A Difference Like Between Day and Night

It couldn’t possibly have been the torrential rain. It shouldn’t bother the English, nor their game. Especially not when they’re from Manchester, where, and this may or may not be true, it always rains. Or at least I think so. But it couldn’t have been the rain.

It might have been the stadium. At certain times during the game, the camera seemed to wobble up and down a little. That wasn’t due to a cameraman with a sporadic case of severe Parkinson’s. That was the stadium moving up and down a little. So it might have been the stadium. But certainly, Manchester are used to a roaring stadium.

It may have been the flurry of injuries. It can be difficult to cope with such a string of bad fortune. But there were fewer injured players than last time around. So it couldn’t have been that, either.

Inexperience, possibly? Certainly not. A side fielding van der Sar, Giggs and Scholes does not lack experience. They know what it takes to win, and, more importantly, they know how to lead. Even the inexperience of young guns like Rooney and Ronaldo is relative. Both have played two major - and very eventful – tournaments. They know the turmoil that comes with big matches like these.

It might have been a combination of all of these things, but truthfully, it was something else entirely. The difference between the first and the last game wasn’t the rain, it wasn’t the stadium, the injuries or the inexperience. It was Milan. Jack van Gelder, a Dutch football presenter, confronted a slightly confused and/or intimidated Dirk Kuijt via telephone after the game. Kuijt told him he had never seen Man U play as poorly as tonight, and van Gelder abruptly and rightfully interrupted the Liverpool striker.

‘But can’t you only play as well as your opponent lets you?’

Kuijt, and everybody else who saw Milan’s absolutely gorgeous perfect first half yesterday, could only agree.

I'm rather swamped as of late, but check back Saturday for another edition of The Cat's Meow and Sunday, the day of the Dutch Cup final, for a two-post piece on my first Cup Final experience

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.