The game is running out of characters. I've spent the better part of the last two days listening to the Football Ramble's brilliant player profiles, each one a reminder that the beautiful game was once played by men of significance and verve rather than marketed, pampered prima donnas. The profile that my mind keeps returning to is Zizou's. The man who I consider the best to ever play, he was a character of such dynamism and depth that he makes the modern day footballer seem like a pathetic charicature of what they should be; a man of heart, of passion and dignity...
Forget that he was the best player on the planet for about 8 consecutive years, what Zidane did in his final 111 minutes of competitive football alone was more awe inspiring and brilliant than what men like Frank Lampard have done in their entire career. He chipped a penalty in a World Cup Final; he dictated the pace of the game to such an extent that the French players almost exclusively passed to him upon winning posession; he had an absolute cannon of a header palmed over the net when it would have been the crowning moment to one of football's greatest ever careers; he drove his skull into the sternum of an Italian ponce; he walked past the World Cup trophy with only a rub of his nose. He didn't slow his walk, he didn't even look at it. Down the tunnel he went. The final in 2006 was a microcosm of Zidane's entire life; a boy from the streets who had perfected his craft was ultimately undone by a prideful act of defiance. It was perfect, really.
The game is running low on mavericks; at present, the best player on earth is soft spoken, robotic chap from Argentina who dominates without capturing the imagination. He is not quotable, but rather is reserved and seemingly calm at all times. He rarely gets sent off. He's boring.
There was a time when the best players on earth boasted quiffs of hair that trailed lazily in the wind after their owners. There was a time when legends of the game weren't content to just be good; they wanted to be memorable and dignified and transcendant. They were men brilliant visually as well as athletically. Socratés, the Brazilian great, almost never even ran when he was on the pitch, such was his touch and vision. Fellow Brazilian Garrincha's right leg was pointed inwards and was 6 centemeters shorter than his left, and he was the best dribbler on the planet. Jorge Campos used to play the majority of the game outside of his own box despite being Mexico's goalkeeper. Carlos Valderrama's hair probably weighed more than the aforementioned Lionel Messi.
And Zidane headbutted players he didn't like. Furthermore, people forget that although he was the hero of France's glorious 1998 campaign, he missed two and half games for stomping on a Saudi Arabian player in Les Bleus' second match. Like Maradona, Zidane was flawed. That's what made him human. That's what made him unforgettable.
Today I watched two compilation videos, one containing all of Cristiano Ronaldo's goals from this season, the other containing all of Lionel Messi's. Ronaldo's is superior in every facet; the audacity required for some of his goals supercedes anything that Messi produced. Lionel is simply so good that everything he does is effortless and mundane; he drifts in from the right, he shoots far post, its unstoppable and predictable. Ronaldo is a much more flawed players; he's at times selfish, emotional, and petulent. But at least he's something.
We don't have, as modern football fans, the iconic heros of yesteryear. We don't have Bobby Moore leading England to victory against Germany in 1966 on home soil. We don't have men like Obdulio Varela, the Uruguayan captain who in the 1950 World Cup Final against hosts Brazil, in front of 200,000 screaming fans in the Maracana, and having just conceded the opening goal, turned to his men and said "Now its time to win" (which they of course, did). We don't have George Best who, while playing with Northern Ireland against Holland, once famously dribbled laterally across the entire pitch simply to nutmeg Johan Cruyff.
We don't have these gentlemen and pioneers of the game. Sure, we are witnessing perhaps the most talented player of all time, but I'm not satisfied. I want Zidane back. I want mavericks back on the pitch.
(special thanks to The Football Ramble for the inspiration)
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