Wally meets...Mauricio Taricco

By Mike Walters in Mike Walters

Published 23:00 14/01/11

• 

Second comings were this week’s vogue in football. No club too big or small, just dial M for Messiah.

From Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool to Darren Ferguson at Peterborough, they followed a familiar recipe – roll back the years.

No disrespect to King Kenny or Fergie Junior, but the most startling re-entry into our orbit this season has been on the south coast.

Six years since he tore up his contract at West Ham, Mauricio Taricco has been making his curtain call as a player at Brighton.

Observers impressed by the sprightly full-back in the Seagulls’ FA Cup demolition of Portsmouth last week were amazed

to find he was former Tottenham and Ipswich defender Taricco, who will be 38 in March. Gus Poyet’s No.2 at the ­Withdean, pressed into service because of Inigo Calderon’s suspension, played with the friskiness of a puppy.

He will be back in the dug-out today when Ferguson takes Posh to the seaside, but a glance at the League One table confirms the division’s geographical power base.

Brighton, Southampton and Bournemouth may be setting the pace, but it is Taricco’s paso doble with Poyet, his old team-mate at Spurs, leading the rest a merry dance.

“I kept in touch with Gus after we went our separate ways – I visited him in Uruguay and his family came to stay with mine when I settled in Sardinia,” said Taricco at Albion’s Falmer training ground yesterday.

“We always had similar ideas about the game, but since I hooked up with him at Brighton I have been introduced to ideas I’d never seen anywhere else.

“Maybe the word ‘revolution’ is too strong, but Gus has given these players a platform to express themselves.

“Sometimes I envy the team because they are being coached in a manner I have never experienced before.

“One thing that gives me satisfaction, when I hear the praise for Brighton is that a lot of people think I was a nasty player.”

“I didn’t have a good press, especially at Tottenham, but you have to separate the player from the person. For 90 minutes, it’s business – and, yes, there were times I saw opportunities to help my team win.

“If I admit I dived to win free-kicks or penalties, that means I am in good company – with about 99 per cent of players – and I can understand ­opponents being irritated.

“What I cannot accept is the hypocrisy which went with the ­criticism. One thing I haven’t missed is the hypocrites in English football.

“They called me a foreigner, a cheat – but if I was guilty of things on the pitch, at least I was man enough to take it when the same thing happened to me.”

Fancy winning £3,000 for FREE this month? Play Mirror Football Streak for your chance to win cash prizes! Start predicting now!