Furry chinned Rafa the gaffer has hit out at the sheer madness of top international players remaining at the mercy of international federations who can whisk these stars off thousands of miles on the pretext of needing a player for a vital match in far flung places like outer Mongolia and the sub-Saharan desert, or in the case of Javier Mascherano – Egypt. With impeccable timing the Argentine ball chaperone is being whisked off for a friendly between Argentina and Egypt, just four days before the Merseyside derby, and Rafa dispensed his opinion on this matter with withering sarcasm, saying:
“I am really, really happy that Mascherano must go to Egypt to play a friendly.
“Things like that you just cannot understand. There is nothing you can do. The rules are the rules and the players must go.”
So is it a time to end this lunacy, should Argentina really have the right to call up players for tin-pot friendlies?