BEFORE Jose Mourinho's abrupt departure from Chelsea and its aftermath obliterate all other soccer news, a couple of things that happened earlier in the week are worth recording and remembering because they showed that sportsmanship in soccer is not altogether dead.
The first, of course, was the generous welcome that the Portuguese crowd in Sporting Lisbon's Estadio Jose Alvalade gave to Christiano Ronaldo when he returned as a Manchester United player to the ground where he first showed his exceptional skills. The depressingly routine reaction of British crowds to players who revisit their old haunts after a transfer is to boo them every time they touch the ball, but Sporting Lisbon's supporters even stood to applaud Ronaldo when he scored United's winning goal and when he left the pitch after Alex Ferguson, in an astute judgement of the crowd's generous mood, substituted him a few minutes from the end.
The second event of note took place at Nottingham Forest's ground, when the game against Leicester City that had been abandoned after the collapse of Leicester's player Clive Clark with Forest leading 1-0, was replayed. At the suggestion of their owner, Milan Mandaric, Leicester allowed Forest to score a goal without opposition so that they would not be penalised for their readiness to stop the earlier game. In this case, virtue was its own reward because Leicester City went on to win 3-2. Mr Mandaric said he wanted to show that fair play is not dead in the game.
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