St Patrick’s Day came early. All hail sporting Dorgu.
Plus show-stopping Bruno Fernandes. Manchester United show class.
Fair play to Patrick Dorgu. It’s so rare to see a sporting gesture in professional football that it becomes headline news. The Manchester United wing-back was challenged by Real Sociedad’s Hamari Traore, brought down, but signalled to the referee Benoit Bastien that it was not a foul.
Dorgu may now be nominated for the FIFA Fair Play award. The second person to claim the honour, Werder Bremen’s Frank Ordenewitz in 1988, won it for admitting a hand-ball that led to an FC Cologne penalty. That’s the closest to what Dorgu did. It’s more often given for campaigns. Dorgu’s act deserves consideration by FIFA.
Dorgu’s head coach, Ruben Amorim, told TV afterwards that he was “proud” of his player’s honesty. Amorim also added, “I cannot say if it’s 0-0 or losing if I have the same response.” Very true. Yet the tie was still close. United were ahead only 2-1 and 3-2 on aggregate. So Dorgu should be commended. More relevant, perhaps, to his thinking was that VAR was checking and likely to over-rule the penalty decision. Regardless of whether VAR featured in his thinking, Dorgu deserves to be saluted.
We are so used to simulation, appealing for penalties or players screaming for throw-ins, corners and free-kicks which are patently the opposition’s, that an honourable act stirs shock as well as admiration. We are so used to a player being caught in the chest by an accidental elbow and collapsing holding his face, whether to stop an opposition attack, waste time or get an opponent booked. And I use “his” deliberately.