Tear the Roof Off
Here’s my new Grantland piece on Klinsmann and the USMNT at the start of World Cup qualifying.
Mad Men: A Series of Suppressed Tweets
TOTALLY UNRELATED TO SOCCER: I wrote a few tweets about last night’s episode of Mad Men, then realized a million DVR-people would yell at me for spoiling it, so I moved them here. Read if you care. There are spoilers, duh.
— Brian
Toto v. The Wave
Ever been tabbed to speak at someone’s going away party?
It’s a more exigent task than you’d imagine. It necessitates an examination of your relationship with that person yet simultaneously compels you to divorce yourself from it, because if you truly care about them, it becomes impossible not feel a little sad, a little hurt, a little abandoned that they’re moving on.
As the captain of a midtable side, I imagine Antonio Di Natale is well-versed in that conflict, at least in psyche if not actual practice. From David Pizarro to Vincenzo Iaquinta, Fabio Quagliarella to Alexis Sanchez, Di Natale has watched his contemporaries at Udinese saunter out the door for better opportunities at bigger clubs, leaving him to recite staid dialogue and dutifully hand out cake before shouldering another share of club’s ballast. Somewhere along the way, he became Sam Waterston in Law & Order, perpetually standing still as his recast cohorts drift further away from his date of birth but stubbornly refusing to start over someplace else. And — as is also the case with Waterston — you invariably stumble upon at least one Udinese match per season when you weren’t even looking for one, only to find Di Natale making one of his usual imperious runs through traffic and you incredulously blurting out things like, “Wait, he’s still there?!” and, “Doesn’t he have somewhere else better to be?”
Turkish Football’s Dirty War
Do you know what hate, in its essence and heart-wrenching ugliness, truly is? Not only the concept of genuinely disliking something with every fibre of your being, but the sensation of slowly falling into a black hole filled to its brink with unhealthy, dirty thoughts? It is a feeling that, when activated deep below our day-to-day, unextraordinary consciousness, completely robs us of our humanity and compassion. It brings out the worst in us. Basically, hatred is what keeps Turkish football in 2011-2012 alive.
Today, my newfound and football-crazed friends, we have reached the proverbial impasse. Regardless of what happens tonight at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Kadıköy, Turkish football has lost its vigour. Papers were definitely pushed, Lira in great quantities were definitely suddenly found in sports bags where they did not quite belong, and the Turkish Football Federation has made a complete and utter mess of the proceedings and an even bigger ass of themselves. 10 people have been given jail sentences for bribing players, staff members, club officials in order to fix scores (“bought matches”, in layman terms). All the criminals acted, in one way or another, to give a certain club a certain edge, and yet said club has remained without judgement or penalty. So, in this final week of Turkish football in what will forever be known as a truly tainted season, quelle surprise, as Platini would say: It’s all about Fenerbahçe again, standing as ever in the spotlight and on their very own stage this time around, with Galatasaray trucking along on the ride in a supporting role.
Homage to Barcelonia
It is January 25, 1939. You reside in what is left of Barcelona. The Spanish Civil War has raged for several years. At night, the bombs fall. Franco’s forces have surrounded and strangled your beloved city, Within, moral and societal decay have gripped the institutions you loved. At first, democracy was the war cry. Viva la Republica! Then, the anarchists arose and spoke of the need to collectivize, collectivize, collectivize. Then, the Stalinists sprang up and called for nationalization. The summary executions of suspected Franco sympathizers made you feel uneasy. Now, the anarchists and Stalinists shoot one another in broad daylight. Food and water have disappeared. Retreating Republic forces burn warehouses & offices before fleeing to France. When Franco’s forces arrive the next day, chills run up and down your spine. To your astonishment, people take to the streets and cheer and applaud and wave and welcome their arrival. You weep quietly.
It is April 26, 2012. You are Pep Guardiola. You are the coach of FC Barcelona, a team that has won three La Liga titles and two Champions League trophies in the last four years. Some injuries and bad luck derailed the current season, but plenty of talent lines the roster. The city adores your team, your players love you, and the best goalscoring machine in the world wears the Azulgrana #10. However, for the last few years, battles have raged behind the scenes. The President that hired you, Joan Laporta, has been sued by the current President Sandro Rossell for accounting irregularities. The same Sandro Rosell that sat at the Board of Directors for Barcelona but resigned in 2005 due to Laporta’s “authoritarian tendencies.” Rather than settling, the case went to trial. In sum, your current boss is running your ex-boss (who hired you) through the accounting grinder, even though hidden debt in Spain is as ubiquitous as sangria. At least Laporta took care of the tax man, unlike Atletico de Madrid. Your hair turns grey, then disappears. The next day, you announce your retirement.
Homage to Guardiola
A little late posting this, but here’s my new Grantland column on Pep leaving Barcelona.
After the End
Cue the End-of-an-Era music: Pep Guardiola has resigned. But from this vantage point what seems clear is that Pep’s departure, and all the accompanying verbiage — about the intensity of his personality, his perfectionism, the hardware his team has won over the past four years, the success of the Barcelona Way, Pep as the embodiment of the més que un club ethos, and on and on — are part of a vast mopping-up operation. The story really ended almost exactly a year ago, when El Clásico descended into melodrama and handbags. Barça hasn’t been the same since, and neither has Pep.
I wrote at the time that “if I were Emperor of Soccer, I’d not allow these clubs to play each other for a couple of years.” But really, the damage had already been done. Too many overwrought encounters in too short a time had left Barcelona, Real Madrid, the Spanish soccer culture, and, hell, the whole soccer world emotionally exhausted. What had been the most exciting clash of styles in forever became instead an exercise in discovering new forms of pettiness: diving, stomping, pre- and post-match posturing, even a combination cheek-tweak and
eye-gouge.
Mourinhal
With apologies to Wallace Stevens and Roberto Di Matteo.
That strange power, football,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the cules are sad.
That murmuration of starlings,
That wind in the grass,
Is just what you say.
That geometry of flux,
That vine,
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the cules are sad.
— John Muller
Eulogy for Frankie Hejduk
Dick Clark is dead. As someone who expected to be outlived by him, it’s weird knowing he’s gone. At the same time, he was clearly an old man. Even though it seemed like he’d been around for longer than his 82 years, the most recent New Year’s was sad because…well, it was Dick Clark, except he wasn’t Dick Clark as everyone knew him. It finally seemed like it might’ve been time, as cruel as that is to say.
It never seemed like Frankie Hejduk’s time. No, he’s not dead, but he’s done playing soccer. The scraggly-haired wingback announced his retirement from professional soccer Thursday at the age of 37, which is pretty damn old for a professional soccer player. And it’s really damn old for someone who played like he was stuck in an imaginary hamster wheel—never not-running. It’s hard to imagine Frankie Hejduk not running for a living any more. It’s hard, too, to imagine American soccer without Frankie Hejduk.
Atlas Drugged
Not soccer-related, but possibly of interest: I took some drugs, went to see Wrath of the Titans, and chronicled the experience for Grantland.
