Interesting article I found:
He's gone from untouchable, indulged superstar to unwanted outcast booted from the squad; the midfielder whose absence used to be a manager's death warrant but is now a symbol of a new age - and a dream come true for photographers and cameramen. His coach has grown tired of his caprices and insists he lacks commitment, his president has attacked him in public, and his team-mates loudly claim they're backing him all the way, only to take a rather less effusive turn when the microphones are switched off.
He's won nothing since coming to Spain and isn't going to, either. After 3˝ years at his dream club, the end is in sight - and it's a bitter end too, full of recrimination and regret. All that's left for him to do now is make a public show of watching the team-mates he's no longer allowed to line up with, all too aware that the cameras are constantly turned on him. Never mind that he's bored to tears and deep down probably wants them to lose, it's his job to get excited, to get nervous and to get seen. To prove that he is committed, really.
No, not David Beckham. Juan Román Riquelme. The Argentinian with the deep eyes, the wonderful touch and the happy-go-lucky charm of Eeyore at a wake, is no more. The man who topped the assists charts, scored 12 and had the league's second best average rating last season can't get a game these days. In fact, he can't even get into the squad any more after Villarreal coach Manuel Pellegrini dumped him for the opening match of 2007. It was the first time Riquelme had been dropped since joining the club and he hasn't been called back. Nor is he about to be.
"No club in the world would leave Riquelme out," insists team-mate Diego Forlán and the last time a Villarreal coach clashed with the Argentinian it cost him his job. When Benito Floro asked Riquelme to arrive half an hour early to work on an injury, he turned up 20 minutes later and ignored the physios, making a point of doing the ground staff's job instead - sweeping the floor before theatrically polishing his boots until it was time to join the others. When he repeated the trick three days later and the coach said he'd leave him out, Riquelme rang the club's director general and demanded to play. A divide opened and before long, Floro was the ex-coach.
But this time is different. This time, Villarreal have had enough. This time, the coach has the president's backing. This time, Riquelme is no longer untouchable - his contribution no longer warrants indulgence. When he stepped up to take that penalty against
Arsenal in the
Champions League semi-final last season, you knew he would miss. It was like he was staring into the abyss, which, as it turns out, he was. He has never recovered, retiring from the Argentina squad and scoring just once for Villarreal. The slow-motion genius is half the player he was; these days, he's just slow. It's like he has given up, at 28.
Maybe he has. After all, Riquelme has played a lot of football and been subjected to an enormous amount of pressure. The game has taken its toll, physically and emotionally. At the age of 10 he used to turn up shattered for training with Argentinos Juniors, the coaches later discovering that his father was a violent local gang leader, a Mafioso who hit his 10-year-old son and obliged him to play in matches that provided the basis for illegal gambling rings in the shanty-town neighbourhood of Don Torcuato in Buenos Aires. When he pulled out of the Argentinian squad this summer, he said it was because his mother was getting ill with the stress.
Riquelme is a difficult, introverted character, porcupine-prickly, a man who needs constant reassurance and has to live entirely on his own terms, who utterly lacks the normal trappings of vanity but is vain nonetheless. Villarreal knew that and created the perfect environment for him. They surrounded him with Argentinians, said nothing when he brought a plane-load of friends over from Don Torcuato, never questioned his "injuries", and turned a blind eye when he didn't fancy training. They even turned a blind eye when he didn't fancy playing, even though they'd built a team around him and made him ever-present, whatever his physical condition. If Riquelme wanted to play, he played: in the last two seasons he has not started a single game as sub.
They also allowed him to travel back to Argentina for the birth of his son. And he didn't even say thanks. When he returned from that extended stay, he announced his intention not to train and Pellegrini decided it was the final straw. Likewise, president Fernando Roig, who announced: "He will obey the club and fulfil his obligations - or else he'll have problems with me." The club had given him everything. Never again.
And so it was that Riquelme spent Saturday night watching Villarreal play Sevilla from the stands while the rest of the country spent Saturday night watching Riquelme spend Saturday night watching Villarreal play Sevilla from the stands. Riquelme looks pensive! Riquelme bites his lip! Riquelme puts his head in his hands! Riquelme does nothing in particular!
Mind you, it was better than actually watching the game as the two sides played out a 0-0 draw that ushered in the worst weekend in Primera División history: one that had four 0-0s, four 1-0s and just nine goals, of which, Barça apart, only two came from open play - and one of those was thanks to a defensive error. A weekend which left Real Madrid - four 1-0s in their last five wins - level with newly-crowned winter champions Barcelona, and Atlético Madrid just three points off the top. And still it's the Italians who are boring.
Comments?
Same with Cassano over here. 
