.
Between his feud with the manager of non-league Havant & Waterlooville (?), his declaration that at Luton: “Statistically there weren't better than me around Europe”(??) and his odd digs at Welsh women (??) I don’t think the prem will see the likes of Jones for a long long time.
Most Unserious Team - Borussia Dortmund LOL
It had to be. I did not name this award after Dortmund but I could have. Over the course of the last decade BVB have been to unseriousness what Bayern Munich have been to… seriousness.
Dortmund are, in a word, pathetic. Institutionally they are weak. Every year they finish 2nd, not out of a quality they have over those below them, but an inability to take the one spot they actually desire. If it was simply that Bayern are so good, then why is it then that Dortmund have only won the DFB Pokal twice in the last decade?
No, Dortmund are an exercise in pathetic failure. At every corner this season they were handed the Bundesliga trophy, and at every chance they could they handed it back. That they could not on the final day defeat Mainz, a team who had lost their previous four games by a combined 13-3 margin, is indicative of their disgraceful shortcomings. They can sign all the former Bayern players they like, but they will never win like Bayern, because they do not understand how to win at all. Shame on you.
Most Unserious Moment - Andre Ayew (Ghana Vs Uruguay)
That Penalty. More than a decade of acrimony between your two countries and you come out with that penalty.
I’m just going to leave a still frame of it and let you all understand why I did this. No words needed.
Most Washed Baller - Cristiano Ronaldo
A great many players have been exposed as washed this season. Despite what Mark Goldbridge will tell you, David De Gea is finished at the top level. Virgil Van Dijk is embarrassing and Cesar Azpilicueta is beyond done. There is one man though who embodies washed more than any other.
Most people have put Cristiano Ronaldo out of their minds since he left Manchester Utd in disgrace in January to go to the Saudi Pro League. Let me assure then that he is still, inarguably, done.
After throwing multiple strops because he wasn’t getting played, then throwing another when he was getting played because he wasn’t being “respected”, Cristiano got what he wanted, kinda. I think he assumed the cream of Europe’s crop still had interest in an ageing, temperamental and crucially unuseful striker. Cristiano’s physical ability has abandoned him, his build-up play is lacking and his presence is distracting. He watched his biggest rival win the one trophy he himself craved above all else, and he watched European football invalidate his self-assessment.
With Vincent Aboubakar, Al-Nassr were five points clear at the top of the table, into the quarter-final of the King Cup of Champions and the semi-final of the Saudi Cup. With “CR7” they were eliminated from both cup competitions before the final, and they conceded the title, now five points off the top with a game to go. He, too, is pathetic.
Ultimate Cardio Man - Kevin-Prince Boateng
The ultimate cardio man is the most deceptively titled of all of my “awards”. The man who covered the most ground is not the recipient of this trophy, nor is he the fittest athlete. No, the Ultimate Cardio Man is the man is the player this season who, more than any other, has embodied the spirit of doing f**k all. Runner-up Weston Mckennie had an immense(ly boring) year and looked like a sure-fire winner. Jordan Ayew was heavily in the running, but actually managed to score some goals and thus fell away late on.
No, our player is a man who trains five days a week, suits up on Saturday and steels himself, knowing he will produce nothing of value for the next 90-minutes. In this regard, Kevin-Prince Boeteng is a phenom.
I cannot even find a photo of this guy doing something this year to put in this paragraph.
Last year, following Hertha’s last-gasp survival from the threat of relegation, Boeteng took a minute to thank himself. 18 games, 0 goals, 0 assists, 0.3 xG, 0.3 xA, 1 teams motivated. If I had done these awards last year his name would have been on that trophy. Luckily, with Hertha being relegated this year, Kevin-Prince strove for true excellence and ‘blessed’ us all with another statline even more atrocious. There can be no doubt who the daddy is in this category.
From 467 minutes, with 0 goals, 0 assists, 0.3 xG, 0.3 xA and 0 teams inspired. Kevin-Prince Boeteng, you are this year’s Ultimate Cardio Man.
Main Character of the Year - Todd Boehly
What is value for money? Whether or not Todd Boehly got a bargain with his £4.25bn purchase of Chelsea, one thing is for certain, if you aren’t a Chelsea fan you definitely have gotten Boehly’s money’s worth. Chelsea have been hilarious in 2022-23. Boehly only purchased about a year ago almost to the day, yet in such a short time he has established himself as one of the most compelling protagonists in the sport.
Much like Adam Sandler’s Howie in Uncut Gems, nothing will go right for Todd Boehly no matter how many terrible decisions he makes, nor how much money he wastes. He is still, though, searching for that jackpot.
He fired his first manager, Thomas Tuchel, because he told him a 4-4-3 formation is impossible. He fired the replacement, Graham Potter, because nobody else in the dressing room liked him. He replaced him with Frank Lampard, a man who many people like, but crucially is not good at football management. He will now hire Mauricio Pochettino, who was chased out of his last club because the Emir of Qatar does not like him.
Nobody is doing it like Boehly, nobody.
Villain of the Year - Gianni Infantino
Gianni Infantino is the only man who could conceivably win this award. Football’s most powerful idiot had a star turn before the World Cup with an unhinged press conference that still echoes across the halls of football conversation. To step onto a podium and utter the words “Today, I feel, gay,” and then continue on that tangent further, speaks to the core of what Infantino is.
Despite what you may have drawn from those quotes, Gianni Infantino is not an idiot, not really. He is stupid, yes, and that speech was certainly stupid. He also, however, got what he wanted. The Qatar World Cup went ahead unabated. Criticism of the living conditions of migrant workers in the country and the deaths that occurred in the tournament’s facilitation went unheeded.
Infantino in the end was handsomely rewarded. Of course, he was likely paid incredibly well for the endeavour, but the real boon is elsewhere. On November 18th, when the deadline passed for applications to run for FIFA President, Infantino was the only name in the hat. The incumbent was unopposed and summarily retained his position at the 73rd FIFA Congress in Rwanda.
Prepare for a long few years as the sport you all love is further boated and whored out for the interests of the highest bidder and absolutely nobody else.
Hero of the Year - Grant Wahl
To end on a somewhat sincere note, if I’m going to spend this whole piece being a snide funnyman talking about “villains”, I could at least spend a moment talking about heroes. Not, like, heroes in the way that they are inspiring, but heroes in the way that they affected real change, not just in this year but across the years. They didn’t have something happen to them to be labelled a hero, like a player returning from injury, they left an indelible mark on football through force of will alone.
An example would be Romain Molina, who spent this season as he has done many others, exposing the rotting core of various football federations, their treatment of women and deep-seated corruption beyond what is obvious. Others have crafted a platform and used it to further social causes bigger than themselves. The winner, in this regard, is still one of the foremost voices of this.
Although this praise is being given posthumously, Grant Wahl’s written and spoken word catalogue is still around for all to read for free. I’m not going to attempt to eulogise Wahl, as I had never met him. If you search his name on social media you can find hundreds, if not thousands of accounts that have done so better than I could. I can, though, attest to not just the strength of his writing but the strength of character it portrayed.
Wahl’s advocacy spread across race, sexuality and gender. Few journalists as high profile as Wahl championed women's football, LGBT+ rights and racial equality as constantly with the conviction Wahl showed. The man was living proof that journalism has not yet completely morphed into a vehicle for water to be carried for evil looking to whitewash itself with the written word.
Wahl attended the World Cup in Qatar and, unlike the aforementioned Infantino, did not merely pay lip service to social equality but stood up for it. A leading figure in sports journalism for decades, Wahl’s legacy will be felt for decades more. For that, a brief dedication is the least I could write.