General NUFC stuff

[bowlingcrofty]

Someone at NUFC has had a GDPR nightmare today

[mrmojorisin75]

Someone at NUFC has had a GDPR nightmare today

 

?

[joeyt]

Home game vs West Ham now on Good Friday

[Menace]

Salomon Rondon: ‘I miss St James’ Park the most. It was my jungle, my place’

 

 

By George Caulkin Feb 19, 2020 58

Salomon Rondon is drumming his knuckles on the metal table beside him, keeping pace with the words as they leave his mouth. Does he miss Newcastle United? “Yes. A lot,” he says — tap, tap, tap. What does he miss most? “St James’ Park,” — tap, tap, tap. “If I could turn back time, I would do it 100 per cent, I would be there,” he says and it is almost as if he can still feel the adrenaline, still hear that roar in his head.

 

He calls Newcastle’s grand old stadium, “my jungle”. What does he mean by that? “You have to fight for everything there — that’s my culture, too,” he says. “When I first arrived, I received a message from Tino Asprilla. He said, ‘Maybe you’ll score or maybe you won’t. If you score, that’s good, because a striker lives for goals, but if not, my friend … run, tackle, fight.’ That’s what I did. That’s the reason I loved it so much.”

 

Rondon picks up his phone and opens Instagram. “There’s a picture of me when I signed, walking out of the tunnel towards the pitch with my kids,” he says. “It’s one of my favourite photos. It’s such a big stadium, but it’s also closed in, tight, like it’s leaning over you. Whether you’re winning or losing, you can feel the supporters — ‘Come on, come on, COME ON!’ – and if the ball is there and you make a tackle, they’re like ‘WAAARRRGHHH!’”

 

 

(Photo: Newcastle United)

Rondon is grinning now (you can see his smile from 100 paces). “Sometimes it’s like they celebrate tackles more than goals,” he says. “The fans push you. If the ball is flying towards the line, you have to run, try to take it and play. That’s my nature. Everything for me there was really fantastic. I just felt, ‘this is my place’.” For a little while, he is lost in the rhythm of Tyneside, back in his jungle. His knuckles again: tap, tap, tap, tap.

 

Rondon, 30, spent a single season in the North East, joining on-loan from West Bromwich Albion in the summer of 2018 and then returning to The Hawthorns in May. Two months later, he followed Rafa Benitez, his manager on Gallowgate, to Dalian Yifang, the Chinese Super League (CSL) club, who activated his £16.5 million release clause, something Newcastle, with their focus on youth, were not prepared to do.

 

The logic or otherwise of that policy stirs anguished debate — Joelinton, Rondon’s permanent replacement, is 23, cost £40 million, and has contributed one Premier League goal — although Rondon cannot do very much about that. He lifts his shoulders. “It’s about decisions and it wasn’t my decision,” he says. “If Newcastle had offered me a deal, if they’d said ‘Do you want to stay here?’, then of course I would have stayed.”

 

He sounds wistful now. “To be honest, last season was the best I’ve ever had,” he says. “Not just because I scored goals, but because everything around me was so right, from the school of my children, to the city, the people, my family being happy. I was working really hard in every training session to be in the team and I did everything properly for that. I was playing. Everything was perfect.”

 

None of which should imply that Rondon is disillusioned at Dalian, who were recently renamed Dalian Professional. He has led a peripatetic career, leaving Venezuela as a teenager to play in Spain, Russia, England and now China, taking his family everywhere, sucking up adventure. In any case, he appreciates now that some things are uncontrollable. It is just that Newcastle was so… well, perfect, as he put it.

 

We meet at Dalian’s team hotel, in the hills above Marbella. Theirs is a different sort of pre-season, with the start of the CSL already postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Uncertainty and limbo clings to them. Rondon is fortunate; he has a home in Malaga, 45 minutes away, which means he has seen a lot of Valeria, his wife, Rodrigo, his eight-year-old son, and Raffaela, their five-year-old daughter.

 

 

Rondon with family at St James’ Park (Photo: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

He chats for 90 minutes and would readily stay longer. “I could sit here for four, five hours with a coffee, talking football,” he says and laughs. “I learned that from Rafa.” He has also trained himself to listen. Benitez is obsessive about the sport and meticulous in his role, always teaching, always explaining, focusing on the little details that make players better. “It’s something I love,” Rondon says, although it has taken him a while to reach this point.

 

He is increasingly expressive, animated. “I was in Miami on my holidays when Rafa first called me,” Rondon says. “I turned to my wife and whispered, ‘Oh my God, it’s Rafa Benitez!’ I said — very cool — ‘Yes, hello Rafa, hi, how are you?’ He told me he’d tried to buy me for Newcastle but instead they were going to get me on loan. I wasn’t worried; I just wanted to go. ‘Don’t worry Rafa, I’ll be there.’ I put the phone down. And then I said to my wife, ‘ARGHHH! RAFA BENITEZ!’

 

“I remember our first meeting, the day I passed my medical and signed. I was waiting for the paperwork to go through. He talked to me for 45 minutes! I was in his office and he drew a horizontal line on a whiteboard and then a picture of a goal.

 

“‘What’s that?’ he asked me. ‘Er… A pitch?’ I said. ‘No’, he said, ‘you can go back to West Brom. This is a target. A target. Are you a striker?’ ‘Yes, I’m a striker,’ I said. ‘Well, where should you shoot?’ ‘Umm. Wherever the keeper can’t reach it?’ I asked. ‘No. Where? Which side?’

 

“So on the drawing he divided the goal into six squares. He told me the maximum percentage for goals is in the bottom left and bottom right corners. ‘If you shoot there and miss high you still might score,’ he said. ‘I know strikers want to score goals with quality and style, but shoot here and you’ll score. Pass the ball into the net. Pass, pass!’ It went on for a long time, but it was really good. I’m still learning from him.”

 

And so this is the story of what life has taught Jose Salomon Rondon Gimenez…

 

1.

 

“I was born in 1989. My mother remembers watching Maradona playing in the Copa America when she was pregnant. She could feel me kicking her belly; she says that’s how she knew I’d become a footballer. My dad was a chemistry teacher and never kicked a ball in his life, but they both wanted me to play sport. I started when I was four and I loved it. I’d practise, practise, practise.

 

“I didn’t like school very much. I never wanted to go to university. I said to my mum and dad, ‘Football is the only thing I want to do — let me leave.’ They told me I was wrong; ‘Finish school and then we’ll decide.’ I found it hard. In the exams, the marks go up to 20 and you need at least 10 to pass; I passed with 10 in my last year. I gave them my diploma, got my bag from under the bed and said,‘Take me to the airport. I’ll play anywhere.’

 

“Aragua were my first proper club and I made my league debut for them at 17. Then two clubs came for me, Caracas, the biggest team in Venezuela, and Las Palmas in the (Spanish) Segunda Division. Spain was my dream, because I’d watched La Liga on the TV when I was little, but I said to my mum, ‘I’m scared.’ I wanted it, but I was young and really close to my parents. I’d never done anything for myself, never cooked or driven a car or anything.

 

“I moved but I was very homesick at first. It was all very different. I was living on my own in an apartment. I’d never been alone in a house before, there were four rooms and it felt like a mansion. I slept on the sofa, because it felt too big to be in the bedroom.

 

“I would talk to my family on Skype. I would say to my mum, ‘Please show me how to make pasta.’ So I’d take my laptop into the kitchen, put it next to the oven and she’d talk me through it: ‘OK, take a pan, put water in it, turn the heat on.’ I’d say, ‘Mum, it’s not boiling.’ ‘It’s OK, son, turn the heat up, then add the pasta, a little salt.’ That’s how she taught me how to cook. I had to grow up very quickly.”

 

In different circumstances, Rondon would already be playing in the Premier League again. There was half a chance of it in January, when an injury to Marcus Rashford sent Manchester United on a late dash for a new striker, leading them via a circuitous route to Odion Ighalo and a loan from Shanghai Shenhua, but there was contact with Rondon’s representatives and the brief prospect of an agreement.

 

“It was all out of my hands,” Rondon says. “It means a lot to be linked with Manchester United because they have a great history and it must mean they think I did well in the Premier League. They started to talk to my agent and I was just waiting by my phone for a decision, maybe for the lawyers, but then I saw Ighalo had signed. It didn’t get to the stage where an offer was made or anything like that, but I think it was really close.”

 

Is he not distraught or angry? “No, no — it’s just football,” he says. “It’s decisions again and they obviously decided Ighalo was the best decision for them. I’ve played against him and I’m pleased for him. All I can do is keep working. I’m concentrating on Dalian, on working and learning and listening to the manager. After that, we will have to wait and see. You just never know in this game.”

 

Would he like to come back to England? “I hope so, one day,” he says. “If Newcastle made me the offer, I’d definitely come back!” He smiles again. “I’m 30, but I feel really healthy and take care of my body. Some people might think I’m too old, but if life around footballers is parties and going out, then that’s not my style. I try to do the good things. I hope to play on until I’m 37 or so, although that will depend on injuries, on me, on my life.

 

“If my body says, ‘My friend — that’s enough’, then I’ll have to say goodbye. If not, if I’m still hungry, if I’m still enjoying it, I’ll carry on. I think one of my best qualities is my character. I’m really passionate and I hate losing games, even if they’re friendlies. Even if I’m playing in the garden with my son and he nutmegs me, it’s ‘Hey, hey, hey, hey, NO’.

 

“When I go away with the national team, I’ll always say to the players, ‘I don’t care if you miss a pass or score an own goal, but I do care if you don’t put your foot in. And if you don’t put your foot in then you’ll have to fight me in the dressing-room. Win that first ball in the air.’ This is my attitude. The career of a footballer is too short. You have to give everything to football because football gives you everything.”

 

2.

 

“I’m studying now, to be a coach or a technical director or something like that. It’s an online course in sports management with the Cruyff Institute. I want to stay involved in this world. Finally, I’m listening to my mum! Every day when I talk to her I say, ‘I’m back at school’ and she says ‘Yaaaay, I told you!’ She’s happy and I’m happy, because I’m learning. And it shows how much my life has changed.

 

“Four years ago, I was a footballer who was just living in a bubble — I had everything, I could buy anything, nobody and nothing could touch me because I was famous. But life isn’t like that. My dad had an aneurism. He’s paralysed and restricted to his bed. He can’t speak. We’re trying to help him, but this has been the situation since 2016. I was at West Brom when it happened and I just hit the floor when I found out.

 

“It had always been, ‘I can buy tickets for my parents to visit me — no problem. I can give money to my family, my wife — no problem.’ But I can’t buy my dad’s health. That’s real life. That was when I realised I wasn’t a footballer, that I was just a normal person. I’m not a superhero. That was the moment that opened my eyes, that changed my mentality. It was like a wake-up call and it made me understand that anything can happen.

 

“It’s been really hard. I’m a long way from my family. I was very close to my dad and spoke to him all the time. He was my guide in football, taught me how to shoot with my left foot. He’d never kicked a ball himself, but he knew what I had to do to improve. He would always tell me to keep working, keep learning, that the easiest thing was to arrive as a footballer and the most difficult thing was to stay there.

 

“It made me think about what happens next. You have to be ready for anything. So now I’m trying to prepare myself, every day and every night. I’m learning again, studying again. I’m very lucky, I have a good wage, but not everything is great. Football doesn’t protect you from life.”

 

After Las Palmas, Rondon moved to Malaga in 2010. Fans at La Rosaleda called him, “Gladiator”, because, he says, “I put my head into every challenge and I ran for everything, fighting everyone. At first they called me ‘the horse without a head’ because I was doing so much running. Then when I played alongside Julio Baptista, who had been at Arsenal, they called us ‘The Two Beasts’. We were big and strong.”

 

There were transfers to Rubin Kazan and Zenit Saint Petersburg in Russia, but given his physique and temperament, a £12 million club-record move to West Brom in 2015 felt logical. “I’m very thankful to Tony Pulis,” Rondon says. “I’d always enjoyed the Premier League because of how physical it is. I love that contact with big defenders, the fight, and West Brom gave me the chance to play in the best league in the world.

 

 

(Photo: Getty Images)

“I really liked Birmingham. I learned English with a teacher and everything was fantastic, the atmosphere, the food. The fans were really supportive. The disappointment was how my last season ended. We did the wrong things to stay in the division, some players didn’t want to stay, we didn’t start pre-season very well. Many things. It was no good and we went down.”

 

Dismay was magnified by that traumatic episode at Goodison Park, when James McCarthy tackled Rondon and the Everton midfielder fractured his leg in two places. “The ball was in front of me, I went to shoot and hit his leg,” Rondon says. “It was the worst thing I’ve heard and seen in my whole life. I cried. It shook me up so badly. I was still crying when I got home. I said to my wife, ‘I want to retire. I can’t live with this inside me.’ I just walked up and down my garden, crying.”

 

All of this has constructed the player and man Rondon is now, far removed from the scared, timid teenager who was so reluctant to leave Venezuela. “My wife and I think it’s important to show our children many cultures and many countries,” he says. “Footballers have a job to do, but it’s always good to go to different countries.

 

“China has been another challenge, another new culture and new language. I have a translator, but when you say something they use the same words but not necessarily with the same feeling, so maybe you lose something. My family came with me and we were happy, but we’ve come to the decision that it’s better for my kids to grow up in one place, so they’re back in Malaga, where they have friends, where they can speak Spanish and English.

 

“It’s difficult for us, but it’s a sacrifice. It’s good they’re settled and that makes it easier for me. I thank God and I also thank technology, because we can still talk every night — ‘Are you good?, How’s school?, How’s football?’ It’s life. I’m just trying to do my job.” All this time later and it is back to Skype and FaceTime. And now he is the parent, the one doing the cooing and cajoling. No pasta lessons just yet.

 

3.

 

“Wherever you go, life is different. At Newcastle, for every away game we’d take a private plane and that was seen as normal, so players can have their own space and focus on the match. In China, it’s not like that. We take regular flights with members of the public.

 

“For one game last season, I was sitting next to a stranger, with the club doctor on the other side of him. We took off, I put my headphones on and started to watch a movie. The person next to me began clipping his nails. NO! Nails were flying everywhere, hitting me in the face. This is not possible. I was saying to the doctor, ‘What is happening here?’ I had to go to the toilet. Oh my God.

 

“Every day, I learn something new. There are a lot of Chinese people in Venezuela and when I was young, my dad would bring us a Chinese takeaway every Sunday. So I’m used to the food — fantastic!

 

“In Russia, I had other experiences. I was in this restaurant before training, I couldn’t read the menu so I just pointed to something and said, ‘I’ll take this.’ When the waitress came to my table with a big piece of meat and some fries, I was very happy. Yes! But the steak was tough, as hard as this table. She told me it was horse. I felt so sick. I thought to myself, ‘Why didn’t you listen to your mum when she told you to study?’ Now it’s always Google Translate, or my son.

 

“There are different cultures in football, too. In China, they’re trying to make theirs more European. They want to be a big league in football and there are millions of people there, they’re working and listening, but the game needs to be more athletic, more competitive. In South America when I was young, if the ball was there, you went with two feet. That was my culture.

 

“In England it was different again. At West Brom, I had to win many headers, hold the ball up, knock it down with my body. I remember at the end of one game, Darren Fletcher said to the physio, ‘Quick, you need to get some ice for Salomon, he’s hurt.’ He looked at my legs, my feet. ‘Where, what’s the problem?’ he said. He couldn’t see anything. Darren started laughing. ‘It’s for his chest,’ he said.

 

“At the moment, we’re having to deal with the virus and that’s another experience. It’s really difficult. We read the papers, we look at Twitter and we know the situation is bad. We have to think about all the people who are suffering and I try to put my feet in the shoes of my Chinese team-mates, who want to go home and see their families. We don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s out of our hands.

 

“For the foreign players, we have World Cup or European Championship matches next month. Playing for Venezuela is really important to me, but how can I do that if I haven’t played any competitive football? What about the quarantines? Will FIFA get involved? We have to be professional, stay here, train and wait, but it’s really difficult. It’ll be the first time in my career where a pre-season could last three months.”

 

Rondon mustered 11 league goals last season, his best return in England, but his contribution was gauged by other metrics, too; the way he led the line and worked defenders, the way he linked with Ayoze Perez and Miguel Almiron; Newcastle’s Spanish-speaking “Three Amigos”. He became the first centre-forward to win the club’s official player of the year award since Alan Shearer in 2003.

 

Shearer is the No 9 the rest are measured against, the most prolific and complete striker in Newcastle’s history, but that famous jersey did not look heavy on Rondon, as it has on some men, Joelinton included. It suited him. The fit was snug.

 

 

(Photo: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images)

He has a secret to share. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this…” he begins, but he tells it anyway. “When I arrived, the No 23 shirt was free as well as the No 9 and I said, ‘Give me the 23,’” Rondon says. “I always play with that shirt for Venezuela and I wear it because of Michael Jordan, the basketball player, a big hero of mine [Jordan wore 23 for the Chicago Bulls]. It felt like the right time to get back to it, particularly after what happened at West Brom.

 

“I’d worn the No 9 down there and it was important for them; great players like Cyrille Regis had played in it before me. But those two very bad things happened in the previous season, our relegation to the Championship and then that horrible incident with James, that terrible injury. Both were awful. So, for me, the No 9 felt like bad luck and I wasn’t going to wear it any more.

 

“My agent said, ‘You’re crazy. You can’t say that. The No 9 is Shearer’s number, the shirt of legends.’ ‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘But I want to escape from the No 9. It’s too much pressure.’ ‘Shut up and take it,’ he said. My wife said, ‘Come on – take it. You’re a striker, you have to score goals and it’s the most iconic number in England.’ Even my kids said it, ‘Dad, Dad, you’ve got to take it.’

 

“So I took the No 9 and that huge responsibility. People on the street would stop me and say, ‘Do you know what that represents for Newcastle’? OK, OK, yes! It was some pressure, but I’m so grateful.”

 

And there is a little epitaph here. That black and white shirt, the number emblazoned in crimson, hangs on the wall of his Malaga home. How does he regard the No 9 now? “Fantastic, I love it,” Rondon says, tap, tap, tap, tapping his knuckles, never too old to learn, never too old to be good.

 

I couldn't find the Rondon thread.

 

This is from Athletic.

[Scoot]

West Brom cup tie now being shown on the bbc red button and bbc website.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Class that Rondon article, such a pointless waste. Joelinton for £40m man.

[Rafalove]

 

 

Looks like they’re kicking pokeballs

[Tribesman]

Some top quality pointing from Bruce.

[loki679]

We're gonna run riot when we play against Inanimate Stationary Plastic Yellow Men Utd

[Happinesstan]

Shelvey, watching the short pass training like a puppy with his first TV.

[Guest]

Was anyone at this game?

 

https://www.worldfootball.net/report/premier-league-1984-1985-newcastle-united-tottenham-hotspur/

 

The only 45 minutes of football where Gazza, Waddle & Beardsley played for us in the same game.

[Guest reefatoon]

I would have been there but can’t remember the game at all.

[Robster]

I would have been there but can’t remember the game at all.

I'm shocked that I cannot remember that. 3 goals in the 90th minute. That shit should stick in the memory.

[54]

Gael Bigirimana is now playing for Solihull Moors

[Guest singintheastand]

Was anyone at this game?

 

https://www.worldfootball.net/report/premier-league-1984-1985-newcastle-united-tottenham-hotspur/

 

The only 45 minutes of football where Gazza, Waddle & Beardsley played for us in the same game.

 

I would’ve been there in the Gallowgate corner waiting for the Indian shrill coming from the East Stand. 

Used to go to Benwell to watch them train also, you could mingle with the players and get autographs. Jack Charlton used to tell you to bugger off if you got to close to the training pitch.

[Sima]

Was anyone at this game?

 

https://www.worldfootball.net/report/premier-league-1984-1985-newcastle-united-tottenham-hotspur/

 

The only 45 minutes of football where Gazza, Waddle & Beardsley played for us in the same game.

 

I would’ve been there in the Gallowgate corner waiting for the Indian shrill coming from the East Stand. 

Used to go to Benwell to watch them train also, you could mingle with the players and get autographs. Jack Charlton used to tell you to bugger off if you got to close to the training pitch.

 

The warbler.

[Guest]

I would have been there but can’t remember the game at all.

I'm shocked that I cannot remember that. 3 goals in the 90th minute. That shit should stick in the memory.

 

Looking at the times of both subs I’m guessing they’ve just classed first half goals as 45 and second as 90. Was more than likely minutes.

[Guest singintheastand]

Was anyone at this game?

 

https://www.worldfootball.net/report/premier-league-1984-1985-newcastle-united-tottenham-hotspur/

 

The only 45 minutes of football where Gazza, Waddle & Beardsley played for us in the same game.

 

I would’ve been there in the Gallowgate corner waiting for the Indian shrill coming from the East Stand. 

Used to go to Benwell to watch them train also, you could mingle with the players and get autographs. Jack Charlton used to tell you to bugger off if you got to close to the training pitch.

 

The warbler.

 

 

Yes, always got a cheer. There’s a vid on YouTube with him doing it I think. Miss the days of the Gallowgate having drunks piss on your legs and getting crushed by a beer monster.

[Robster]

I would have been there but can’t remember the game at all.

I'm shocked that I cannot remember that. 3 goals in the 90th minute. That shit should stick in the memory.

Looking at the times of both subs I’m guessing they’ve just classed first half goals as 45 and second as 90. Was more than likely minutes.

That would make more sense.

Still cannot remember it. I had a season ticket in the East stand (same section as the Indian Warbler). First season back after Keegan retired. I thought I would be able to remember all the home games.

[Paully]

https://theathletic.com/1594653/2020/03/03/lee-clark-interview-newcastle-united-fa-cup-blyth-birmingham-blackpool/?amp#click=https://t.co/4PB0XKM97u

[Tsunami]

They’ve stopped all foreign scouting trips. Mike will be pleased.

[gdm]

 

:lol:

[Tsunami]

Donating all the pies (1200) and hospitality food for tomorrow’s match to the West End food bank. Fair play, fancy Steve might just trouser a few if the pies.

[tgarve]

Donating all the pies (1200) and hospitality food for tomorrow’s match to the West End food bank. Fair play, fancy Steve might just trouser a few if the pies.

 

Actually a really good thing to do

[Robster]

Donating all the pies (1200) and hospitality food for tomorrow’s match to the West End food bank. Fair play, fancy Steve might just trouser a few if the pies.

Actually a really good thing to do

Heard that Villa are doing the same.