Nice guys like Rice never win

... but you can't win without them.

Declan Rice will never win the Balon D’Or. He’s a nice guy and nice guys don’t win big in football.

But if you were selecting one of those joint Real Madrid-Arsenal teams today, he might just be first pick.

It helps that he blasted off the two jet-propelled free-kicks that gave ignition to Arsenal’s moon-shot last week, but Real Madrid already have players that can do that. What they don’t have is a launch-pad like Rice. It’s his earthly qualities that make him so valuable. Arsenal boast and believe they got him half price.

Jude Bellingham is the more gifted footballer. His skillset is complete. So much so that he felt empowered to angrily demand a bit more from Vinicius, Mbappe and his other fellow-Galacticos when the quarter-final was getting away. Declan’s biggest gripe was with Thomas Partey for getting himself booked. He is Captain Sensible in the mad, mad world of football.

Rice is a face worker, a midfield collier. He is more than happy to get his hands dirty in the interests of getting the gems around him to surface and sparkle. He runs the hard yards and runs them every week without rest or rotation. Robust and reliable, he is that most veiled of compliments, ‘a manager’s dream’. The player whose best work we are told goes unseen.

Bollocks to that.

When Arsenal won a free-kick nearly a goalless hour into the first leg, their jumped-up set-piece coach saw Rice placing the ball and immediately motioned for him to cross it towards the carefully-choreographed ‘big men’ in the middle.

Bollocks to that too.

In that transformative moment, the ugly duckling found his beautiful plumage with one recasting swing of his boot. Think that was a shot in the dark, Nicolas?... here, I’ll beat one of the best keepers in the world again with an even better free-kick. Sit down and get back to your drawing board.

Except Declan would never say that. A disarming smile and a diversion of praise are as much resistance as his doubters will ever be met with. In the Sugar-free world of ‘The Apprentice’, the only way to dodge the firing squad and climb up to the next level is to trample on the guy in your way. Declan wouldn’t get as far as the lift to the Dragon’s Den.

He is fully and physically equipped to bump and barge with the biggest beasts in the midfield jungle but his only red card was for nudging a dead ball a metre out of play whilst in the process of being kicked in the air by a cheap shot opponent. A full term sentence for dropping litter. It almost knocked his halo off.

Remember those cringingly cute exchanges with his boyhood pal Mason Mount when the pair of them suddenly found themselves sharing an England midfield together? We had Frodo and Pippin at the core of the national team’s engine room. Roy Keane’s face told you ‘the game’s gone’. Declan has always somehow been missing his prescribed ‘rootless’ streak.

And yet, today I read one homage comparing Rice’s performance in the Bernabeu to Keane’s in the 1999 semi-final in Turin. The bottomless spirit, the driving energy and the selfless example were certainly mutual. In the last year or so, he has broken free of the strategic shackles of being Arsenal’s midfield pivot to etch his influence on a wider canvas.

Box-to-box midfield players have gone a little out of vogue but Rice can go anywhere and everywhere now. But is he still considered a Dec of all trades and Jude of none? Is he that player you want alongside in your team but don’t fear if he’s against you on the other team? Do young Arsenal fans want to be Declan Rice when they grow up or would they prefer the name of ‘Saka’ or ‘Odegaard’ or maybe ‘Isak’ on their replica shirt?

Justin Rose could just as easily have won the US Masters as Rory McIlroy last week. The leader board doesn’t lie after 72 holes of elite Championship golf and there was nothing between them on their scorecards. They had traversed 30,000 yards of Augusta lawn in very different ways but with identical returns. Why not give them a jacket each? I’m sure the budget would cover it.

Sport demands a winner. And winners demand attention, they command affection and remand our loyal support. We all had to choose and Rory was the popular choice.

I’ve spent time with Justin Rose. He’s another of the good guys. You can all see that anyway.

You won’t find too many images of Rose peering up at giant pines trying to imagine a miraculous escape from the latest woodland glade his drive had landed him in. He’s as straight with his 5-iron as he is with his graciousness and good nature. McIlroy was trying to hit his ball into the same places as Rose but when he didn’t, Rory had the imagination and gall to make a daring getaway. And we are naturally and hopelessly drawn to talent like that.

Declan Rice is a fairways-and-greens footballer. Straight down the middle. Faldo, not Seve. The acceptance and appreciation being showered upon him today is a function of a marvellous Arsenal result. He is a team player and is visible when the team succeeds. If Real Madrid had somehow stolen a play-off victory via a penalty shoot-out, Rice’s story would have been lost in the rewrite. His contribution would probably have been much the same – it usually is – but we are lauding him now because of the vivid contrast he provided to Real’s flatter-to-deceive offering on the night.

Name drop alert! More than 20 years ago, I got involved in a post-match argument with the late, great Terry Venables. Only one winner there!

It was a friendly discussion in which he was insisting that Real Madrid’s most important player was Claude Makelele. This was the 2002 Madrid of Zidane, Ronaldo, Figo, Raul et al. Tel was telling me over a late night Rioja or six that only Makelele was indispensable.

“But surely Zidane and Figo and Guti and Solari have all got the ability to do anything that Makelele does whereas he can’t do half of what they can do,” I reasoned.

“Aha,” Terry gleamed with a wise grin. “Knowing what he can’t do and doing what he can do is what makes Makelele vital.”

Declan Rice’s twin missiles around the Real wall last week make you wonder if there is even more to what he can do than even his set-piece coach realised. But knowing what he can’t do and accepting it is what makes him so fundamentally essential to Arsenal… and why he’ll never win the Balon D’Or.

Nice guys like Declan never win but you can’t win without them.