ENDANGERED SPECIES
'I was still a footballer, and at a camp with Argentina`s national team in the lobby of the hotel, I spoke warmly with a friend who suddenly fell silent and his gaze stared at a staircase. Look at Daniel!', he told me. No one goes down the stairs like him.
The captain of our first world champion, Daniel Passarella, played the role of mafia boss. There are very few of that kind in football and there is no one else like Sergio Ramos.
Big leaders have in themselves a certainty and confidence that, in a way unknown to me, transfers the brain to the body. Sergio enters the dressing room, as if Real Madrid belongs to him, and on the pitch -;as if he had invented football.
The club by links for sport tips accuses him of too much power, and his rivals -;in too much kicking on them. But when the normal ones cover the corners at a tough time, they amaze t he world with a `Panenka`. This is his way to tell us that the leader -;this distant as mythical animal ideal - still exists in football.
TOXIC FOOTBALL
There are players who see the goals as fulfilling an obligation, others who seem to obey a peak;third, they are the least, but they seem to take revenge on the world. In this last group is Gonzalo Iguaine, playing with the weight of his shoulders from missed goals in the matches that last throughout his life:the finals.
Gonzalo lifted the stage fever to the level of San Siro`s existential panic. Juventus handed it over to Milan to free up a place for Cristiano Ronaldo, so the AC Milan - Juve was the perfect opportunity for revenge.
Gonzalo, however, missed a penalty, suffered Cristiano`s goal and when the referee showed him a yellow card in the last minutes, he managed to win the red.
We do not know how much tension, how much humiliation in the form of a memet, and how much suppressed desire for must there was in this reaction. But once he has reached where he has always dreamed, he has to ask himself:what else is he waiting for to finally feel really happy?
WHEN THE WINNING IS NOT SUFFICIENT
Today, teams with less possession of the ball are winning matches and, after France has won the World Cup, there is a trend. The champions have become deserving world champions for the quality and physical strength of their players as well as for their minimal risk tactics.
I have no proof to the contrary, but I think that if they were more daring, they would have done the same with more general admiration. Josep Guardiola`s Barcelona provoked a widespread infection. Whether you had the right players or conditions, you had to bet on moving the ball with passes from the beginning to the end of the pitch.
A parallel movement sought an antidote against a similar game machine. Jose Mourinho was his prophet with a speculative and self -sacrificing football in need of an army without any breakthrough in his bumper.
Last Sunday, the two styles with their guides made a meeting in Premier League. Mourinho needs only the victory to be right, and Guardiola -;from the victory, but also from a good game. A question of expectations.
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