ON BERBATOV AND SUAREZ, THE MOST ENTERTAINING PLAYERS IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE

A week ago a pundit on the Guardian Newspaper's exceedingly great 'Football Weekly Podcast', quipped that he would pay good money simply to watch Dimitar Berbatov bring down goal kicks, one after another. He then moved to state that Berbatov, with his languid brilliance and nonchalantly devastating play, is the most entertaining player in the Premier League at present. That statement has remained a point of interest in my mind since, not simply because it is a decent claim, but more importantly because the idea of 'entertainment' provided by a footballer is quite a difficult one to reconcile. What provides entertainment at a football ground? Surely, at the most basic and obvious level of cognition, goals (and the prospect of goals being scored) are what entertain the paying audiences of football matches. A player, whose skill set and aptitude for the game promises at least the opportunity for a goal to be scored, is surely someone who may be deemed 'entertaining'. Yet this qualification alone is not sufficient; for example, at the present moment I do not find Fernando Torres even remotely entertaining as a footballer, though he still holds the capacity to score goals. Furthermore, some quality midfielders, who may infrequently be presented an opportunity to shoot at goal due to their positioning on the pitch, have captured the imaginations of, and provided entertainment for, fan bases world wide. Claude Makelele in his Chelsea pomp was a quality example of this type of footballer. Therefore, the ability to entertain lies in another key facet, one essential characteristic, I would argue. And that ability is this; a player must look different in the way he plays football. He must move about the field and interact with the ball in a fashion that appears almost unnatural to the eye, yet is undoubtedly aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately, paltry few men in the English Premier League fulfill this qualification, one of them being the man whose picture adorns the top of this post, and another who is almost universally distained...

Dimitar Berbatov is different. As I've stated previously he plays football at a pace which belies logic in the modern era, where speed of play is preferred over control of play, and a work-horse mentality is held above creativity. He berates teammates. He recently revealed the message "Keep Calm And Pass Me The Ball" after scoring a tap-in against Southampton, and was lauded for his wit. The Bulgarian is both keenly aware of his status as an enigma and furthermore willing to become a parody of himself. He smokes cigarettes. He drifts completely out of matches whenever he feels like it. He scores the kinds of goals which aren't possible in video games due to realistic physics engines. But most importantly he is different. He glides on English pitches where industry and tenacity threaten to remove all fantasy and whimsy from the game. He almost never sprints, yet manages to ghost by defenders. He is massively entertaining because he is unlike anyone else who plays the game, for better or worse. And that is crucial; he can be simply maddening to watch. His talent is so obvious that Fulham fans, like Manchester United fans before them, must want to strangle the Eastern European when he allows a game (or an entire month of games, like his mid-November to December stretch) to pass him by entirely. But that is precisely why he is so entertaining. We as fans aren't looking for him to dazzle for 90 minutes because we know he won't. Rather, we look for the moments where Dimitar changes Football into a different sport from the one we are all accustomed to watching. We wait for the times when this man makes the game look both balletic and violent all at once, in impossible and beautiful harmony.

On that note, violence is also entertaining for football fans. Not the sort of violence where legs and ankles become detached from tendons, but rather the sort of violence of movement and coordination that again seems impossible to the human eye. One player in the Premier League maneuvers almost exclusively in a violent fashion. This player:

Luis Suarez entertains via the polar opposite reasons for why Berbatov does the same, yet with certain caveats that ensure he distances himself from other Premier League players. For example, Luis Suarez is not an industrious player; he is industry personified. His work rate is so ridiculous that one can only imagine the state of soreness his legs must reside in after 90 minutes. He sprints. Almost exclusively. He dribbles at pace in such a fashion where he maintains possession of the ball in spite of himself, like he is forcing himself to regain the ball after each touch looses it. His balance and coordination allows him to change direction and pace in maniacal style. He chooses to go through defenders rather than around them, in a way which a first-time viewer of the Uruguayan would deem fortunate, but seasoned viewer of the man would call deliberate. His mentality is one of desperation, both for goals and to appease his inner indulgences. If Berbatov plays like he is above criticism, than Suarez plays as though he is brawling against it.

That Suarez is labelled as a 'cheat' by some only serves to draw more attention to his genius. And yes, he is a cheater when analyzed in the most damning light. He cares not for the love of any fan unadorned in either the red of Liverpool or the off-blue of Uruguay, and this indifference to opinion makes him all the more intriguing. He creates a dynamic footballing legacy while simultaneously destroying it. And he is aware of this; take for instance his goal this past weekend in the FA Cup against Mansfield. He knows that he handles the ball, he knows the ref didn't see it, and so with a wry and self-effacing smile he places the ball into the back of the net, guilty as charged. He is the villain. He is the hero. He is different. And like Berbatov, he entertains.