Well That Was...Different

Sure, Ajax and PSV have dominated Dutch Football for as long as anyone can remember, and that’s not about to change. AZ is slowly getting to the level where they can compete, and Feyenoord is not so slowly falling behind. So on first glance, parity is not the word that would best describe the Dutch league. But we found it yesterday, parity-wise, the Dutch league comes closer than any other league in the world, and was indeed decided, very much so, up in the sky.

Olympique Lyon clinched the French title roughly halfway through the season, as did Celtic in Scotland and Internazionale in Italy. Chelsea is (only?) five points of the pace in England and Spain and Germany look like they will be close, but yesterday’s finish in the Dutch League redefined what a race to the wire really is. Check the bar to the right to try and keep up:

From the kick-offs at 2:30 PM, the ‘title’ changed hands five times. Five. Times. AZ started out as virtual champions, but quickly lost that honour when PSV scored twice in the first ten minutes of their game against Vitesse in Eindhoven. They also conceded one, meaning Ajax would be champions if they would just score once in Tilburg. And they did. AZ, meanwhile, messed things up very thoroughly and wouldn’t rear its head in the title race again until later in the afternoon. PSV needed to outscore Ajax overall, and did when they reached the 4-1 to take the virtual crown once more. Ajax, of course, would have none of that and went up 0-2, only to see PSV notch their fifth and go up again. AZ managed to equalize at 2-2, creating a situation in which, for the final twenty minutes of the game, a single goal by any of these three teams would have been enough to ensure them the championship.

It didn’t come, so PSV’s fifth and final goal of the day was enough to ensure them the championship. By one goal. Over 34 games.

Gracias to Niva for the kick ass graphic representation.

The Day of Reckoning is Here. Finally.

Here is just a quick look at a couple of scenarios for today, the final day of the regular season of the Dutch football league.

Championship, and the automatic Champions League qualification that goes with it.

1 AZ 33 21 9 3 72 81 - 28
2 Ajax 33 22 6 5 72 82 - 35
3 PSV 33 22 6 5 72 70 - 24

AZ - AZ can win their first title in twenty-five years. They play away at lowly Excelsior, who's spot in the relegation play-offs is already a sure thing, so they are likely to rest some starters. A win, barring a blowout in Tilburg, will ensure AZ the championship, the first one since their last one twenty-five years ago outside of what the Dutch call the Traditional Top 3: Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV.

What to expect - You can never be sure about these things, and I've already told you I loathe making predictions, however I will say this: If AZ win the title, expect Louis van Gaal's head to increasingly turn purple, and ultimatly explode.

Ajax - Only two people in this world remain confident Ajax will win the title this afternoon, and those are Henk ten Cate and a crazy homeless guy on a corner somewhere in Amsterdam. Ajax plays away at Willem II, whom they have never had a particular problem with beating, and who's season, for all intents and purposes, is over. However, in case of even the most minimal of AZ wins, a 0-1, Ajax needs to score nine goals. They were well on their way to doing so last week, untill Ten Cate had the genius plan to sub a defender for an extra striker after twenty minutes while already being 3-0 up, and they quickly conceded two.

What to expect - Expect Ten Cate to frantically list every time either the field or a referee decision cost them points, Danny Blind-style. And guess what? They fired Blind. Just saying.

PSV - Were up eleven points months ago. Dropped those points. Idiots. In case of an AZ win, need to score at least ten. Not going to happen. They will score three, Koeman will bring a twelve year old for Farfan and that's all she wrote. In case AZ drops points, they still have a chance to provide the worst meltdown in Dutch Football with the fairytale ending Cocu deserves.

What to expect - Expect Cocu to publically ignore any and all 'tactical' plans by Koeman. Expect whoever is in charge in Eindhoven this week - seriously, they have like a new president every week! - to fire Koeman on the spot, making him the first Koeman to be fired this year, but certainly not the last.

Fifth Place, and the automatic UEFA Cup Goodness and ticket for the CL qualifiers playoff that goes with it.

I'll admit it, hardly anybody cares about this but me. Why? I'll show you.

5 Feyenoord 33 15 8 10 53 55 - 61
6 SC Heerenveen 33 15 7 11 52 55 - 42
7 Roda JC 33 14 9 10 51 40 - 36
8 FC Groningen 33 15 6 12 51 54 - 52

Feyenoord - Koeman decided to drop as many points in one season as he could without getting fired, and I must say, a job well done. Feyenoord plays Heerenveen away and needs a win to clinch the position. But Feyenoord hasn't won in a loooong time. A draw might also suffice, but only if Roda and Groningen don't win.

What to expect - Tears, and the first time in the history of football two brothers will be fired on the very same day.

Heerenveen - Also need a win, which would take them over opponents Feyenoord and into europe. They have two advanteges over Feyenoord. 1: they play at home. 2: they aren't a complete farce of a club.

What to expect - A goal by Brazilian striker Alves, at the very least.

Roda JC - Needs a draw between Feyenoord and Heerenveen and a win a bigger win at home against Heracles than a possible Groningen win against Utrecht. Roda's goal difference is better than Feyenoord's, so it would ensure them of fifth place. Hey it can happen! Heracles is done, safe, which means it hasn't anything more to play for and that could be why Roda will mess this up.

What to expect - No draw in the north and a win down south. A frustrated blogger.

Groningen - Can also by-pass Feyenoord and Heerenveen in case of that elusive draw in Heerenveen, but in case of a Roda win also needs to work on it's goal difference against Utrecht, which still has alot to play for.

What to expect - Everything that loves Groningen to curse the decision to insist on playing the final 43 minutes of their game against Ado, which was ended prematurely because of riots. Groningen hoped to work on the aforementioned goal difference in those final 43 minutes after having gone up 0-3 in the first 47 minutes, but instead conceded one goal and scored nill.

Anyways, that's it for me for now, I'm off to Tilburg to work at Willem II - Ajax. I'll weigh in tonight on some of the consequences todays games will have, so check back later! Unless Roda does actually make fifth place, in which case I will check in whenever my hangover wears off.

The Cat's Meow: The Last Yugoslavian Team (Janic, 2000)

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.

Today’s Cat’s Meow just proves show sharp and on top of things I really am. Nothing gets by me unnoticed. I’m like a cat.

A very lethargic, sloppy cat.

Today’s subject of the Cat’s Meow is a documentary that was released in 2000, and it’s called ‘The Last Yugoslavian Team’. It’s a Dutch production, made by Vuk Janic, who himself hails from Sarajevo. It details, as one might expect, the last generation of players from Yugoslavia, the so called ‘Chileans’, after their victory in the youth world cup in 1987 in Chile. And it manages to do so in a very beautifully paced, objective manner.

That last part is especially striking. Janic hails from Sarajevo, but does never judge or somehow favourably portray the players who are as well. Equal, if not more, screen time is given to players from other regions, and Janic solemnly collects their statements and presents the viewer with the possibility to construct their own viewpoint out of all these different stories about the same subject. The story shifts from the first matches between Croatia and Serbia, or Former Yugoslavia, footage material and interviews, and as such it has a very clear structure that fills you in on almost everything you need to know.

Janic incorporates all the known landmarks of the story. The Youth World Cup of 1987, the legendary footage of Boban attacking a policeman and the exclusion from the 1992 European Cup all feature, as they should. But he also provides you with a perspective of the inner workings of a team in this rare situation and the effect it has on both the players and their immediate surroundings. Boban, for one, became a staunch nationalist for the Croatian cause. Others, like Mijatovic, try to avoid the topic whenever possible.

Football is often given as an example of how a country can unite behind a single cause, like in Cote d’Ivoire during the last World Cup. It is seldom mentioned how it can also have the exact opposite effect, as becomes evident by the footage of an entire stadium of people booing their own national anthem.

Another very powerfull moment in the documentary which I think deserves special mention shows the Bosnian people, considered the last people who had faith in the union of the republics, after 'their' team advanced in the 1990 World Cup. Their cries of 'Yugoslavia! Yugoslavia!' resemble similar outburts of joy in other countries, but there is an almost desperate tone in their voice.

I would recommend this documentary to any and everyone with even the slightest interest in one of the most striking collisions between sports and politics. I have heard from some people it is rather hard to come by, so I do not have any problems providing you with a link where you can see it for free. Having said that, it really deserves better than being watched on Google Video.

The Last Yugoslavian Team - Janic, 2000.

Time Is Hardly Ever On Our Side

We here in Holland tend to look down on the art of defending. We're no good at it, and as a result, we choose to haugtily belittle its importance. So, in today's post, I hope to provide you with something of a counterweight to that sentiment.

In the summer of 2004, advertisements on every corner of the Catalonian costal towns begged me to go to the Joan Gampar Trophy. I was not familiar with the trophy, but after inquiry I learned it was some sort of annual pre-season friendly, and this particular one was contested between FC Barcelona and AC Milan. As a child, I grew up absolutely adoring both these teams, and a chance to see them both at the same time nearly caused me to collapse.

I convinced my then-girlfriend to join me in the two hour line for tickets during the middle of a sweltering day. She deserves mention here, also because she might just read this and if I would omit her considerable plight from this account she will probably exact some sort of horrible revenge. She decided not to go, and I got two tickets on one of the lateral tribunas, for me and my father.

It was only my third trip to a Barcelona game in their own stadium. This would be nothing short of one of the most memorable football games I would ever attend, if only for how rare my presence in the Camp Nou was up to that point. What might have been a full game of soaking in every moment that comes with being a Barca fan in a sold out stadium during the introduction of new players such as Eto’o, an amazing experience in itself, very quickly turned into something even better: for a full forty-five minutes, I found myself the closest to the side of the field graced by Paolo Maldini and Allesandro Costacurto.

In a Camp Nou that was filled to the absolute brim, I breathlessly watched them move. In absolute sync. Without looking at each other, they knew exactly where on the field they were positioned. I could not be bothered with Barcelona’s exciting new signings or the home-grown stars I love so much. I don’t even remember the score. All I remember is Maldini and Costacurta, moving, perfectly, as one.

I have never met anyone or any thing more stubborn than time. It insists on moving forward, sometimes at a rapid pace, other times it creeps. Treacherous little bastard. I have seen many games where elimination depended on the whistle either to sound or to remain silent, and I have frantically prayed for both, but I have never wanted forty-five minutes to last as long as I did during the first half of that pre-season game. I could not bring myself to look at the time on the massive scoreboards, because I didn’t want to miss a second of men defending so effortlessly, with such purpose and grace.

Joep Smeets, En Un Momento Dado

Just a short little post today. So much has already been written about Johan Cruijff’s sixtieth birthday here in Holland, but it would be simply wrong for me not to write a little about the greatest football player Holland has ever known, so I would like to tell you a story detailing exactly how important Johan is to us Dutch.

In 1999, weeks before the new millennium, I finally did it. I nagged so long my parents let me wander through Barcelona on my own. I was fourteen then, and terribly excited. I had never felt so grown-up in my life. Having already dragged my parents to the Camp Nou twice earlier in the week, I saw no reason not go there by myself this time. Nervously, I tried waving down a cab at the Plaça de Catalunya. When one eventually stopped, I decided to play this as cool as possible, and, in my best Spanish, instructed the driver to take me to Camp Nou.

Apparently, The fact that I was not actually Spanish had gone unnoticed, and the driver, having seen my Barcelona jersey, started ranting about the daily business of the club. It took him a few blocks to find out I was not very responsive because I didn’t understand a thing he said, upon which he inquired me to my country of origin. ‘Holanda’, I told him, somewhat nervously. He hit the breaks. He looked at me like I had just offended his entire family, and I was sure he was about to kick me out of his cab. As it turned out, my driver was not a particular fan of Dutchman Louis van Gaal, then head coach of my chauffeur’s pride and joy. He started screaming about van Gaal and Holanda in broken English, and I squeezed myself as far towards the door as possible.

Desperately, I looked around, and decided to clutch for a last straw. While the driver was in between breaths, the last one used for cursing van Gaal’s mother and the next one would have probably served roughly the same purpose, I decided to interrupt. ‘si…but…Cruijff?’, I managed to squeak? As suddenly as his massive temper arose, it subsided. He looked at me and gestured I had to open the glove compartment. I did, and I stumbled upon the worlds smallest FC Barcelona museum. Among the collection, glued to the glove compartment door, was an old, yellow sticker with El Salvador’s picture on it. ‘Ah, Holanda. Johan’, the driver said, to no one in particular. He shut the little compartment and drove me to the stadium, where, I still hope to this very day, he once marvelled at that young, scrawny enigma from Amsterdam.

Up in the Sky

I’ve long wondered exactly what specific sight in football I hold dearest, and yesterday I was reminded of it once again. Sure, moments like the one Messi provided us with last week are breathtaking. They dominate my days, or at least my free time. But for sheer television drama, I’ll go with a moment only very rarely seen. You forget about it through the long, gruelling course of the season until in the final game, maybe the game before that, you can see it again.

Like most leagues, the Dutch league has a format in which all the games on the final one or two rounds of the season are played at exactly the right moment, barring some sort of excuse for a crowd like ADO den Haag’s, who found it necessary to ruin the final game ever to be played in their somewhat legendary stadium. But all the games of the 33rd round neatly kicked off simultaneously at the blow of a whistle, and other than the ADO game, they all ended at roughly the same time as well.

The situation at the top of the league here in Holland is close. PSV, in what must surely be one of the most spectacular meltdowns in human history, blew away what was once an eleven point lead to get both Ajax and AZ back into the race for the title. The former politely passed on a momentous opportunity to take the lead two weeks ago, the latter never had a chance to do so – until yesterday. And it was one of those moments I cherish so much.

AZ led SC Heerenveen two to one, when in the 85th minute, the stadium erupted. Now, stadiums tend to erupt, so nothing particularly strange there, but there had been no immediate cause for the mass celebration that took place here. A mere throw in was accompanied by the biggest explosion of joy in Alkmaar I have ever seen, and then I understood, what had happened. Some fifty kilometres to the south, Utrecht had equalized against PSV, putting AZ, if they would just beat Heerenveen, at the top of the table for the first time in the season. A minute later, with the AZ fans still in the midst of their most primal scream, Simon Cziommer scored with a beautiful long distance lob to put AZ up three to one, and the people on the stands had to gasp for air so they could scream some more.

In Amsterdam Ajax fans, up five to two, stopped paying attention to the game and started watching the massive scoreboards. That complete uncertainty about one’s own fate is one of the sights I enjoy the most about football. It’s the purest mixture of fear, hope and anticipation you’ll find. Me? As a Roda JC fan, I never have to worry about winning the title or not. But next week, I worry about fifth place and the automatic European ticket it provides. I hope Roda beats Heracles. I hope Heerenveen and Feyenoord tie. I hope Groningen doesn’t win its game by a bigger margin than Roda does. I fear one of these things will not happen. But in a production truck near the Willem II stadion, I’ll be watching the numbers, completely uncertain of my own (club’s) fate. And I will love it.

Vaya con Messi

There is very little worse than still being half-drunk in the morning when you really thought you would have slept at least thatt off. Getting up, you immediately detect that void where, normally, your sense of balance would be. It also means that you are actually looking forward to your hangover, which, at a time like this, seems like something of a slight upgrade. But it never is.

A hangover is a nasty thing to beat. It persists, no matter the amount of water or juice you guzzle down. Time heals all wounds and all hangovers, but like with your average wound, a hangover drastically slows down your perception of time. It creeps forward, not about to let you get on with your life anytime soon.

But sometimes, something happens that shocks you right back into shape, or at least into something that resembles it. You have to function, and you won’t let a splitting headache and a set of sea legs stop you.

Last time around, that shock was something entirely unpleasant. But it appears I have timed this (ex-)hangover extremely well. It’s only a few feet from my bed to my desk, and I bravely made that leap when I realized it was a never a good idea to suntan in bed. The sun scorched me towards the desk, and I started checking the usual suspects. Football, other news, some blogs and finally my mail. I still haven’t gotten around to the last three items on that list.

And when you wake up with a hangover of your own, and, for whatever reason, check this blog out right away, my guess is neither will you. I don’t usually like to insert one of those youtube screens into my posts, I think it’s ugly, but an exceptional moment like this certainly merits it.

EDIT: It seems I am horribly technically impaired and cannot fit one of those screens in here. The good people at youtube prevent me from doing so, because they claim I don't know the correct username and password to acces this very blog. I'll leave all of you with a paltry link

Vaya con Messi - with special thanks to www.Lionelmessi.org

Another edit: the terrorists over at Audiovisual are claiming copyright on Messi's work of art left and right, and I can't seem to provide you with a video that is up long enough. Maybe THIS ONE, it didn't work for me but I think that may have been due to the traffic, I hope it works for you. If not, I hope you can find it for yourselves. It's worth the search, and that is the kind of insightful understatement of the century you'll only find at this blog.

Four Guys Walk Onto A Television Set...

So four guys walk onto a television set. It's the start of a joke, but there is a crucial difference. There is no pun, only earnest. But there is a joke...

A man is very angry. He screams and yells. He cares, or at the very least he screams he does, at the top of his lungs. Another man agrees. A third one is silent. He is partly responsible for what it is that angers the other two men, so he remains, wisely, very quiet. The other man screams some more. They care, they care, they care, they scream. A fourth man, the final man, asks them again if they care. They do. He tells them it is so great to see them care so much, and they nod emphatically. They are proud of themselves for caring. Who else is going to, at a time like this? When Feyenoord plays such poor football?

The second man smiles. He likes the sound of that. Feyenoord plays such horrible football, and he can say it out loud right into the camera, as long as he does so in the name of compassion. It vindicates him. If he would say that Feyenoord plays poor football, he would be hung at the break of dawn, like in an old Western film. But if he says Feyenoord plays such horrible football and that it hurts him so much to see it, he gets away - no, better even. He repeats it, and waits to see how long he can wait with adding ‘and I care’. He looks around. He got away with, my god he did. This emboldens him greatly. He gets cocky and tries to push the boundaries a little: ‘ Feyenoord – Ajax should always be a top fixture, but if you look at it this year…Feyenoord losing at home and in Amsterdam…shameful’. He cannot believe it. Nobody else said a thing. There is the smile again. He did it. He finally said what he had always wanted to say, and got away with it.

The third man remains quiet, and absently tries to think of his results with Feyenoord against Ajax. They couldn’t have been very well. None of his other results were particularly good, and there is no reason to assume these would be any different. He looks at the other men. Maybe they remember? But they don’t care. Look at them foaming at the mouth about the sorry state Feyenoord is in. Not his Feyenoord, mind you. If any of them will ask him about his responsibility he has his answers ready. Budget, budget, budget, and that’s the end of it, but only partly because it is true. Mark Wotte is the other part of his two-part excuse. Also only partly true, but everyone dislikes Mark, so everyone has only very little hesitation to blame him. ‘Ruud?’ ‘Mark is such a pushover’, the third man thinks. ‘Ruud?’ He startles into action. ‘Not my fault, small budget, bad transfer policy.’ But isn’t he at least partly responsible for that? ‘No, no, no. Mark Wotte is.’ The four men agree.

The fourth man is starting to get desperate. He has been trying to guilt the third man into taking some sort of accountability in the whole affair, but he just sits there and answers ‘Mark Wotte’ to everything. The other two seem content screaming about a little, even if Frits has been gleefully crossing the line between objective journalism and sheer unbridled bias and Jan is slowly starting to show the first symptoms of anger-induced heart-failure. Ah, well. He turns solemnly to the camera and tells the little red light that ‘that is our show, people.’

It is, indeed.

1986 Or Later

We knew they were there. Out there somewhere. We had read the names. Rooney. Never saw him play for Everton, although it could also have been Liverpool. Cesc Fabregas was supposed to be pretty good as well. In the Dutch league, more and more unfamiliar faces stood along the sidelines, while the number on the back of their shirts was being hoisted into the air by the fourth official for the very first time. Someone we knew came off, and someone we had never heard of would come on. It was inevitable. I don’t remember the exact first one. But all of a sudden there were hordes of them. Kids. Kids like us. Except with caps.

I realized I would never be a professional footbal player when I noticed just the extent of how much some kids were better than I was. I had always suspected this was the case, but it was gloriously confirmed to me in the Spanish tourist resort of Lloret de Mar. At eleven years of age, I found myself on the worst place of the pitch one could possibly be at the time; right midfield. My horror about playing there was not due to the position itself; I usually liked playing there. But on that summer day, after having seen the left midfielder I was about to play earlier that morning, I was contemplating faking an injury. The skinny Russian boy made my head spin for an entire game, often just enough to make me witness how he was already passing the last line of defense behind me. The only times I got close enough to even attempt winning the ball off him were when he chose to dribble directly towards me. After fifteen minutes, I didn’t even try to stop him anymore. I just pretended to. Whenever he took on one of our players, the rest of us stood and watched. As I could hardly applaud him while he was ballet-dancing his way through our defense, I asked my coach after the game if I could stay in the stadium for their next game. No problem. He was staying for it himself as well.

It was only after the game we found out that Dimitry - assuming no doubt falsely his name was Dimitry - had not been driven to the hot, scorching gravely excuse for a pitch, like we had. He walked. The sight of Dimitry and his teammateslining up for the ten kilometer march back to their hotel after their last game of the day made me lose every shred of hope I had ever entertained of being a professional player. Because if some of these kids would not make it, as their trainer had explained in broken English to our baffled coach, odds were pretty high neither would I.

But even while this knowledge had come to me at this relatively young age and I had had ample time to prepare myself for it, I had feared one particular moment. A voluntary sense of disinterest has surely made me miss some debuts in foreign countries, and also even some in my own. But if I had even the slightest suspicion, I decided to - in the immortal words of Edgar Davids - stick my head up my ass. If nobody pointed one out to me, I surely wasn’t going to look for one myself.

This could not go on forever, and of course, it didn’t. I noticed him immediately. My father was worried about Mateja Kezman, the gloved Serbian sniper with the white shoes of PSV Eindhoven. The arrogant bastard faced a defense who’s sole regular starter was often compared to Paolo Maldini. This comparison, however, sadly did not arise due to Gerrie Senden’s superior defensive abilities, but more to the fact that he, like Maldini, had never changed clubs in a very, very long career. But standing right next to Kezman stood Ibrahim Affelay. My father asked me if I knew who he was and this time there was nothing I could do but face facts, however painful they may be. I did know who he was. Very talented. Right-footed. PSV academy. But there was something else. Ibrahim Affelay was, and still is, significantly younger than I am.

1985, to me, is one of the major schisms of the 20th century. For a long time, I didn't know any better than that football players were born before it. My slightly older roommates and I checked the dates of birth from every latest prodigy to walk onto a football field. More and more, they were in the high 80's. Because of Dimitry, I had already accepted this would happen someday, but for whatever reason, Sunday afternoon made me cringe. Feyenoord started a player who was born a year after the Berlin wall fell. 5 years After Me. In the 90's.

Hola, Pendejos!

Now, before any of you feel offended, our Mexican guests over the past week ensured me ‘pendejo’ can be used entirely in jest, and in this case it most certainly is. Except for one reader. You know who you are, cabrón. Change your iTunes password into something less revolting!

The past week has been nothing short of an incredibly incomplete and horrendously biased crash course to Mexican (and Spanish) football. The wonderful gifts from our guests, like the Chivas de Guadalajara flag, will receive a nice spot somewhere around the house (preferably: draped over the Ajax flag. That thing is an eyesore). Also, I will carry my recently obtained partial knowledge about Mexican football with me forever. Here is some of it, and I encourage anyone to fill in the blanks (or rather, the enormous hole) in the comments section.

Club Nexaca is, according to one of our guests, the ‘ugly son of Club America’. Not the little brother. The ugly son. He chose those words very carefully. This was, however, heavily – and passionately – refuted by another one of our guests. The latter encouraged me to search for the result of the Libertadores group game of his beloved Necaxa against Sao Paolo. My Spanish is severely lacking, but the headline on Mediotiempo was universal enough. They were no longer ‘perfect’, which to the both of us seemed somewhat of an understatement. The picture accompanying this headline was of a scoreboard that revealed the difference between perfect and imperfect can be as little as conceding three goals on foreign soil.

Clubs in Mexico can disappear. This happened to the club one of our other guests supported. They were relegated, and then disappeared. Upon being asked why exactly they had disappeared, no proper answer could be given. I was left with the impression of an organisation that just did not bother with such trifle things as showing up and competing anymore when they had dropped down a league. For no apparent reason.

Mexicans, like the Dutch, are not very apt at performing under pressure. This similarity meant that none of us, not my roommates or our guests, could clinch the many Pro Evolution games that ended in a draw after a 120 fictional minutes. Eventually, we collectively agreed we would no longer take penalties and settle for a draw. However, any occasions from the penalty spot that arose during the regular time were still missed with astonishing consistency.

There were many more things I discovered over the past week. How to make incredibly good guacamole, for example, and a variety of wonderful Spanish profanity. The difference between different types of Tequila. An especially beautiful Golazo is called a Golazazazo. Seventeen degrees and sunny is not to be considered good weather, and much, much more.

To Dara, Mariana, Rafael and Jeronimo, muchas gracias and I will hopefully see all of you again soon.

To Rafael and Jeronimo, you owe me a rematch, pendejos!

The Cat's Meow: Zidane, a 21st Century Portrait (Gordon, Parreno, 2006)

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.

After Zinedine Zidane was sent off in the world cup final, the image of his slow descend into the catacombs of the Olympiastadium in Berlin made one thing very clear to many; nobody, at this particular point in time, could have possibly felt more lonely than Zidane. Because being alone is not just about being deprived of company. It is also about being deprived of understanding. And nobody, at that point, understood why Zidane was walking by the cup which was made by one of his compatriots and named after another.

In the months after, the thirst for insight was only partially quenched. The semi-apology, the countless hours of punditry and journalism that were devoted to it. Nike mocked the Adidas star in a commercial. But for the multimedia frenzy of attention that followed the incident, nothing provided a better insight than Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait. It is a film by Scottish filmmaker and, above anything else, it reveals one thing about Zinedine Zidane.

Zidane loved being alone.

The seventeen cameramen positioned especially for this film during Madrid’s home game against Villarreal received very simple instructions: follow Zidane. For almost ninety minutes, he can be seen (and heard) dragging his feet over the pitch, and all of a sudden it all becomes very clear. On the pitch, like while walking into the catacombs minutes before the final whistle of a world cup final, Zidane prefers to be alone, even when among eighty thousand football fans and twenty-one of his collegues. On the pitch, he does not need company. On the stairs towards the tunnel, in the last moments of his career, he did not need to be understood.