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