Where is Franz?

Today’s post is a bit of an irregularity for this blog, and I’ve thought not a little about whether or not I should even post it (I'm insufferable. I’ve read a total of two pages today that were not about football and already I have been swayed by language like ‘not a little’). But I have decided to go through with it.

This post is unlike my previous and future posts because it actually acknowledges you, the reader. I can now no longer pretend that my blog does not prove, to some extent, that I take myself entirely more serious than I should. By asking you this question I can now no longer pretend I think this blog is for anyone other than those directly around me, because I could have asked them the question personally. But if only one of you tries to answer my question, exposing to you the true extent of my megalomania will have been worth it.

What happened to Franz?

Some of you may know Franz better as Franz Beckenbauer (I can call him Franz because today I met someone who had met Franz earlier that day. Which means I know someone who knows, or has at the very least talked to der Kaiser. Der. Kaiser. People.). Informing about his whereabouts may at first seem somewhat peculiar, because Franz is all over the news. Franz is no longer just Franz, which was quite the feat in and of itself. Franz is football. Franz is politics. People like to be seen with Franz. Franz can call the German prime minister and ask her out for a cup of coffee and she’ll immediately leave nine out of ten official meetings with heads of state to oblige. So the question where Franz is right now, is not a difficult one to answer. Franz is everywhere.

Problem solved, one could say. But I’m afraid the question I ask you is not about that Franz. The question is about the elegant defender of the seventies, although calling him defender would be not nearly enough credit to him when it is certainly due. About the sweeper, who could sweep up anything that went past the defence in front of him and neatly convert it to the start of an attack in one smooth move. That kind of defender.

What happened to him? Why do we only seem him so very rarely anymore these days? The role has been played by people who’s capability to do so has been, and should have been, seriously contested by some. So the reason we don’t see many players striding gracefully to the front cannot be simply explained by a supposed quality detriment.

My answer to it is that those who have the qualities to play this role at one point collectively decided that it was even easier to just loiter up front and direct the play only in the most glamorous part of the field. From behind the striker, so they can both score goals themselves and take credit for setting up the poor bastard in front of him from time to time.

So coaches of this world, hear (or, read) this plea: next time you have yet another meaningless preseason friendly game, be it against a local amateur team or against a collection of stars from around the world, consider this. You have someone in your team who has that magnificent view down the field, yet all he sees is the last thirty meters of the field and the first fifteen rows of the stands behind the goal. Why does he need to see those stands? Wouldn’t you much rather have him play from somewhere where all that vision is put to much better use? This man is your best attacker, yet he only participates in the attack for the final twenty-five percent of the field. Read that line again. It’s madness. He has to be there from the very start!

And to all of you glamorous shadow strikers out there (I mean, even your position sounds by far the coolest out of all positions. Shadow Striker? That could very well be the title of some Japanese ninja film): Remember Franz escorted Heidi Klum onto the stage of the World Cup 2006 Draw. Which he managed to lure to Germany himself. The World Cup of course, not Heidi Klum. She is German. Franz won that same World Cup both as a player and as a coach, by the way. It would appear scoring a couple of less goals wouldn’t mean the end of the world, would it? After all, most highlight reels only end up on Youtube. Franz ends up everywhere.

So if any of you who read this feel you’re someone who might actually have an answer to this question, please feel free - by which I mean I will be forever disappointed with you if you don’t. Hey, if all else fails, guilt is always the way to go – to share them.

Post Art Deco

It might just take a second. But it will happen. Amongst the organized chaos that is a training session of F.C. Barcelona, it will probably happen. Most will not even notice it. There are groups of players standing around everywhere, most of which garner more interesting stories than this one. Some of you will think of it as nothing more than two team mates greeting each other. But there is so much more to it than that. Deco will nod, and Giovanni van Bronckhorst will understand.

Deco will nod, because he is the arrived artist. The Portuguese Master. Some, myself included, believe there is only a very fine line between football and art, if any line at all. We believe there is more to football than just coincidence or luck. We believe that when Deco takes aim, he knows full well what will happen next. He is in complete control. He knows what work of art will follow. And like all art, it will mean great joy to many and deep horror to some.

On Wednesday the 28^th of April, it was not Deco, but Giovanni van Bronckhorst who took aim. Against Slovenia, wearing an orange jersey. He could not have seen his target; a wall of Slovenian defenders racing out towards him blocked his view. It didn’t matter. He knew it didn’t matter because an artist had once told him it didn’t. “Just shoot”, the artist had told Giovanni in Brazilian-Portuguese mangled Spanish. Last night, Giovanni did.

Every artist has his own speciality. Kandinsky had his diagonals and Picasso had his cubes. Deco’s art is the art of trajectory. Last night, Giovanni just shot, and trajectory took care of the rest. As to emphasize a point, Gio’s shot took not just one, but two deflections, the second even more significant than the first. This was no ordinary shot, this was a manifesto.

And it didn’t come a minute too soon.

- Art Deco
- Post Art Deco (Art Gio)

Collection on loan from the magnificent Footytube

On the Second Day of Disappointment, Our National Press Gave To Me...

The three or four barren days between two international matches are slowly killing me. A constant stream of news that is not quite exciting enough to actually be news seeps into my mind. These days have an order of things, as rigid as concrete. A template set in stone.

The First Day After the Game is relatively silent. It is a Sunday. Most Dutch newspapers don’t publish a Sunday edition, so their writers have to wait a day to spew their gall. Public discontent, at this point, expresses itself largely through a state of numbness. We are surprised. We had hoped against hope that this game would be different, and sat through it waiting for a moment where everything comes together perfectly. We know it would never come, so we decided to settle for a goal. Any goal. Only a win would justify our willingness to subject ourselves to ninety minutes of this. The rest of the First Day After the Game is carefully spent choosing to who you will and to who you will not admit you actually watched it.

The Second Day After the Game is one of severe public turmoil. Having been held on a tight leash for the entire Sunday, our nation’s rabid sportswriters are set loose, and the result isn’t pretty. We read reports of players who have been sent home, and others who are time-bombs waiting to go off. I scour a hospital newspaper stand for anything that will satisfy my need for blood. AD Sportwereld, the one Dutch attempt at a daily sports newspaper, will do. At night, a man on the television screams about the coach, the tactics and the team. Then he nuances his words a little. Then some more. Then some more until he’s apologizing.

The Last Day Before the Next Game will be one filled with caution. The insurgent voices within the Dutch media will have run out of steam. They’ll sound hoarse, careful and hesitant. On this day, those who have been especially vocal realize what they have done. An opportunity at which they can be proven wrong approaches rapidly. How could they not have seen this coming? They are nervous. What if they were wrong? What if the team will put on a show to end, once and for all, every doubt about their coach?

On the Day Of the Next Game, we wait again. As reports about the line-up slowly make it to the public, we take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves: “Is this going to be any better than the last time? Is this really worth all of our time and frustration? Am I really going to watch this again?”

The answers? Let us hope so, probably not and yes I will.

Today is about Nothing but Tonight

Today is not a regular day. Today does not happen very often. Today I slept in. That does happen very often. But the rest of today does not. The rest of today I spent waiting. Today has ruined my schedule beyond belief. My schedule of consciously ignoring the fourth-annual academic moment of truth, which approaches rapidly. My schedule of worrying about that job I really want that I may or may not get. My schedule of worrying about that man who will be physically opening my knee in two days to see what is wrong. Today I ignore all the panic that comes with realizing I am considerably behind on all of these schedules.

Today I will walk to the store down the road, like on most other days. I don’t stock up. I never do. So I have to make the trip, because even though today is special, it is not an exception in my daily needs – food, water, chocolate. So the trip has to be made. But it will seem inconsequential. More so than usual. I will make the trip and realize I care less about actually making it than on any other day. This trip is not what I will remember of today. It will pale in comparison.

Today I wait. I wait for friends to trickle into my house. For roommates to return. Just in time. I wait for those close calls. Will they make it? Will they be here in time? They probably will. They will not miss a second. Their trips here will be as necessary as my trip to the store. They have to be here. They refuse to miss a second

Today I received a call. Just now, but I cannot remember about what exactly it was. If anything today is about anything other than today, I will not care. It will not be as important. Like my trip, the call, too, just paled in comparison.

Today is so much more than just another day on the Gregorian calendar. Today is a day on the FIFA calendar. Today my country plays and I will watch, scream and sigh, but maybe not in that order. Today I have to stop writing, because today is not about writing. Today is about nothing but tonight.

Smite The Romanian Heathens

To modern man, our ancestors’ behaviour can be quite puzzling at times. Sure, we understand why one would have a sea whipped if it would be disobedient. We can even imagine the need for crossing a mountain on the back of an elephant. But armed with 20/20 hindsight and a set of archaeological tweezers, nothing confuses us more than our predecessor’s relationship with their respective deities.

From being struck with lightning for doing a stand-up impression of a certain Greek King of Gods, to being nibbled on by an Egyptian underworld god for not having the correct weight of heart, much like the virgin Mary, pre-modern man took it all lying down. Exactly why some gods felt it was necessary to change people into forests at random, nobody knew. Because nobody asked, as odds were pretty good you’d be turned into shrubbery yourself.

Marco van Basten, for all intents and purposes a bit of a deity to a lot of neurotic oranges, fortunately cannot turn people into foliage. He would have quite the time on his hands if he could. Because unlike a few thousand years ago, when people knew better than to question their lord after a load of frogs came raining down, the otherwise extremely disloyal Dutch subjects are now carefully raising their hands and apologetically want to know the answer to one of the major religious questions of our time:

Why field Denny Landzaat?

As I prepare myself for another 90 minutes of resignation to our saviour’s unwillingness to play anybody else than the Wigan midfielder (known for his occasional powerful shots from distance and bland sideways passing), my mood dampens at the prospect of yet another game hopefully won by two, maybe three moments of brilliance somewhere in the 63^rd, 71^st and 79^th minute. Three moments that generally come completely out of nowhere and are in no way or form the result of the run of play. Those moments are all we've got, and their sporadic nature is enough to bring any person to the brink of disinterest.

Sure, it’s three points. It’s a win. Over a rival, even. I’m spoiled. I should be glad the team even wins. Do I know how many countries there are who don’t win as often? The team is young. We’re top of the group. Our God is a just God. Do we understand?

We don’t. Excellent. We’re not supposed to, now are we?

The Cat’s Meow: Once In A Lifetime, the Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos. (Crowder, Dower, 2006)

Right. I hope this will eventually turn into a running feature. In The Cat’s Meow, I hope to discuss whatever football related films I have seen or books I have read, with you, my readers. These particular books or films do not have to be very recent. If you have seen or read the film or book on hand, please tell me what you thought of it in the comments. Tips are also very welcome.

Once in a Lifetime details the story of the Cosmos from its humble beginnings in the late sixties towards its eventual glitter and glamour induced demise in the mid-eighties. This in itself makes the film an interesting document for those of you to whom this period in North American Soccer (uhm…sic.), remains a bit of a mystery.

The film focuses largely on the efforts of media tycoon Steve Ross and his efforts to establish football as a legitimate sport in the United States. Realizing this would take quite the spectacle to do so, Ross embarked on a mission to bring in one of the most spectacular player of all time; the recently retired Pelé.

From there on out, Once in a Lifetime is, above anything else, a detailed account of a power struggle within the New York Cosmos. All the main players, except for Pelé, have their say over who or what eventually killed of the Cosmos. Some say it was de facto president/forward Giorgio Chinaglia, others say it was the weight of the NASL collapsing on itself. The emphasis on this particular part of the organisation of the Cosmos draws attention away from the broader rise to popularity of football in the United States during this period.

One particularly interesting story is about the arrival of Brazilian legend Carlos Alberto, which coincided with the New York Blackout. “As light came back over New York City, the Cosmos where everywhere”, Matt Dillon narrates. There are obvious reasons for this explosion of interest – Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto to name two – but the exact cause of this apparent overnight boom of infatuation with football is never truly explained.

However, even while sporting an at times annoying Seventies aesthetic – yes, we get it: seventies music and those cheesy colourful titles - this documentary does successfully convey what the Cosmos have actually meant for football in the United States. Not only at the time they dominated both the league and fan attention, but also in the long run. So while it misses out on giving a more complete impression of the state of U.S. football at the time, it does shows the roots of modern United States football. It may provide more questions than it answers, but at the very least it’s one of the more interesting and crucial pieces of the puzzle.

It's Even Worse When the Commentator Starts Snickering In Pity

There is a feeling of discomfort that comes over me from time to time. It’s a cruel mixture of unjustified pride or justified shame and powerless acceptance. It’s what I imagine a mother bird feels when one of her young strides towards the edge of the nest and makes the leap.

I don’t consider myself for one second to be an authority on football. Others occasionally do, which scares me enormously. At times like that I am forced to acknowledge that my the insight others think I might have is not caused by a record of dead-on predictions, but rather by an apparently public knowledge of just how dominant a part of my life football is. I say apparently public, because I try feverishly to hide this. Then my friends started quizzing me in the presence of their friends to convince them that they know this circus freak, this oracle of football. And while it turned out I did not know where Stormvogels Telstar, a modest Dutch second division team, hails from, it became apparent to me that:

A) Nobody knows exactly where Stormvogels Telstar hails from
and
B) I fail miserably when trying to play off how important football is to me.

A (great) Dutch comedian once said Jesus could have been off much, much worse. His crucifix could have been erected next to someone’s who can only talk about football at parties, or next to a Limburger. I am the latter. There is very little I can do about that. But I have made such an effort to avoid being the former. I try to bring up politics, arts, study, travel, anything. It’s exhausting.

But even when people wrongfully assume my views on anything hold more weight than theirs do, I try biblically to make as few predictions as possible. Predicting scores is right out, as is predicting league positions. There are, however, some unfortunate moments. I let my guard down for just a second, and an entire room of friends has clearly heard me proclaim that this or that player will be very good at some point in time.

However, like the baby bird, who, still half blind, has made it’s way towards the outermost point of it’s shelter, a prediction like this can go two ways.

At the very best, I feel moderately proud, which is far too small an upside. It’s difficult pretending you ‘called’ a player when in fact he’s already made it to at least the higher youth ranks of a professional club. In fact, there is little sense in thinking you’re alone (and – even more preposterous – first) in your hopes for a player. If you were, that player would obviously not be where he is when you first see him dart up and down a wing. But it is still nice to see a player you had high hopes for makes it into the public football conscience as a good player.

However, it can also backfire tremendously. Like the little bird’s hope for flight, which vanishes as rapidly as he plunges to the ground and his untimely demise, any credibility my friends may have attributed to me, in what can now only be regarded as a serious lapse in judgement, will disappear. It will bring about games of silent embarrassment. I will spent entire games hoping some fuck up won’t fuck up, but of course they always do. Gleeful looks will be gleefully cast over shoulders in my general direction, whenever yet another woeful pass is given. I was wrong.

Splat...

Everytime I Think I'm Out, They Pull Me Back In

Kaalheide is just one of the many names on the list of football stadiums that have been deemed obsolete in recent years. Considering the fact that over the past decade many stadiums in the Netherlands have been rebuilt in such a fashion, they now warrant millennium proof names such as Gelredome and ArenA (note the second capital, as Arena itself is obviously not a particularly new name), it seemed the only logical decision Roda JC could make. Downsides? None, whatsoever. A bigger budget to structurally compete with the top clubs. A proper stadium would be needed if the club was to play on a European level every year, as it had done in the past few.

Kaalheide was many things, but a proper stadium, in the eyes of the men in charge at the time, it was not. And indeed it does not say much for a stadium when someone who has been there as often as I, cannot immediately identify on the television whether his club is playing the first leg against a Ukranian opponent at home or away. The similarities between the stadiums in Donetsk and Kerkrade were enough for even me to realize that perhaps, indeed the time had come to make the move.

Others may have followed the placement of any brink on another with their complete and undivided attention, but I hadn’t. Football was, at the age of fifteen, not what was dominantly on my mind. Subscription to the football magazines had long been cancelled. Visits to my grandparents, which I had always loved as they had meant a visit to Roda, were to be avoided at all costs. My developing need for independence meant having to prove I could handle my money myself, which of course I could not. Going to the games by myself was therefore not an option. The ticket I could have managed, but the train would have been a different story. And even if I could have paid for the two hour train trip (one way), I very much doubt my parents would have even let me go on my own. But all the financial problems in the world didn’t matter, because I simply didn’t want to go anymore. And then, in the midst of this growing disinterest, I made up my mind and quit playing myself.

My father looked at me incredulously. He had heard me mention it before, but had always managed to, for whatever reason, make me reconsider. But he must have seen it coming. There were numerous reasons, and I knew he couldn’t shoot down all of them.

- “No time to work on Saturdays”.
More allowance.

- “More time for school.”
“Since when do you care about school?”

Touché.

- “Bad knee.”
Silence.

And that was it. As much as he would have liked me to keep on playing, he was not about to try to convince me my knee was fine.

- “Are you sure?”

I was. Neither of us harbored dreams for any sort of a football career, so that could not have been the cause of his disappointment. I think he genuinely felt bad for me. He had seen how much I enjoyed it. But there were so many good reasons to quit playing, only one of which is given above. The other reasons, both to my father then and to you right now, are not entirely relevant. So I quit, slept in on the first Saturday morning I was off and desperately tried to be done with football altogether.

All of this, though, would most likely not have mattered had I lived in the actual vicinity of the construction site. It would have awed me, much like it swept away the management in a binge of unbridled optimism. But I did not live near the new stadium. In fact, I have never lived anywhere closer than 130 kilometers away from the club. In a densely populated country as the Netherlands, that means I lived closer to virtually every other club in the Dutch league, with the exception of the northern teams but including all of the traditional Dutch top clubs. Those 130 kilometers also meant I thought I could ignore the club and everything around it if I wanted to. And I really, really wanted to.

Later I found out that the physical distance I was removed from where my club played did not matter at all, as both the distance between us and my emotional attachment to and involvement with Roda increased sharply. But I did not see that coming when I was fifteen. I honestly hoped I did not care anymore, and that I would not care again. So Roda JC advanced to the final of the Dutch Cup. And I, once again, stood in the stands with my eyes closed for the full 90 minutes.

Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your Hands upon the Wheel

I don’t remember exactly what year it happened. But there was a time when the Fruitella-filled trip in the backseat of my parents’ car to where I was actually going was one of the highlights of the entire vacation. Fights with my sister over pillows, nagging my parents over what music should be played, running around the sunny French or German stops along the route. All of it seemed even better than the two-week stay at some Austrian or French campsite itself. And all of it was always accompanied by the same old tune.

’We zijn er bijna, we zijn er bijna, maar nog niet helemaal’

Which translates to

’We’re almost there, almost there, but not quite yet’

But when I grew up, I didn’t feel like singing it anymore. I wanted to get out of the car as fast as possible. I wanted to be there already and swim. The fact that I was almost there but not quite yet didn’t seem like cause for celebration and singing anymore.

Two years ago, both PSV and AZ crashed out of their respective European competitions in the most dramatic fashion possible. They had been almost there, but not quite yet.

Everyone grows up eventually. PSV and AZ have stopped singing.

Magpies Crash Out in Holland [Skysports]
Gunners Bow Out in Alex Show [Skysports]

Christiane Amanpour Has Got Nothing On Me

If I saw Christiane Amanpour turn around a corner somewhere, I’d dive head-first into the nearest Kebab Shop in search of refuge of whatever doom it is that would follow shortly. But tonight, even though Christiane is probably out there dodging killer African turtles somewhere, she has got slightly less on me than she would have on any other night.

As I type this, walls are crumbling everywhere around me. Flocks of young men are roaming the streets in search of their next victim. Hide your mailboxes, garden gnomes and, if you have any, your children. None of them are save for the ferocious onslaught that follows a night of riots with a massive arrest count of two.

I might have been overreacting a bit when I said the walls were crumbling around me. To my knowledge, nothing has actually crumbled as of yet. At least not at the site the actual riots took place yesterday, which is half a kilometre away from me. It is now ‘hermetically sealed off’ from the outside world. The fences seem to have a Siren-like effect on large groups of youthful riot tourists, who come swarming towards them practically begging for an arrest. I am not one of them. In spite of their ridiculous proximity (calls from concerned relatives are coming in) and my growing curiosity, I have managed to miss every single sight of anarchist behaviour.

What always puzzled me about civilian unrest, and what I now get to experience semi-first hand is its ability to be unavoidably present (unless, apparently, you just don’t leave your house for an entire day) at one moment, completely vanish over night, only to resurge the following evening. Where are these people during the day? Do they work? Do they prepare ritually for battle during their paper rounds? Who are these rebels of the night? But most importantly: why do they insist on throwing rocks when they know they are just going to get a canister of teargas in reply. It seems pretty obvious who’s getting the short end of that deal.

When Feyenoord last won a championship in 1999, riots erupted that made the centre of Rotterdam look somewhat like a Balkan war zone. While this would (should?) not make immediate sense to most of us, a Feyenoord fan later explained to me that this had been because of the fans’ inability to fully grasp what was going on; success. Out of sheer confusion, they started tearing down their own city. After so many years of supporting their hilariously unsuccessful team, violently expressing their frustration, even in victory, had become their only way to respond.

I wish you all good night, as I prepare to sleep right on through another night of civil disobedience.

Sleep well, Christiane Amanpour. We are the same, you and I.

Cruel Irony, Orange is thy name. And, incidentally, thy Citrus Fruit of Choice. Fancy that.

It is one thing being Dutch. It is quite another being Dutch and having an attention span of less than five seconds when it comes to anything but football. And some other sports. Maybe... This would be a far less agonizing state of affairs in, say, Finland. The Finnish, I imagine, have by this point not given up every hope of a better future in football. Why would they? They have hardly achieved anything when not hurling themselves down a slope on skis, so the best, for them, could very well be still to come.

This does not, however, hold entirely true for the Dutch. At this point, I’m trying frantically to think of anyone/thing who/which experienced such an amazing tumble from grace and – and this is the important part - eventually got back up again. Icarus certainly didn’t, nor did the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Eighties or Nottingham Forrest. They are currently a dead Greek, either Austria or Hungary, the decade style forgot and a third or forth league (and rate) English side, respectively.

The irony, then, is that nobody seems really willing to give up on the Dutch like they have given up on glitter hair and dual monarchies just yet. And they claim not to for good reason. Because of the Dutch insistence on showing promise and failing to deliver upon that very same promise, our current irrelevancy is seen by some as, if anything, nothing more than a temporary lapse in greatness. It is seen not so much as a fall from a pedestal as it is seen as a slight wobble of that pedestal. Dutch football, some may think, has experienced one of those moments where you sleep but dream you fall. It’s a polite step down from grace, if anything.

But what if it isn’t? Everybody from Kiki Musampa to Rafael van der Vaart has been dubbed the new saviour of the national team, and none of them have up to this point. I wonder what it takes for an analyst to get up in the morning, shower, go to work and proclaim on television that whatever Dutch talent of the year is ‘the New Cruijff’. Aside from Brazil and Argentina, is there any other country in which one particular player is continually used as a measuring stick for any eighteen year old talent who cannot possibly live up to these expectations? France will suffer the same fate in the near future, when every young player will face the harsh and unfair comparison to Zidane. But Italy? Germany? England? Spain? All of them had greats in the past, but I’ve never heard anyone proclaiming Aaron Lennon to be the next George Best (Northern Irish, I know). Now some of you who may be better acquainted with the English game than I am will tell me that that is the case because in no way, Aaron Lennon is actually going to be the next George Best. I know this. But there’s no way either in which Hedwiges Maduro of Ajax is going to be the next Beckenbauer (we Dutch don’t feel the next Beckenbauer necessarily needs to be German), and yet that is a comparison often heard during the summer of 2005.

Fact is, there will, most likely, never be a new Cruijff. Lightning tends not to strike twice. So let’s keep our expectations low, be realistic and let us all hail the new Bergkamp. Because if it weren’t for Robin van Persie, I could very well see the Dutch National team go the way of Sissi, Pacman and that rather high-and-mighty looking Greek fellow.

Et Tu, Diminutive Four-Eyed Brunette Whose Name After All These Years Still Escapes Me? Et Tu?

During this period of the year, in which my team (which I shall introduce to you in a post in the near future, I hope) usually lays the foundation for another unsuccessful season-finale, I find myself on the wrong side of a Psychology 101 book. In front of it, pretending to study, whilst actually checking the scores of whatever obscure football league I haven’t checked the scores of yet. All this in an attempt to do anything else but read how the author of the book barges through open doors – and subsequently deny he did - as if his life depended on it. So I made the mistake everyone makes when they just can’t plow through their mandatory material; I started attending the actual lectures.

This particular psychology crash course for people who care as much about psychology as psychology students would care about a class on Weimar film (little, if any whatsoever) was an in-depth explanation of the psyche’s inner workings when stereotyping. I’m surprised I even went, but I had a car, and there’s nothing like driving to campus passing busses full of oxygen deprived students and cyclists that are beginning to show the first symptoms of hypothermia. Even if it does mean you get in fifteen minutes late.

- “Lazy students”, I heard someone yell out as I entered.

- “Speak of the devil”.

Laughter.

As I settled down and took out the note book, which would be exclusively used for battling my neighbor in a thrilling series of tic-tac-toe (start in the bottom left, hope he is too confused to put one in the center, and finish him off. Look smug and victorious), I realized that the example of the lazy student had been an addition to a list that continued to grow as suggestions arose from the crowd. I knew it was going to come. It always does.

- “Moroccans!”

Wait for it.

- “Ex-convicts!”

Wait for it.

It took longer than it usually does. But when it came, which of course it did, it was met by a noise of almost universal agreement. The diminutive four-eyed brunette who had suggested it had even managed enough courage, probably for the first time in her life, to stand up and distinguish herself from those around her. This Spartacus-like gesture, intended to drive her point even further home, hadn’t been necessary. The buzz created by this sense of patting one another on the back in an understanding of common superiority was accompanied by the smuggest of smiles on the face of the forty year old lecturer. I knew it. It only made an appearance when he was utterly delighted with either himself or one of his students. Although most of the time he only humored himself enough to justify this specific smile, this was a case of the latter. On the blackboard behind him, “Football fans” was about to join “Moroccans” and “Students” as groups against which considerable stereotyping took place. However, unlike in the case of both “Moroccans” and “Students”, it was not deemed necessary to mention the fact that stereotypes are not an inherently negative phenomenon. Sure, there are also plenty of well behaving Moroccans and industrious students. But football fans? Violent dim-wits, the bunch of them. No further explanation necessary.

As might not be completely evident by the fact that I came in rather late, and also by the fact that I did not bother to stay during or after the interval, I did not particularly care for this course. But as I left the room only twenty minutes after I had entered, I was drawn towards the blackboard. “People with accents”. Well, yes, that would be me (I recently discovered it was far more noticeable than I had previously thought). Probably suggested by that redhead girl in the back with the retarded-sounding Twents accent. “Foreigners”. No. “Students”, “Youths”, “Drug-users” (user sounds so much graver than it should, don’t you think?). All groups I either am or could consider myself to be a part off. I have never been to prison, nor am I Moroccan, so those two were out. But all of the others were comfortable fits, too, and they didn’t offend me at all.

So why the sudden queasy feeling? After a few years of university, I know exactly two people by name. That means if there had been a hundred people in the room, I would not have cared for 97 of those. And while this may also prove that I have, quite possibly, the poorest social skills of anyone in that room, it also proves it does not generally matter to me what people think. So why, if one of these people felt the need to look down on football fans, even though she will be dressed up completely in orange when the next European Cup comes around, would I possibly feel offended? It had never mattered what anyone I did not care about had thought of me. But I did not even know, let alone cared about, the girl who had reaped such general approval while twisting the social dagger that is stuck in my side. But it had hurt like hell. Again.

Later that night I forced myself not to watch German Cup Football. In order to convey the exact magnitude of that sacrifice, in posts to follow, I shall provide you with an insight to whatever matters to me in the world of football (and you’ll hopefully conclude missing a German Cup game between a first division team and a third division team isn’t actually that much of a deal to me, but turning it off still felt like a great step in the direction of complete social rehabilitation – which writing this blog has already negated).

An early Demise of Aspiration

This is the first post of this blog. Announcing this to you means the premature demise of the hopes I actually cherished for it. These hopes were, in no order of importance:

Anonimity

Credibility

Objectivety

Some sort of favourable reputation

Out the window, just like that. Let's have a look at the reasons why these hopes were shattered, shall we?

Anonimity - by me taking it upon myself to announce to you that this is the very first post of this blog, I have already let you in on who I am too much to truly remain anonymous. I have, by announcing this post, already made you realize I am someone who thinks what he thinks matters to others. Seeing as how you already know I am that kind of a person, I might as well fill in the gaps and tell you some more about who I am.

I am Joep Smeets. I like many things in life, but I enjoy precious little of it as much as football. Considering my possibly unfounded belief in and high opinion of my ability to express my love of it, this means I intend to bother you about football through great lengths. This may lead you to believe I am some obnoxious git with a rather misplaced arrogance, but I hope you'll believe me when I say I am not. I have, in fact, already told you with the title of this blog that I am a very neurotic person. Example: I fear my ever-increasing use of the word 'have' without any actual knowledge of English grammar. Neurotic Orange, then, refers to a person of neurotic nature with a Dutch passport. Both apply to me. Of course, a blog by someone so deluded by his sense of self-importance could only be named after its author. So bring on the self-consciousness. This is all you need to know about me right now. I'll bother you with some other personal traits later on.

Credibility - I can be very clear on this: I have none. I have no credentials whatsoever when it comes to writing about football. No more than you, in any case, and quite possibly less. So if you read any of this and think "Who the hell does he think he is?", I can tell you right now I won't have a good answer to that question.

Objectivity - Like every opinion ever expressed by a football fan, some horribly crude and others heavenly articulated, my opinions are deeply drenched in bias. I have no problem admitting this, as you would have probably found this out yourselves rather quickly anyways.

Some sort of favourable reputation - Ok, I'll admit it: I still have a slight (again, possibly misplaced) hope for this one. Therefor(e?) I shall go on with this blog. The style isn't really yet what I hope it will be in time, but I'll get to that when I have the time. Meaning I will let somebody else handle it.

As a sign of goodwill, I'll tell you a little about what this blog is going to be like. It doesn't matter that some of you may know me personally, I'll be as honest - and personal - as I'll possibly dare. So if you don't feel like knowing me any better than you already do, I understand. Don't read this. If you do feel you want to see this side of a person like me, and hopefully of more people like me, please do read this, and do comment on it. It is going to be a place where anyone can write freely about football and their love for it. If you've got something related you feel like sharing but are too lazy to start a blog, send it in. If I think it is any good, I'll gladly post some background on you and your story.

I'll leave this here now and come back to it tomorrow. If I haven't suffered complete embarrassment because of all the above by then, I'll consider posting some more about me and this blog. So please join me, as I slowly track down and brutally kill any of my last remaining aspirations for this blog post by post.