Once Upon A Time...

Once Upon A Time...
By Rita Lee

Sir Football was a renowned Englishman who travelled abroad in order to colonise natives and force them into field labour. He landed in Brazil where to his delight he found indigenous people, bananas and voodoos.

'This is going to be a piece of cake,' he thought through his top-hat.

And he didn't waste any time. With his fierce hooligan soldiers he initiated his evil doings by challenging a local tribe that was observing their antics with suspicion and mockery. 'Pretty nice Jesuits, don't play too bad, call the chief to have a look.'

The noble Englishman gesticulated, shouted, commanded, while also trying to hide tactical aspects of the game. Chief Pele enters the field. He takes hold of the ball, smells it, shakes the foreign 'coconut' and starts showing exotic tricks (later to be known as 'embaixadas') which the Englishmen imagined to be some sort of homage paid by the chief to show submission. In reality, it was a sign for the natives to assume their poitions on the pitch for an all-out attack. Sir Football and his hooligans came close, I mean really close, to being transformed into bowling pins, which would have consequently changed the name of the game forever.

Chief Pele and his tribe didn't give the Englishmen a chance to get near, let alone touch the ball (this is the origin of the current Brazilian expression 'for English eyes only').

But finally managed to have a penalty called in their favour, the score already being more than 1,000 goals to 0 for the natives. The situation was chaotic, when suddenly Sir Football had the brilliant idea to offer a bet. 'Your kingdom for a goal!!!'

Chief Pele accepted, and to everyone's astonishment, went to lie down in his hammock for a nap. Sir Football himself got into position to take the penalty, made ready, smirked a malicious smile, and kicked...kicked hard...kicked with class...and hit the post! It was a nice post made up of two charming banana trees that, with the ball's impact, dropped a bunch of bananas into the goal, adding the final touch to the Englishmen's humiliation.

Contrary to legend, Sir Football didn't end up the main course at the natives' victory banquet. He did, though, humbly substitute his top-hat (as now a symbol of power) for a coloured gourd, and departed with a few remaining odds and ends, for England. It is said that he changed his name to 'Futebol' to be able to enter his Kingdom unnoticed.

As for hooligans, they never managed to play again and so formed a guerrilla brotherhood known to operate undercover among English football fans.

Pele is well known today all over the world as the biggest 'Top-Hat' hunter around. His collection is visited daily by people from all over the world who are interested in the art of scoring more than 1,000 goals per game.

>Published in the anthology Perfect Pitch: Dirt, edited by Marcela Mora Y Araujo & Simon Kuper

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Esse Est Percipi

Esse Est Percipi
By Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy Casares

As an old roamer of the neighbourhood of Nunez and thereabouts, I could not help noticing that the monumental River Plate Stadium no longer stood in its customary place. In consternation, I spoke about this to my friend Dr Gervasio Montenegro, the full-fledged member of the Argentine Academy of Letters, and in him I found the motor that put me on the track. At the time, his pen was compiling a sort of Historical Survey of Argentine Journalism, a truly noteworthy work at which his secretary was quite busy, and the routine research had accidentally led Montenegro to sniff out the crux of the matter. Shortly before nodding off, he sent me to a mutual friend, Tulio Savastano, president of the Abasto Juniors Soccer Club, to whose headquarters, situated in the Adamant Building on Corrientes Avenue near Pasteur Street, I hied.

This high-ranking executive still managed to keep fit and active despite the regimen of double dieting prescribed by his physician and neighbour, Dr Narbondo. A bit inflated by the latest victory of his team over the Canary Island All-Stars, Savastano expatiated at length between one mate and another, and he confided to me substantial details with reference to the question on the carpet. In spite of the fact that I kept reminding Savastano that we had, in yesteryear, been boyhood chums from around Aguero and the corner of Humahuaco, the grandeur of his office awed me and, trying to break the ice, I congratulated him on the negotiation of the game's final goal, which, notwithstanding Zarlenga and Parodi's pressing attack, centre-half Renovales booted in thanks to the historic pass of Musante's.

In acknowledgement of my support of the Abasto eleven, the great man gave his mate a posthumous slurp and said philosophically, like someone dreaming aloud, 'And to think it was me who invented those names.'

'Aliases?' I asked, mournful. 'Musante's name isn't Musante? Renovales isn't Renovales? Limardo isn't the real name of the idol aclaimed by the fans?'

Savastano's answer made my limbs go limp. 'What? You still believe in fans and idols?' he said. 'Where have you been living, don Domecq?'

At that moment, a uniformed office boy came in, looking like a fireman, and he whispered to Savastano that Ron Ferrabas wished a word with him.

'Ron Ferrabas, the mellow-voiced sportscaster?' I exclaimed. 'The sparkplug of Profumo Soap's after-dinner hour? Will these eyes of mine see him in person? Is it true that his name is Ferrabas?'

'Let him wait,' ordered Mr Sevastano.

'Let him wait? Wouldn't it be better if I sacrificed myself and left?' I pleaded with heartfelt abnegation.

'Don't you dare,' answered Sevastano. 'Arturo, tell Ferrabas to come in.'

What an entrance Ferrabas made- so natural! I was going to offer him my armchair, but Arturo, the fireman, dissuaded me with one of those little glances that are like a mass of polar air.

The voice of the president began deliberating. 'Ferrabas, I've spoken to De Filippo and Camargo. In the next match Abasto is beaten by two to one. It's a tough game but bear in mind- don't fall back on that pass from musante to Renovales. The fans know it by heart. I want imagination- imagination, understand? You may leave now.'

I screwed up my courage to venture a question. 'Am I to deduce that the score has been prearranged?'

Savastano literally tumbled me to the dust. 'There's no score, no teams, no matches,' he said. 'The stadiums have long since been condemned and are falling to pieces. Nowadays everything is staged on the television and radio. The bogus excitement of the sportscaster- hasn't it ever made you suspect that everything is humbug? The last time a soccer match was played in Buenos Aires was on 24 June 1937. From that exact moment, soccer, along with the whole gamut of sports, belongs to the genre of the drama, performed by a single man in a booth or by actors in jerseys before the TV cameras.'

'Sir, who invented the thing?' I made bold to ask.

'Nobody knows. You may as well ask who first thought of the inauguration of schools or the showy visits of crowned heads. These things don't exist outside the recording studios and newspaper offices. Rest assured, Domecq, mass publicity is the trademark of modern times.'

'And what about the conquest of space?' I groaned.

'It's not a local programme, it's a Yankee-Soviet co-production. A praiseworthy advance, let's not deny it, of the spectacle of science.'

'Mr President, you're scaring me,' I mumbled, without regard to hierarchy. 'Do you mean to tell me that out there in the world nothing is happening?'

'Very little,' he answered with his English phlegm. 'What I don't understand is your fear. Mankind is at home, sitting back with ease, attentive to the screen or the sportscaster, if not the yellow press. What more do you want, Domecq? It's the great march of time, the rising tide of progress.'

'And if the bubble bursts?' I barely managed to utter.

'It won't,' he said, reassuringly.

'Just in case, I'll be silent as the tomb,' I promised. 'I swear it by my personal loyalty- to the team, to you, to Limardo, to Renovales.'

'Say whatever you like, nobody would believe you.'

The telephone rang. The president picked up the receiver and, finding his other hand free, he waved it, indicating the door.

Published in the anthology Perfect Pitch: Dirt, edited by Marcela Mora Y Araujo & Simon Kuper

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AC Milan All-Stars

The Independent's Matthew Fearon offers a starting point to discover the greatest ever AC Milan XI. The Rossoneri missed out on a Champions League place this year and without their participation, European Cup football just doesn't feel quite right. Their revenge victory over Liverpool in 2007 was the seventh time the club had lifted football’s most glittering club prize. Of the starting XI on that May night, two make it into this Dream Team to play alongside Milan legends with enough silverware between them to pay Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension for at least the next few years... but no Giovanni Lodetti, Jose Altafini, Filippo Galli, Alessandro Nesta, Lorenzo Buffon, Sebastiano Rossi, Mauro Tassotti, George Weah, Demetrio Albertini, Marcel Desailly, Daniele Massaro, Andriy Shevchenko or Juan Alberto Schiaffino? And playing a 3-5-2?

Fabio Cudicini
Goalkeeper
AC Milan 1967-72; 183 appearances
The father of White Hart Lane's Carlo, his shadow has chased his son throughout the younger Cudicini's unfulfilled career. Father Fabio, whose presence and acrobatic qualities earned him the sobriquet, 'Ragno Nero' or Black Spider. The nickname pinpoints his place in the highest echelons of keepers in that it honours an ability that brought frequent comparisons to his contemporary Lev Yashin, the impermeable 'Black Octopus'.

Longer of leg, bigger of body and with the reflexes to leave a stain on the mind of any striker, Yashin elevated goalkeeping to an art form. Cudicini was a willing disciple and that his dexterity permits him to have his name uttered in the same sentence as Yashin sees him take the No.1 jersey ahead of Lorenzo Buffon, and the man who never had to make a save, Sebastiano Rossi.

Paolo Maldini
Defender
AC Milan 1985-present; 891 appearances, 33 goals
What Shane Warne did for the art of legspin, Paolo Maldini did for the art of defending. It has been rumoured that he sweats black and red, such is his devotion to Milan, but this remains unconfirmed as his soothsayer vision waives any need to perspire. By the time Maldini's current team-mate, Pato, was born in September 1989, Il Capitano had already made 150 appearances for the Rossoneri and was an established member of the Italian national side.

He won his first Scudetto in 1988, what looks like his last in 2004, and in between picked up another five to go with the European Cups that he can count on one hand (just); but the trophies are mere decoration to an outstanding talent. Like Cruyff and his turn, Maldini has trademarked his own touch of skill: a sliding tackle of exact timing and execution, the purpose being repossession not demolition. Leading with the left leg, his foot wraps around the ball and, instead of a clearance, he traps the ball between left foot and right knee, rising in one motion with the ball at his feet and an attacker searching for a throw in that never comes - the Maldini.

Franco Baresi
Defender
AC Milan 1977-97; Appearances: 719; Goals: 33
It is tempting to consider that Baresi's young apprentice, Paolo Maldini, made a Faustian pact of the kind that preserved Dorian Grey's beauty. To continue with the analogy would see Baresi as Basil Hallward's portrait, ravaged by the experiences of his eternally youthful alter ego. When he made his Milan debut as a seventeen-year-old, Baresi already resembled the gnarled warrior he would become 719 first team appearances later; to confirm this impression, he played as if he had all the wisdom of one who has lived many lives.

His six Scudettos match the number that adorned his shirt and has now been retired by the club, an act due to be repeated with Maldini's No.3 at the end of the season. He also captained the side to the European Cup in 1989 and 1990 but suspension meant he missed out on the 4-0 victory over Barcelona in the 1994 final. A player for the ages, whose role in Maldini's development could only have been achieved at a club for whom lineage and history is of paramount importance. Unlike Oscar Wilde's creation, Baresi's footballing aesthetic was not that of the extravagant hedonist, his beauty lay in consistency, reliability and leadership.

Alessandro Costacurta
Defender
AC Milan 1986-2007; 662 appearances, 3 goals
Alessandro Costacurta is the third and final member of the dream team's defensive trio; a back-line that could be more closely described as a collection of oracles such is their prophetic reading of the game. The three played together for ten years and turned Sebastiano Rossi into a mere spectator on the pitch. Costacurta's seven Scudettos spanned a 16-year period and were topped up by collecting the same five European Cup winners' medals as Paolo Maldini.

Not particularly tall for a centre-half, his speed over short distances and immaculate perception cut out the need to compete for headers. He often gave the impression he was involved in a conspiracy with the ball, of which the opposing attacker remained uninitiated. It is only the presence of such a superior midfield and strike-force that removes the need to include the fourth of that great back-line, Mauro Tassotti, who can consider his omission desperately unlucky.

Ruud Gullit
Free role
AC Milan 1987-1993 and 1994, 171 appearances, 56 goals
Before the time billionaires existed, when the Premier League was European football's poor relation, financially and technically, English football fans were restricted to admiring only the fading skills of the great players of the age. Already in his mid-thirties when he arrived at Chelsea, Gullit's days as the driving force behind Milan's great midfield of the '80s and '90s now belonged to the highlight reels and now youtube. Nevertheless, he dazzled briefly and, Cantona aside, there was no better player in the league in 1995-96.

He played high-up the pitch in a front-three; as a sweeper; a holding midfielder; a free-scoring midfielder; but, for this dream team, he can play anywhere he damn well wants. He was European Footballer of the Year in 1987, an award the enlightened Gullit dedicated to Nelson Mandela, long before he had become Morgan Freeman. Whether it was down to his raging lion's mane or not, there have been very few footballers, before or since, who were blessed with the heading ability that converted his skull into a weapon as lethal as either of his feet. That he should be remembered in this country for uttering the phrase "sexy football" at once captures his footballing style and, at the same time, reveals our ignorance of his brilliance.

Gianni Rivera
Centre midfielder
AC Milan 1960-79; 658 appearances, 164 goals
Gianni Rivera's talent makes a mockery of any claims to the technical advancement of the game over the last 15 years. Faster, yes; fitter, yes; better diets, yes; richer, yes; more skilful, not a chance. The other attributes are negated by relativity, skill is innate and then it is down to the individual to eke out every last drop, whatever the era or competition. Rivera glided past Mario Coluna in the sixties, Norman Hunter in the seventies and, had Italian football's golden boy continued playing, he would have done the same to Passarella in the eighties.

In the nineties he'd have been lucky enough to have Maldini as a teammate but no doubt he would have left John Terry on his backside were he still playing today. He was named European Footballer of the Year in 1969, the same year he helped Milan to his and the club's second European Cup. His trophy collection also includes three Scudettos, two European Cup Winners' Cups and four Italian Cups.

Frank Rijkaard
Holding midfielder
AC Milan 1988-1993; 201 appearances, 26 goals
A fourth defender is not really required with Frank Rijkaard shoring up this Milan's myriad midfield talents. The converted centre-half brought a defender's discipline to the role of holding midfielder; while Milan's attacking architects were busy creating Baroque masterpieces in Bernini's image, Rijkaard mixed cement, carried hods, plastered walls and fixed the plumbing.

His explosive temperament meant he took personally all opposition attempts to maim his more elusive teammates and exacted revenge by means frequently fair, but occasionally foul. In his five seasons with the club he won the Scudetto and European Cup on back-to-back occasions, but he earns his place in the side because of the freedom his endeavours would no doubt grant Rivera and Kaka.

Niels Liedholm
Centre midfielder
AC Milan 1949-1961, 394 appearances, 89 goals
Before the Dutch trio of Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard made such an impression on the San Siro's record books, another foreign gang of three, all Swedish not Dutch, had combined to create the first truly great Milan side. The club's array of striking talent down the ages means there is no place in the starting XI for the technician Gunnar Gren. He was the 'Gre' in the legendary 'Gre-No-Li' and the 'Li' was midfielder Niels Liedholm. There is an apocryphal tale that says it took two years for Liedholm to misplace a pass at the San Siro and when it was confirmed to the crowd that he was indeed fallible, the stadium revealed its relief in a five-minute standing ovation.

His longevity in the game was based on dedication to a punishing fitness regime and a nutritionist's obsession with diet. His attitude advanced Italian club football way ahead of rival continental leagues and his influence continues to be felt today. David Beckham is just the latest in a long line of Milan descendants to have applied Liedholm's body-as-temple template in order to extract every last ounce of talent for the Rossoneri's cause. But if Beckham had only half Liedholm's ability, it may well be him challenging for a dream team place and not agitating for a move from LA Galaxy.

Kaka
Free role
AC Milan 2003-present; 234 appearances, 79 goals
There's no God, only Kaka. The Brazilian genius possesses a devotion to the Divine that would shake even the resolve of Richard Dawkins. Even the eminent evolutionary biologist would have to admit that Jesus may well be Kaka's bootboy. His skills make him the 21st century footballing reincarnation of Gianna Rivera but his extra pace and height see him pushed further up the field to support the front two. If match balls were females of the species, their groans of pleasure elicited by Kaka's touches and caresses would drown out even the adulatory noise of the San Siro's Brigate Rossonere such is his instinct and delicacy.

The newly crowned European champions signed him from Sao Paolo in 2003 for £5m, the same price paid by Blackburn Rovers nine years earlier to prise Chris Sutton away from Norwich. His pivotal role as audacious provider and scorer of the goals that guided an ageing Milan side to two European Cup finals and a 2004 Scudetto have added the necessary rows of zeros to his current valuation. Although, as Manchester City have discovered, not even all the zeros in the world can afford studs tightened by the son of God.

Gunnar Nordahl
Forward
AC Milan 1949-56, 268 appearances, 221 goals
The 'No' in 'Gre-No-Li' was the only negative aspect of a player whose every waking thought revolved around scoring goals. Nordahl was already 27 when he joined Milan in 1949; seven years later he would retire as Milan's all-time leading scorer and he still remains the second-highest Serie A goalscorer ever. If they had ever made a film of his life, only Marlon Brando could be cast as the great Swede and if they tried to cast him today, no current actor could get close to conveying his physicality, power or ferocious single-mindedness.

Nordahl had the intensity of a Stanley Kowalski and the drive of a Terry Molloy but when it came to finishing he had a class all of his own. If William Ralph 'Dixie' Dean epitomised the ideal 1930s centre-forward, Nordahl was a mirror image but with 20 years refinement. Italy wouldn't see such startling power again until Milan went African via Paris to sign George Weah in 1995.

Marco Van Basten
Forward
AC Milan 1987-1995, 201 appearances, 124 goals
Quite simply one of the best footballers there ever will be. If Gunnar Nordahl was a refinement of 'Dixie' Dean, Marco van Basten is refinement of every striker that followed in Dean and Nordal's stud-marks. A dominion over time is a key feature of all the greatest sportsmen; when van Basten controlled a Gullit pass and turned into the box, if he commanded time to slow and slow down it would. There isn't a single type of goal missing from his back catalogue, which would be even more extensive were it not for a persistent ankle injury that meant he barely played after his 28th birthday.

His final act in the red and black was collecting a runners-up medal after losing 1-0 to Marseilles in the now-scarred 1993 European Cup final. By that time he already had three Serie A and two European Cup winners' medals to his name and had been crowned European Footballer of the Year three times - a feat matched only by Michel Platini and Johan Cryuff.

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In The Name Of The Father

Zizou Zidane- The World's Best Player
By Mounsi Mohand

In the Name of the Father

In the Name of the Son

Prologue
That which is written is written: 'Mektoub!'
'When he came to France before the Algerian war, my father moved in just behind the stadium. In St Denis at that time there were just woodlands, hilly plots and ruined houses. That was where my father lived. My mother showed me a photo of him from those days...an old yellowed black and white photo. My father was young back then.'
(Zidane)

In the Name of the Father

As it was, as it still is, as it will always be: the seething black suburb encircling the red belt, and everything that came before. The endless jumble of housing estates, already built on the water-sodden ground of a landscape filled with factory chimneys spreading their deleterious fumes far around them. In wintertime, the very snow falls from a sky bespeckled with soot. And the entire region is covered in a crust of piss and rust.

In the Name of the Son

You arrive, one behind the other, from the underground tunnel leading to the pitch. French on the right, Brazilians on the left. The two captains, Deschamps and Dunga, leading the way. Watching over you, around the ground, are blue and khaki silhouettes, helmets, clubs, uniforms, police, soldiers, and special forces. Further off are forgers, tricksters, counterfeit money dealers and football shirt-sellers clearing out their stock of blue. At the black market rate, a seat is 10,000 francs. In the stands, ministers, stars, officials, the president of the Republic and the prime minister.

In the Name of the Father

Mud, rain, dust, splatterings of tar, stunted, stubby trees brushing the ground. mean dwellings of recycled steel, chipboard, breezeblocks. Most foreigners who took root here finished by losing their roots. They worked hard to feed their families. And there, poor among the poor, they toiled at the everlasting vocation of their kind: survival.

In the Name of the Son

You arrive on the pitch to the thunderous acclaim of the spectators. The Brazilians raise their arms in salute. They sing their national anthem. Then France, the whole crowd sing as one. Eighty thousand throats at work. You! Lips scarcely moving. The president of the Republic and the prime minister...just as in 1789. Karembeu...mouth shut. The nation has waited years for the day of glory. But you, what are you thinking of at this moment? Of your boyhood room with the photo of Enzo Francescoli on the wall? Of that pair of Kopas you were given on your twelfth birthday? Of your earliest professional days at US St Henri?

In the Name of the Father

So it is today, within these slabs of buildings, many an immigrant arrives from the four corners of the world in search of a haven of hope. From street level rise the shrill yells and cries of their children as they play with a black-and-white ball. There is nothing that can save them from this encircling belt of towers that line the road. Further down still, the capital's ring road vomits traffic from both ends.

In the Name of the Son

The lines break up. Here you are, greeting the Brazilian players. You shake hands with each before lining up for the photo. Photos and cameras. The world is there. The whole world. With Djorkaeff's Armenia. Desailly's Ghana. Laurent Blanc's France. Thuram's Guadeloupe. Karembeu's New Caledonia. Zidane's Algeria...and all of you...'The blue-black-white-Arab cockerel'.

In the Name of the Father

Smail was born over there. Born hearing the echo of the soft singing of women, with their clear voices and long henna-stained fingers, cradling their delicate infants in their arms and languidly shooing away the tiny flies that danced and buzzed around their heads. He knows the parchment faces of the old Kabyle men, and the old women leaning against walls made of dry stones and adobe. He remembers their names.

In the Name of the Son

There's a decision to make, the referee tosses a coin then picks it off the ground. The two captains part with a handshake.

In the Name of the Father

Over there, he is everywhere. On the mountain, in every white stone, in every spiny bush, in every tuft of grass, even in the bed of the wadi, in the dusty-violet-coloured far-off hills, in the endless skies where the wind still whistles, carrying muffled snatches of the voice of the muezzin as he utters the call to prayer from the Djemaa. Algeria: in this land, he is everywhere.

In the Name of the Son

It is nine o'clock in the evening. To the sound of the shouted applause of the crowd, the kick-off of the World Cup final. You look up to the stands, then kiss your wedding wing. The ball rolls right, left, then away, forwards. The crowd in the stands, painted in blue, exhorts, trumpets, shouts. This way you have a turning back on yourself...gliding as if on roller skates...balletic passing...applause, shouts, quiet periods...runs, accelerations, dummies, dribbles, breaks...control...This way you have of killing, of enveloping the ball between your legs, dancing as you feint with your body...and the ball that passes from right leg to left.

In the Name of the Father

Yet his presence in St Denis is beyond doubt. There, among the foreigners wrenched from their soil, like a plant pulled from the ground but whose tiniest roots still hold fast. in every one of the men's movements, in every inflexion of their voices, in every feature of their bodies, a timid pardon was asked of the world for that small patch of land they were doomed to inhabit. As the days flowed by, they dwindled, so small that they might disappear. From time to time they...disappeared...

In the Name of the Son

Twenty-seventh minute. Emmanuel Petit places the ball on the corner spot. He strikes. The ball takes flight. You jump. You send your header speeding to the post. The ball slides to the back of the net. France 1, Brazil 0. In the stands, on the terraces, everywhere the crowd yells this exclamation: 'Zizou! Zizou!' The diminutive makes a circuit of the stadium. Your comrades clasp you to them. You kiss Emmanuel Petit.

In the Name of the Father

That day, he suddenly remembered memories so far distant, so long past, that it was like a miasma within him. he saw it like a dream, as if it was not real as if somebody else had lived it. That day, 12 July 1998, he remembered something far-off, forgotten. His arrival in Seine St Denis.

In the Name of the Son

In the stands, fabrics of many colours are waving. French flags mix with the red star and crescent of Algeria. Shouts of joy are heard in every language, from every mouth, in every accent. Once upon a time in the twenty-seventh minute. Twice upon a time in the forty-fifth minute. Djorkaeff places the ball on the corner spot. And the story begins, the legend...France 2, Brazil 0. In the second half, Emmanuel Petit is six metres from Taffarel. You are into stoppage time. One minute to play. he scores from a pass by Vieira. France 3, Brazil 0.

In the Name of the Father

Marseilles, the northern suburbs. That night, Smail sighed and closed his eyes. His head gently lolled on to his shoulder. His breathing forced a great sigh into his pillow. He was already asleep. Fragments of images, images without order or logic, passed through his head, images of things he'd seen in childhood. it appeared to him that the house was full of visitors shouting his name. The images scrolled and whirled through his head. Some pleased him and so he tried to grab hold of them, but they passed across his vision and faded away. These images struck him with the power and the clarity of dreams, and suddenly, before his eyes he saw the blurred silhouette of Yazid stooping towards him. Between his hands he held a trophy. Smail ceaselessly intoned the strange words that seemed imbued with magic: 'Mabrouk my son! Mabrouk!' Gold flooded from the ball, from the cup, as if it were the light of a sun.

In the Name of the Son

The grandstand. Didier Deschamps leads the way. He kisses Michel Platini and the president. They shake your hand. They present you with medals. The president of the Republic hands the cup to the captain. The trophy is passed from hand to hand, from mouth to mouth. Then you all return to the pitch. you sprint, you careen, you spin around like whirling dervishes. Champions of the world, you dance to the tune 'I Will Survive', now truly your theme song.

In the Name of the Father

In the Name of the Father,
In the Name of the Son,
And so be it.
the ties between father and son are sacred.

'Whatever happens, my father will be with me. What he has taught me is the way to God.'
(Zidane)

In the Name of the Son

Pouring along the Champs Elysees. The crowds. Horns everywhere. Flags everywhere. On balconies, on cars, in people's hands, in trees, in bars. Your name lights up on the Arc de Triomphe. Millions are crying 'Zidane, president!' Everywhere are clutches of men, of women, of children, perched on phone boxes, car roofs, newspaper kiosks. Cheers ring out in all languages, from all mouths, from all ages, reaching to the very mountains of Kabyle. The sounds of ululating in the village while the shadows of night fall upon the trees of the Parc Clairefontaine.

First published in the anthology Le Foot- The Legends of French Football, edited by Christov Ruhn. Read more on "In The Name Of The Father"

The Lights Are Going Out

The Lights Are Going Out

By John Spurling

"There’s nothing better than lying back in the bath and having a good smoke after a game," claimed Bolton striker Nat Lofthouse in the 1950s. This post-match relaxation technique has long been consigned to the historical dustbin, so much so that there is always a frisson of disapproval whenever a high-profile footballer is caught with a cigarette. Zinedine Zidane, having previously endorsed the EU’s “Feel Free To Say No” campaign, was castigated by the French media after being snapped taking a crafty drag shortly before France’s semi-final against Portugal at last year’s World Cup. With FIFA and UEFA refusing to allow tobacco advertising at any international tournaments over the last eight years, the previously strong ties between the tobacco industry and football appear to have been severed.

As far back as the 19th century, cigarette companies quickly realised that football was an excellent medium through which to obtain brand loyalty among fans, in addition to the eminently collectable cards. Over the years a series of high-profile players rushed to endorse tobacco products. In the 1930s, Everton’s Dixie Dean promoted Carreras Clubs ("Cigarettes with a kick in them") and Stanley Matthews – a devout non-smoker – promoted Craven ‘A’ ("Stanley’s smooth ball control matches the smoothness of Craven ‘A’"). Former Manchester United defender Charlie Roberts, having bought a tobacco business after his retirement, designed Ducrobel cigarettes, named after United’s backline of Dick Duckworth, Charlie Roberts and Alex Bell. Arsenal star Alex James was snapped puffing away with transatlantic flyer Amy Johnson and ­Wimbledon ­champion Suzanne Lenglen in his role as sports-equipment promoter at Selfridges.
Cigarettes were part and parcel of the working man’s game, with smoking permitted on the trains and buses that ferried fans to games, and tobacco advertised in programmes and on hoardings around the ground. Newcastle star Jackie Milburn, who was regularly seen handing out cigarettes to fans after matches, recalled how, after slipping away for a surreptitious smoke before the 1951 FA Cup final, he was “shocked to discover four of my team-mates puffing away in the toilet. They told me they’d cadged them off fans beforehand.” “When you swept the terraces at the end of matches in the Fifties,” recalled former Villa employee George Sander, “there was a mountain of newspaper and dog-ends, as far as the eye could see. The only exception was for Christmas games, when chaps would be smoking cigars they’d received as presents.”

By the early Seventies, many upwardly mobile players and managers were flaunting their new-found wealth by chomping on fat cigars. ITV’s pioneering 1970 World Cup panel vented their opinions through a haze of Havana smoke – “I’ve got a contact in Cuba who sorts me out,” said star panellist Malcolm Allison. Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were rarely seen without their favoured cheroots on the touchline at the Baseball Ground, and early publicity shots of “The Clan” (a collection of football wide boys comprising stars such as Alan Ball, Alan Hudson and Stan Bowles) showed them puffing away on cigars and sipping champagne in a plush King’s Road eaterie.

Others’ well publicised nicotine habits simply reinforced their rebellious streaks. Johan Cruyff, who insisted on keeping two stripes on his Dutch shirt instead of the regulation three of the sponsors Adidas, also resisted attempts by the national team’s medical staff to make him kick his 20‑a‑day habit (he only gave up in the 1990s, following heart-bypass surgery). After joining Derby, Charlie George took up smoking before matches in an attempt to stop himself being physically sick, and Argentina coach César Luis Menotti, who openly criticised the controlling military junta, added to his anti-hero image by chain-smoking on the touchline throughout the 1978 World Cup.

Programmes in the later Eighties still contained tobacco adverts, with the ubiquitous government health warnings. But the Popplewell Inquiry following the Bradford fire highlighted the dangers of fans smoking in rickety wooden stands and, with stadiums being rebuilt and clubs targeting family audiences, smoking bans began to be mooted. As a new generation of ­health‑conscious coaches came to prominence, nicotine-stained footballers have been viewed with growing disgust. Before the 1998 World Cup, Glenn Hoddle was attacked by the anti-smoking lobby for refusing to clamp down on Paul Gascoigne’s habit, and even Alex Ferguson was forced to vigorously defend himself after permitting Fabien Barthez to puff away in private. Joey Barton’s stubbing out of a cigar in a team-mate’s eye at Manchester City’s Christmas party symbolised the sheer irresponsibility of grotesquely wealthy Premiership stars.

Typically, Gazza rounded on “the health fascists”, claiming: “That’s the problem with football today. Players are expected to eat the same, drink the same and behave the same. They can’t do this, they can’t do that. No wonder they’re all becoming little robots.” With the majority of clubs having banned smoking in grounds long before the recent government legislation, the air is certainly far cleaner at games today. Yet with the ­atmosphere inside many spanking new stadiums depressingly sterile, you occasionally yearn for a wisp of fetid air to drift up your nostrils and stimulate the senses.

First published in When Saturday Comes (247) September 07

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Keeping Faith

Goalkeepers have always been slow to admit responsibility for any goal their team concedes, but the way they demonstrate this has changed across the ages. Cameron Carter charts the history of these complex blame-shirking gestures and what happens when it all gets too much for them...

The Fatalist
If you consider footage from the 1960s and 70s, you will notice that the goalkeeper of this era is a more mild and resigned sort of person in the face of personal failure. After Georgie Best or Jimmy Greaves has sashayed round him and slipped the ball home, our isolated chum will invariably plod into the back of the net and simply tidy up his goal by kicking the ball downfield for the restart. It is as if he is thinking: “Well, this was bound to happen sooner or later. The ball is round, several people out there are intent on getting it into my net. I’m surprised this type of thing doesn’t happen more often.” There is no finger-pointing, no petit mort of the goalmouth lie-down, just a gentlemanly acceptance of the inevitable. Gradually, pioneering individuals such as Gary Sprake would introduce a bit of hands-on-hips action as an aperitif, but it was still a case of fumbling around for the ball afterwards and getting on with the game.

The Wounded Soldier
A very common position adopted by the man who cannot face his team-mates. Here, the goalkeeper lies flat on his stomach, waiting for his manager’s screams to die on the air and until his scary central-defender captain has wandered away for the kick-off. A variation on the completely prostrate position has the heels brought up towards the buttocks, signifying complete submission to the goal event. A further variant, the slow sinking to the knees, is best left to the experienced soft-goal conceder. David James, for one, has turned this reaction into a homoerotic art form. “Playing possum”, another related position in which the defeated keeper lies entirely inert, is viewed by behavioural psychologists as “a bit much”.

The Marionette
A lesser-seen response, characterised by wobbling legs and a clownish tottering dance on the goalline. Occasionally witnessed after a long-range screamer, the Marionette more often follows an extremely close-range header in lieu of an actual attempt to stop the ball. The perpetrator, by going flaccid, hopes to convey that the goal is an elemental force and has nothing to do with his hesitation over coming for the cross.

The Berserker
Nowadays, however, we live in a deeply litigious society. The new “culture of blame” goalkeepers – from Peter Shilton through Peter Schmeichel to just about everybody nowadays – greet every goal conceded with a writhing, ­painful fury directed at their entire defence. Glove-thumping, arm-­waving, stiff marching and bellowing are characteristic of this type, regardless of whether it is, in fact, any defender’s fault. This is merely a deflecting device to move attention away from where the ball is and who was actually nearest to it when it impregnated the net. Conjurors use the same basic technique while inserting a golf ball into your mouth while you’re telling them you work at a ­florist’s in Daventry.

French Lieutenant’s Keeper
An outcast, a pariah, the French Lieutenant’s Goalkeeper walks sightlessly to the edge of his area, a sea of noise all around him, and waits for deliverance from his private hell. He shows no anger, no remorse – but deeply ingrained on his face it is possible to remark the slow passage of pain through his body. Outwardly, he is calm. Inside, a torrent of self-loathing swells, which will culminate in his purchase of a Katie Melua album and a chocolate leather sofa on Tuesday afternoon. A classic example of this type can be seen in Peter Enckelman’s dead-eyed ramble upon allowing a defensive throw-in from his Villa team-mate Olof Mellberg under his foot and in. To many, the goalkeeper cuts a romantic, unknowable figure in this mood. To others, he is just wandering towards his 18-yard line to put as much distance as possible between himself and the seething hordes.

The Park Bench
“I sit and watch as tears go by…” sang Mick Jagger, as he sat and watched the children play, which you could do in the old days. Viewed at its best on a muddy pitch in an FA Cup third-round game, the Park Bench is the favoured position of the contemplative outsider. Here the individual seats himself in the goalmouth, knees up, hands clasped at the ankles, with a philosophical expression denoting an awareness of the cycle of life. Some even introduce an element of irony and self-deprecation into the look – best achieved on the more rough-hewn faces of a Steve Ogrizovic or Paddy Kenny – but this is not advisable unless you are quite confident of your place in the team, as many managers see a sense of humour in a goalkeeper in terms of an extra ten goals‑against per season.

Freudian Displacer
Angry at himself, his defence, or possibly his manager for putting him in this situation in the first place, the Freudian Displacer lashes out. Sigmund Freud states that when a man is told by his employer to dress as a milkmaid for Red Nose Day, instead of harming his career by ­confronting his tormentor, the victim swallows the bile and releases the tension much later by strangling the office hamster. Similarly, the boiling goalkeeper finds consolation in four main ways: kicking the post very hard (using the instep, not the toe), hacking a clump of mud into the ether, savagely hoofing the ball back whence it came, or, if in the prone position, beating at the earth that is our mother. It is terrible to witness a gloved adult beating at the earth in anguish, but we must remember that he is at least financially secure at the end of the day.

The Sweary Mary
The Sweary Mary may be used as a supplementary to another reaction or on its own. Having returned the ball upfield, the keeper confines himself to glowering and pacing until, succumbing to the unmasterable emotions within, he clearly mouths “fuck it” at the indifferent turf. Invariably this outburst is accompanied by a rather savage pecking movement of the head, suggesting a genuine distress that, in another situation, would be exhibited by soft weeping in a chair. It is much better to be seen swearing than softly weeping by your fans, because crying is viewed by the majority as an inappropriate response to conceding a goal. However, many of us who pay more than £40 for a ticket might like to see some real remorse now and then.

First published in When Saturday Comes (241) March 07

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Liverpool All-Stars

Another in the Galácticos series as five times European Cup winners and 18 times English League Champions, Liverpool, take to the field against the backdrop of the club's crucial first leg tie against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu with Steven Gerrard captaining his heroes. He is the only member of the current crop of players worthy of a place in the all-time XI according to the good people of the Independent, although his team-mates can console themselves that far greater players than them, including Roger Hunt, Emlyn Hughes, John Barnes, Ian Callaghan, Alan Kennedy, Phil Thompson, Terry McDermott and Tommy Smith, have failed to make the team.

Ray Clemence
Goalkeeper
Liverpool 1968-81, 666 games
In 1984 the great British abstract painter Howard Hodgkin painted a canvas he titled Clean Sheets. It is a rectangular mass of green that steals the watcher's gaze, the only distraction being a fleck of vivid red. While Hodgkin was born in London (which rarely precludes one from being a Liverpool fan) and has demonstrated little interest in the beautiful game, there is a convincing case to be made that his painting must have been inspired by the great Ray Clemence (pictured here in 1972) and the picture of hulking impermeable green he created in the minds of opposing strikers throughout the 1970s. The title alone gives the game away, in the course of winning 12 major trophies and playing 665 times for the Reds, the former deck-chair attendant from Skegness kept a bleach-inspiring 335 clean sheets.

Phil Neal
Right-back
Liverpool 1974-85, 648 games, 60 goals
For football fans that reset the Julian calendar to year zero when Sky invented the Premier League, Ryan Giggs appears to have defined the word longevity. Not so, he is merely adding his ball-and-socket-popping hips to a list of greats which includes the Liverpool right-back and serial European Cup winner, Phil Neal. By the time Bob Paisley shoplifted him from fourth division Northampton Town as a 23 year-old, he already had 187 league games under his belt. He went on to make 648 appearances for the Reds, including appearing in a club-record 417 consecutive games between 23 October 1976 and 24 September 1983. His 60 goal tally for the club was boosted by an unerring accuracy from the penalty spot that made Shearer's efforts look more like a Southgate.

Alan Hansen
Centre-half
Liverpool 1977-91, 623 games, 13 goals
Hansen cares about the art of defending with the zealousness of a craftsman who has attained perfection in his chosen arena. Captaining the club to the "Double" in 1986 was the pinnacle of an Anfield career that also saw Hansen pocket three European Cup winners' medals; eight league titles, two FA Cups and four League Cups. Like so many of his 'dream-team-mates', his Liverpool career began after being plucked for a pittance from football's nether regions, in Hansen's case, Scottish side Partick Thistle. His meticulous analysis of defending is a freeze-framing of processes that, in his own mind as a player, were calculated and solved in an instant. As with all elite athletes he played a different game: slower, with more choices, more options but, most importantly, more solutions. Spending money to preserve that art is a demonstration of all that is good about public service broadcasting.

Mark Lawrenson
Centre-half
Liverpool 1981-88, 332 games, 17 goals
If Hansen's game was based on an economy of movement, Lawrenson's game was based on dragging out every last ounce of energy from his rechargeable legs. Lawrenson had a reputation for versatility but he had one natural home and that was beside Hansen at the heart of a defence that made Midas look like Elton John. His big money move from Brighton to Liverpool in August 1981 cost Bob Paisley £900,000, nine times more than he almost paid for the pacy defender three years earlier. He made up for any lost time by picking up 10 major trophies, including the 1984 European Cup and five league titles. Strikers feared the adopted Irishman's persistence almost as much as his love of man-and-ball sliding tackles and, all these decades later, his natural home remains right beside Alan Hansen.

Alec Lindsay
Left-back
Liverpool 1969-77, 248 games, 18 goals
Bill Shankly said Alec Lindsay "could peel an orange with that left foot of his" and it is on the strength of this appendage that Bury-born Lindsay takes his place at left-back. Shankly signed him as a midfielder, played him in the reserves as a striker and the club had already accepted Alec's transfer request when he was given a last shot at the first team by playing at full-back. What he lacked in pace he compensated for with a prophetic reading of the game and he played a large part in dragging the club out of the shadows of St. John, Yeats, Hunt and Callaghan and to the league title and Uefa Cup in 1973 and the FA Cup a year later.

Billy Liddell
Left-wing
Liverpool 1938-60, 537 games, 229 goals
Billy Liddell spent his entire career at Anfield and made a then-record 534 appearances for the club. He had all the silken attributes associated with speedy wingers but he also possessed the one attribute the breed normally so painfully lacks - Billy had brute force. That force synchronised with his technique and powered his left pendulum in the act of scoring 228 goals, to add to the countless he made over his 23-year Liverpool career. He was first spotted as a teenager by Matt Busby and after joining Liverpool as a youngster went on to win the admiration of another legendary manager, Sir Alf Ramsey, then plain Alf and a Tottenham right-back: "I always knew I was in for a hectic afternoon when I was marking Billy. The only way to try to hold him was to beat him to possession of the ball. Once he had it, he was difficult to stop."

Graeme Souness
Centre-midfield
Liverpool 1978-84, 358 games, 56 goals
Once described as "a bear of a player with the delicacy of a violinist", in management Souness' attitude could be summed up as 'treating a violin with the delicacy of a bear'. But that should not obscure his immense abilities as a footballer and his woolly mammoth presence at the heart of the great Liverpool side of the late '70s and '80s. Like others in this side he captained the club to glory by moulding sides into his own character, most notably lifting the league title in three consecutive seasons between 1982 and 1984. He also won two other league titles, four European Cups and four League Cups during 358 appearances for the club.

Steven Gerrard
Centre-midfield
Liverpool 1998-present, 471 games, 111 goals
The hereditary blood line that pumps through the veins of Liverpool legends is continued today by Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard. Carragher's limitations with the ball at his feet leave him warming the bench; Gerrard has no limitations. He replaced Veggard Heggem when making his debut, an illustration of the side's very significant late nineties limitations. It was no coincidence that the first time his injury problems allowed him to play a full season, in 2000-01, Liverpool lifted three major trophies: the FA Cup, the League Cup and most memorably beat Alaves 5-4 in the Uefa Cup final. If Gerrard never again rescues Liverpool from 35-yards in the last minute of a must-win game, he will forever be associated with dragging them back from 3-0 down against AC Milan in the 2005 European Cup final. A feat of mind over body as he willed his legs to stride further; his feet to make passes with greater accuracy; and his head to make crucial contact with John Arne Riise's 54th minute cross (pictured), all in his 49th game of the season.

Kevin Keegan
Right midfield
Liverpool 1971-77, 323 games, 100 goals
He played with the heart and honesty of a journeyman pro but the skill and impudence of a footballer who had it all. For the sake of balance, Keegan takes up a role on the right-side of midfield, the position he was playing for Scunthorpe United when Bill Shankly signed him for £35,000 in 1971. As Shankly soon realised, Keegan's audacious gifts were better suited to a free role behind John Toschack. The only regret for the Kop fans who reveled in his pop star status was that his stay was cut short when he moved on to Hamburg at the end of the 1976-77 season. In 323 games he scored 100 goals and his parting gift to Liverpool was winning the penalty that sealed the club's first European Cup.

Kenny Dalglish
Forward
Liverpool 1977-90, 515 games, 172 goals
Liverpool had just won the league and the European Cup when a 26 year-old Scottish striker was brought in to wear Keegan's No.7 shirt. 515 games and 172 goals later the No.7 shirt was worshipped as Dalglish's alone, first by David Johnson and then Ian Rush and always by the fans. His boots dripped with goals, from scoring the only goal of the European Cup final in his first season to munificently providing Ian Rush with most of Liverpool's goals. The Crown Prince of the Kop was always likely to be coronated but managing the team to the "Double" in 1986 while still a player, bestowed on him the divine link to God yearned for, but not achieved, by characters including King James I and King Louis XIV. Such high esteem is never likely to diminish in the eyes of fans who celebrated eight league titles, two FA Cups, four League Cups and three European Cups during the King's time at Anfield.
And here is the rest of it.

Ian Rush
Forward
Liverpool 1980-87 and 1988-95, 660 games, 346 goals
They don't make them like Ian James Rush anymore. There was no striker in the English game better with his back to goal in the opposition penalty area and none more deadly at deflecting daisy-cutter crosses past bewildered 'keepers. Signed by Bob Paisley from Chester City as an 18-year-old with an eye for angles, a stuttering start to his Anfield career was made fluent through his partnership with Kenny Dalglish. Most opposition clubs were happy to see Rush finally leave Liverpool for the last time in 1995 but none quite so much as Merseyside rivals and Rush's boyhood club, Everton. In 36 games against them he netted 25 goals, including strikes in two FA Cup final victories in 1986 and 1989 and, on 6 November 1982, he fired four past the great Neville Southall at Goodison Park as Liverpool ran out 5-0 winners. In his first ten seasons with the club they never finished outside the top two and when he did move on to Leeds his final tally was 346 goals in 660 games.
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