Phillip Cocu Was Very Good at Football.

Because of the absolutely exhausting finish to the Dutch season, I haven’t gotten around to posting about something that truly deserves mention. On Sunday, PSV not only won the championship, but also avoided having to partake in the play-offs for the Dutch Champions League Qualifier ticket, meaning their season ended after the game against Vitesse. This has some implications, none bigger than that Phillip Cocu has played his last game in a PSV shirt.

Astonishingly versatile, a true leader both on and off the field, a strategist. A joy to watch, even when he decided to play as anonymously as possible to help his team.

Because the details of his career and his accomplishments are probably already known among the most of you (and if not, shame on you), I am not going to write all that down and make his stats into my argument of why Cocu is, perhaps, the best Dutch football player since Marco van Basten. Instead, I’ll tell you why he is because of something I saw very recently.

A few weeks ago, when PSV had almost completely imploded and apparently whisked away its chances at a third consecutive Dutch crown, I found myself in Eindhoven. Kick-off in the Philips Stadion was about to happen, for what could be the final nail in PSV’s coffin. PSV hosted FC Twente, who were and are having a marvellous season, and had to win. Much, much earlier in the season, the two had faced off in Enschede, and PSV hadn’t, in fact, won. Twente had. Considering both that result and recent form, a victory for PSV was far from certain. But it came.

By this time I should probably explain what I was doing in Eindhoven on that night. I was staring at two screens, each no larger than a CD-case, in a truck just outside of the stadium, and occasionally rewinding what I saw so it could be beamed into people’s living room in slow-motion. The screens I watched were the incoming feeds of Camera 1 and Camera 2. Camera 1 is the traditional overview camera, and camera 2 does close-ups from above. Because the director never needs a replay of the first camera, my primary attention was focused, for more than 90 minutes, only on the space of play visible on camera 2.

Cocu ruled it.

In that small space, all game long, I saw Cocu running, tackling, coaching and passing. The camera had instructions to follow the ball, and Cocu was never far away. Whenever FC Twente’s Orlando Engelaar was unfortunate enough to find himself under the scrutiny of camera 2, he was quickly, subtly dispossessed by PSV’s captain. After Cocu won the ball himself, the cameraman who worked camera 2, more often than not, quickly had to pan along with yet another brilliant pass.

In the small space visible on camera 2, I saw Cocu completely locking down one of the most creative midfields in the Dutch league. I also saw him give an assist that was so unexpected, the camera only caught up with it a few seconds after it had been given, because he thought the pass would go somewhere else entirely. And even if Cocu wasn’t in sight, he somehow influenced whatever was. A bad pass was given, and a quick glance to camera 1 revealed what I didn’t see on camera 2: the pass was hurried because Cocu was closing in, or because he quickly covered the best option for the pass. I had never seen a performance like it.

On Sunday, I didn’t have to work in Eindhoven. Whichever colleague of mine did, stared at the camera 2 feed like I did a few weeks ago and on it, he or she saw Philip Cocu score PSV’s last goal of the season, which won PSV the title. There is a word for performances like Cocu's last Sunday and earlier against Twente. Greatness.

My only complaint? This year's final goal, although infinitly more imporant, wasn't nearly as pretty as last year's ;)

I’d appreciate it if maybe you would share your favourite Cocu memory in the comments section. Thanks a bunch in advance.