VICE Sports Premier League Player of the Weekend: Georginio Wijnaldum

This story originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

This weekend Georginio Wijnaldum did what we all thought impossible: he made Newcastle United an enjoyable side to watch. That’s not been the case since the season Alan Pardew went turbo-mental and almost got them into the Champions League, with Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse scoring goals like Ronaldo and Messi. In recent years they’ve been a car crash, with local rivals Sunderland somehow conspiring to mask that all-encompassing shitness by being even worse.

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We’ve had protests about ownership and management, the stadium renamed and a half-transformation into Rangers’ feeder club, so the football has very much been secondary. Narrowly avoiding relegation last season on the last day, it was hard to see where the club could turn after John Carver had so wonderfully stamped out any green shoots of recovery during his short stint in charge. That wasn’t much of a surprise: as a manager, Carver was like that first bloke women date after a divorce who shows them all that is wrong with the world; that is to say, he made Pardew seem like Guardiola.

The last time someone had this sort of a game in a Newcastle shirt it was literally in a script, with that bloke who couldn’t really play football in Goal learning that he needed to pass the ball and look up when he dribbled. Wijnaldum hasn’t started shagging Anna Friel and buggered off to Real Madrid quite yet (spoiler alert: that’s the sequel) but he’s not too far off given his four-goal haul at the weekend. As predictable as an Express headline mentioning Lady Diana, cancer, and all those bloody foreigners, Wijnaldum has already been favourably compared to Alan Shearer, only he’s much less likely to play out the rest of his career in the North East.

Not only did Wijnaldum score four fantastic goals, he also cleared a certain Norwich goal off the line, putting in one of the most clear, rounded Man Of The Match performances possible. Those that publish reductive, ratings-lead post-match pieces were unable to give him anything less than 10 out of 10. Rarer than a full-time, contracted member of staff in a Sports Direct store, this was a performance than gave Newcastle fans something they’ve forgotten about in years: hope. Even at Sunderland, where managers stand up to adversity with of all the strength of a Japanese child playing tag rugby with Boris Johnson, the fans are regularly given reasons to be hopeful, despite the inevitability of it all ending in abject failure.

Wijnaldum, like Gerard Butler in 300, has stood against the odds and come out with his head held high. But in truth, that comparison doesn’t really go far enough. On the 12th of September 1897, during the Tirah Campaign and subsequent war, 21 Sikh soldiers found themselves lining up against 10,000 Afghan troops. Rather than running away and collectively saying “fuck that”, they decided to fight to the death and make a last stand, eventually getting mashed up. Depending on the source, those 21 men took somewhere between 200-500 Afghan soldiers with them, wounding many others.

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Georginio Wijnaldum, playing in a team with the likes of Paul Dummett, could’ve easily said “fuck that” too, running about a bit without threatening to put a shift in. But he didn’t. He, in his own way, took a stand against the odds, and dragged his side to victory. Without his interventions, Norwich would’ve won this game, but he didn’t allow that to happen. He played so well Garth Crooks put him in his team of the week and the country momentarily forgot that their attention should’ve been focussed on Jürgen Klopp being Liverpool manager (I mean, did you see the sprint stats?! I digress).

So, for services to performing in the face of adversity, Georginio Wijnaldum is the only man that could’ve been our Player of the Weekend. Newcastle United, having been shit for so long now, should be a fallen giant in the mould of Leeds or Forest, but they’ve managed to cling on through the odd fantastic signing and inspirational player. Even when they went down, the club seemed to reassess themselves and walked the Championship, returning at the first time of asking. Now though, repeating past mistakes and still under highly questionable ownership, that slight resurgence after getting back into the top flight is ancient history; the dark side still reigns at St. James’.

Most fans won’t have known who Wijnaldum was before he signed in the summer, but they certainly will do now – like Obi Wan, he’s their only hope.

@bainsxiii

Previous Winners

Sergio Aguero (for services to natural selection)
Rudy Gestede (for services to aerial damage)
Winston Reid (for services to hope and helping build a nation’s football reputation)
Steven Naismith (for services to nationwide happiness and unexpected heroes)
James Morrison (for services to espionage and anonymity)
David Silva (for services to attacking football and giving Chelsea what they deserve)
Petr Cech (for services to narrative and entertainment)