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There are times when being a football racism has somehow become another journalist is tiring. It’s not the late football issue, and as such tends to be nights, the long hours and the ceaseless debated on partisan grounds. travelling - although by the end of the season that is beginning to wear you But actually the most grating thing is the down – so much as the relentless anger kneejerk snideness. Earlier this season, you have to deal with. Hooliganism may after had beaten AC Milan 4-0 have fallen away but football is a terribly in the last 16 of the Champions League angry sport. to overturn a 2-0 fi rst-leg defi cit, I wrote a piece for refl ecting on Maybe it’s always been that way and the away goals rule and whether a) it was it’s just that social media has revealed ever fair and b) even if it were, whether it, but it’s a terrifying thought that so it has become counterproductive. It’s many should go around waiting to be an issue of regulation, it’s not about outraged, desperate to fi nd evidence of fundamental beliefs or one team over disrespect, that so many should believe another: it’s hard to imagine people in the most absurd conspiracy theories, getting too worked up over it. that so many should seemingly spend so much time sitting around waiting for the The following night, Arsenal – to general opportunity to be unpleasant. I used to surprise – won 2-0 in , to go out think Eastenders was ridiculous because of the Champions League against Bayern I couldn’t believe nastiness was a default on away goals, having lost the fi rst leg 3-1. setting; maybe I was naïve. Not surprisingly, a lot of Arsenal fans then retweeted the piece, as did the US journalist It’s almost impossible to write anything Grant Wahl. I then got a reply from an about football without annoying American sneering that I’d only made an somebody. The most banal observation issue of it because it involved a Premier will cause off ence. You’ll be at a game, League club. He obviously hadn’t read the something will happen 30 yards away, piece: if he had, it would have been clear you’ll tweet about it, and you’ll fi nd it had been written about Barcelona. But yourself abused for reporting something even if he had, and even if I had questioned you saw clearly, something backed up the validity of the away goals rule on the by replays. Often you’ll draw fi re from back of the Arsenal game, so what? I am both sides of an argument, that you’re a British journalist and the piece was in a somehow simultaneously both too British paper: it’s hardly outrageous that it tough and not tough enough on biting/ should discuss an issue when it became bad tackles/ diving/ racism (delete relevant to a team based in Britain. as applicable). And, of course, the most objectionable aspect of that last This obsession not with the contents of sentence is that something as serious as a piece but with its existence is bizarre.

3 Somebody may not be interested in a apogee for me when Tottenham’s game piece on the away goals rule, which is against Southampton in May was delayed fi ne; nothing compels them to read it. for 30 minutes because large numbers Somebody may not like carrots but they of fans had been held up getting to the wouldn’t email the farmer to tell him not game by a chemical spill on the M25. to grow them. But somebody actually Pretty much everybody in the press room went to the eff ort of composing a tweet at reacted in the same to complain that I’d written a piece he’d way: an irritated shrug at half an hour hadn’t read. As a rule, you try to ignore added to the day, but an acceptance such people but occasionally the drip- that it was probably the right decision. drip of attrition gets the better of you. So But my feed fi lled up with people I called him out on it. He sneered back (it expressing disbelief, furious that their seemed to be his natural mode) that of sitting on their sofas watching television course he hadn’t read it as it was in the had been inconvenienced by people who Guardian. So he was complaining about had paid for tickets actually trying to get a piece he hadn’t read on a website he to a match. I confess it was something doesn’t read. Still, he ended with a smiley of a watershed moment, the fi rst time I face, so it was all alright. realised that there is a world of television consumers who actually see themselves It’s a minor issue, obviously. All that story as more important than people who tells you is that there’s one bloke in the attend the game in person, who US who for about fi ve minutes of his actually thought their cable subscription life acted like a prick. It happens. But it outweighed safety concerns on the seems to happen an awful lot. There is Seven Sisters Road. Again, in and of itself a strange culture of entitlement around it’s a minor issue; what’s worrying is the football. An opposing player goes to take trend it represents. a throw-in and you’re in the front row. What’s the natural reaction? Is it a) to The self-entitlement is also manifested in think, “Look! I’m six feet from Full-Back the willingness of so many on Twitter and X”? b) to ponder that Full-Back X looks a in comments sections to pass judgement lot thinner in real life? Or c) to hurl abuse on others. The media as a whole, of at Full-Back X while making wanker course, can be guilty of this and does gestures? For far too many people it’s c). have an annoying tendency to go after Full-Back X has, after all, had the temerity low-hanging fruit. This is where the to come near them wearing the shirt of familiar “lazy journalism” jibe does have an opposing team so he had it coming. currency, less in terms of the hours put in than the intellectual energy expended. It’s A similar reasoning seems to motivate easier to follow the familiar templates of those who discover a journalist disagrees previous stories than to work out what is with them and respond with abuse and actually going on and apply perspective. accusations of bias. How could it be? How could somebody possibly think Twitter and comments sections should diff erently to me? They must be an idiot/ be a boon, a way for people with a wilfully drumming up controversy/ in shared interest to interact. It’s a positive the pay of somebody. This reached an when journalists are called to account

4 for a mistake or a misjudgement or if they are forced to defend their opinions. But that’s not the way it’s working. What’s happening is a grim attritional process that means most journalists give comments sections at most a cursory glance. Worthwhile criticism is lost amid the idiocy and the abuse.

But actually the situation is worse than that and extends far beyond the confi nes of social media reaction to journalism. That is just a symptom of a wider malaise. Football, the one global sport, something that should be a great unifi er, has come to be dominated by the angry and the self-entitled. It’s terribly sad.

June 2013

5 Contents

Contents The Blizzard, Issue Nine

Introduction 61. Davidde Corran, Genesis

03. Editor’s Note How a tournament in China in 1988 changed women’s football for ever Theory 09. Gwendolyn Oxenham, The Vacant Lot 70. Joel Richards, The Weight of the Armband The search for a kickabout in Iran is complicated by religion and gender The politics explains why he made national captain 26. Noah Davies, Confl ict Management 74. Simon Kuper, Pep’s Four Golden Rules Dan Gaspar is a key part of Iran’s qualifying campaign for 2014 How Guardiola made Barcelona the despite holding a US passport masters of the pressing game

Interview 79. Nick Ames, Taking the Initiative Andy Roxburgh, the former Uefa 32. technical director, on how football The Polish great talks to Maciej Iwanski tactics are changing about Juventus, the modern game and his friendship with The North For the Good of the Game 88. David Conn, City and the City What does Sheikh Mansour’s 40. Philippe Auclair, The Only Way investment mean for the city of is Ethics ? Fifa’s super-cop Michael J Garcia explains his mission to wash the 97. Jon Spurling, Meanwhile Back corruption out of football in

How a Tyne Tees documentary on 50. James Corbett, Power Play Cup fi nal day 1973 captured the spirit The Asian Football Confederation’s of the town presidential elections highlight football’s murky governance

6 Contents

101. Anthony Clavane, That 156. Antonis Oikonomidis, A Dream Grandish Pile of Swank Denied

Tracing United’s place in the But for the politics of Greek football, tradition of Northern Realism Ferenc Puskás might have ended up in not Madrid Fiction 110. Igor Rabiner, The Jersey That Wasn’t Black 162. Scott Oliver, In Search of Punditaria Lev Yashin’s widow and Eusébio remember the great Soviet goalkeeper An anthropologist heads into the jungle to discover a society founded by Polemics stranded football journalists 131. Charlie Robinson, Partisans and Greatest Games Purists 176. Rory Smith, Bari 4 Do fans experience football diff erently to Internazionale 1 those who watch without a vested interest? , Stadio San Nicola, Bari, 6 139. Vickery, The Lager of Life January 1996

Football is haunted by violence, but can it be blamed for it? Eight Bells 182. Jonathan Wilson, Goalless Draws Past Glories A selection of the best 0-0s in history 144. Ian Hawkey, The Nearly Men

Zimbabwe’s nostalgia for the Dream Information Team of and the 190. Contributors Ndlovu brothers 192. Subscriptions 150. Dan Colasimone, The Grand 193. About The Blizzard Griguol

How El Viejo defi ed accusations of boringness to inspire the golden age of

7 8 Iran

“The alley games are dying out, traffi c and construction eliminating the small, safe places where you could play.” The Vacant Lot

The Vacant Lot The search for a kickabout in Iran is complicated by religion and gender politics

By Gwendolyn Oxenham

Ali has only been in the United States us wanted to go to Iran and got in touch a year but he speaks perfect English. with Luke via Facebook. We never really “Satellite TV — Friends, Chandler, expected to be able to go. We made a Monica — that’s how we all learn few phone calls just to see — just to rule English,” he explains matter-of-factly, it out so we wouldn’t always wonder if we running his hands through long wavy could’ve gone to Iran. The fi rst two tour hair. “Now, onto the football!” He groups that came up after we Googled scribbles Farsi soccer terms and the “Iran +travel+ agency” told us “no” right phonetic equivalents into my notebook. away. They could take us to museums, to “You must look for a dough-lay-year. the Towers of Silence and the Zoroastrian It is a ball special to Iran. Children buy Fire Temple but they could not let us 25c rubber balls from drugstores and rip wander the streets fi lming pick-up them open, stuffi ng them inside each games. For that, we would need a press other so the rubber gets thicker and the visa. Rick Steves — travel writer and TV ball gets heavier.” He draws a picture of personality extraordinaire — barely got a ball next to the word. Then he writes approved for one. There was no way the out a list of phonetic sentences that we Iranian government would give them can use later: “Do you know where we to four kids who’d only made school can fi nd soccer?” “Can I play with you documentaries about ferret-lover clubs guys?” “Is it ok if she plays too?” and college sports teams.

When I tell my mom we’re going to The last company we called wasn’t Iran, she says, “No, you are not.” Luke’s really a company. It was just a guy, an grandma says, “’s a beautiful anthropology professor in country — why don’t you go there?” And who helped people get to Iran because Luke’s aunt tells me over the dinner table, he wanted them to know the country the “You know, over there, they stone women way he did. for adultery. When you try to play, what do you think they will do to you?” Jerry said “sure, sure” and “of course” as I explained our fi lm and what we wanted Three friends and I had come up with to do. “Well, you know,” he sniff ed, “the a plan to travel the world playing and people of Iran love their football.” And fi lming pick-up games and writing about yes, we would have to go with a tour the experience. Luke and I played, Ryan guide, and yes, we had to have a set and Ferg fi lmed. Ali had heard the four of itinerary approved by the government…

9 The Vacant Lot

but one does not always have to follow is stupid, I know, but your country does it the itinerary. “I will call Ahmadreza — he to us, so we must do it to you.” is the head of an Iranian tour company. I will see…” Before we left, I imagined our guide — the man who’d be helping us skirt A month later we land in the Iranian law — as a roguish rule-breaker, Imam Khomeini International Airport. provocative grin and stance. He’d grab Ahmadreza, as it turns out, has a son our bags from the carousel with an who considers himself Manchester authoritative, casual swoop. A buzzed United’s number one fan. A series of head, old faded t-shirt, you’d be able to emails with the subject line “The Sports see right away that he was a player, good Enthusiasts” ended in a visa and the on the fi eld. implicit understanding that these four Americans were coming to look for But the man standing before us, with soccer. There would be the appearance four roses and a clipboard, is thin and of a tour and we would be assigned a rather frail-looking. His shoulders are guide. “Everything depends on who you narrow. He’s wearing a Tommy Hilfi ger get as your guide,” Jerry said. “Not only polo shirt and jeans, and to be honest, must you trust him but he must trust you.” he looks like somebody who’d scare easily. He has wavy brown hair, big Like every other female on the fl ight, I’d green eyes, a big nose, and expensive wrapped my hair in a scarf 15 minutes glasses. I smile at him, feeling guilty for before touchdown. (Ferg and I had my disappointment. He waltzes towards watched How-to-Wear-Hijab videos on us, bent slightly forward, arms crossed YouTube.) Over jeans, I’m wearing a long- in front of his chest, fi ngers grasping the sleeve shirtdress I bought at Target. Ferg sides of his arms. His chin moves side is wearing a fi tted, navy-blue trench coat. to side as he talks, an involuntary no: We feel rather impressed with ourselves “Welcome to Iran. I am Atef.” by how much we’ve managed to look like everyone else. This is important to us Atef leads us over to a man standing on — we always want to belong. the curb. “This will be our driver, Saeed.” Ryan and Luke shake his hand and Ferg Standing in line at customs, I’m nervous. and I wave. Saeed has the kind of face When it’s my turn in front of the glass you trust: grey eyebrows and moustache, booth to face the customs offi cer, I smile brown eyes, bashful smile. He hurries off up at him even though this is exactly to retrieve his taxi and we wave goodbye what I told myself not to do: Persian to the adventure-tour Americans. Then Odysseys, the book I’d read on Iranian Atef asks, “So, what would you like to do customs, said women aren’t supposed while you are here?” to make eye contact with strangers. I quickly look down at my feet… until I study his face, looking for football, for he begins to speak and then I forget some awareness that that is why we again and look right into his surprisingly are here. I’m thinking of the San Fran apologetic face. “I am very sorry but we professor, how he repeatedly urged us must take your fi ngerprints,” he says. “It to follow the unspoken way of doing

10 Gwendolyn Oxenham

things in Iran. Maybe what Atef wants Tehran. It’s a kind of communal dance — is a conversational commitment to an an old woman walks into the centre of itinerary none of us intend to follow. the road and holds up her hand with the “Football,” I say, casually, quickly, lobbing authority of a traffi c cop, cars screeching out the word. to a halt in front of her; motorcycles cant like sailboats in high wind as they zoom “Football?” he says with a half-laugh, a in between the taxis; wide boulevards polite sort of bluff — unsure, it seems, converge upon each other, old Peugeots if the American is making a joke that all going in diff erent directions. Tehran doesn’t translate. has fourteen million people and it feels like they’re all out on the street. Atef knows nothing about the football. Drivers move at the same speed as those Ryan, Ferg, and Luke turn and look at me. on foot and everyone talks to each I am the one who set this up; I am the other, screaming over the loud sounds one whose fault it will be if we spend the of construction. There are tall buildings week inside museums. the same colour as the heavy smog that blocks the view of the Alborz Mountains. “Ahmadreza, Ahmadreza,” I say. “The I stare out at the women who pass by, head of the tour company—he knows some clad in the full chador, some about the football.” wearing skimpy, brightly-colored scarves that seem provocative, accessories to “Ahmadreza? I do not know any brightly-colored faces, rouge streaked Ahmadreza.” across cheeks, thick liner defi ning red lips. I see some of the thinnest, most I pull out the chart of phone numbers aggressively plucked eyebrows I’ve we’d made for ourselves and point to seen in my life. Even more startling are his name, hoping I’m just butchering the bandaged noses that keep passing the pronunciation so badly he can’t by. Luke, keeper of a wide collection recognise it. He shakes his head and of random facts, told me Iran was the looks up at me. “I do not think this nose job capital of the world but I hadn’t person exists.” really believed him. But the bandaged noses, which, according to Luke, are status symbols for the wealthy, are as frequent as the police who plug up the Our taxi is a slime green VW van with big street. I see a female offi cer in a long rectangular windows. There’s great light, robe usher a woman wearing high heels coming in on all sides, refl ecting off the into the back of a green and white squad white vinyl seats. Over the past three car. “That’s the Morality Police,” Atef tells years, the four of us have reversed down us. The Morality Police is the arm of the main highways in Trinidad and , Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which wrecked a taxi in China and hydroplaned patrol the streets, enforcing the Islamic during a violent storm across a mud road code of behavior, cracking down on in the Amazon, but we’ve never seen Western-style clothing and hairdos. But anything like the scene on the streets of the Tehran youth, like youth everywhere,

11 The Vacant Lot

risk the crackdowns, attempting to get knowing this isn’t what we’re after. We away with as much as they can. follow him inside a great brick building.

I brace my knees against the seat in Men, presumably dads, stand in the front of me. Lonely Planet warned that entrance, watching young boys visible signs of Iranian football fever were dribble soccer balls around cones. The almost non-existent — this is because cavernous ceilings echo the sound of the government puts the fi elds behind feet drumming against wooden fl oor. brick walls. So every time we drive by a One of the onlookers — he reminds me wall I sit up very straight and try to see, of Jack Arnold, Kevin’s dad from the annoyed that we might be zooming past Wonder Years — looks at us with interest games, people I’ll never know playing and then speaks to Atef, who does not behind walls I can’t get behind. translate the conversation.

Iranians have a reputation for being the Mr Arnold comes and stands beside me. most courteous people in the world, “My English is no good,” he says shyly, never wanting to disappoint a guest, waving his hands. “But it is an honour to never wanting to tell you no; maybe this have you in our gym.” is why Atef decides he’s willing to let us look for games. It helps that Saeed was “Thank you,” I say, my mind racing with a player. From the driver’s seat he speaks possibility. I struggle to come up with the in fast, enthusiastic Farsi that Atef thinly Farsi word Ali had taught us for pickup. translates: “Saeed grew up playing in the Cringing, knowing my pronunciation will streets. He loves football.” be terrible, I ask, “Do you know where we can fi nd goal-coo-chick?” Saeed tells us that nowadays, the alley games are dying out, traffi c and His head jerks back in surprise. “No, no one construction eliminating the small, safe plays on the street anymore — we scoop places where you could play. Nearly them off the streets and teach them here.” every country we go to we hear this — He says this with a frown, like he’s feeling people frowning, voices thickly nostalgic, a little embarrassed, even though he’s speaking of old ways and games that never been embarrassed of this before. disappear. But there are still fi elds, and He doesn’t like not being able to help us. after 20 years of driving the city, he He stands there, eyebrows furrowed, knows where to fi nd them. trying to think if there is anything he has forgotten. “There is a game — in Southern Tehran, around midnight. Unbelievable stuff , tricks you haven’t seen anywhere.” On the fi rst fi eld he shows us there are some young kids practising. This is not “It is too late,” Atef’s voice says from the kind of soccer we look for but we get behind me. “As your host, I cannot permit out and watch anyway. The boys wear you to go there.” their shorts very high, shirts tucked in, and for some reason this makes them Once Atef has walked away, the man look innocent, swaddled. Saeed frowns, scratches behind his ear and we stand

12 Gwendolyn Oxenham

together in silence. Then he says, “Of It’s a game of teenage boys, same as all the gyms in all the world, I fi nd it any group of teenage boys — a little incredible that you have walked into arrogant, a little thrilled with their ours.” It sounds like Casablanca and gin sudden independence. One kid’s T-shirt joints and fate. I lean my head against has a Star of David stitched next to a the brick wall of the gym and think about swastika. Part of me thinks, holy shit. But that. Probably, I’ll never see him again, the other part of me thinks he’s just a and probably, this meeting changes 14-year-old kid trying to show how cool nothing. I don’t like it when you can only and defi ant he is, not unlike an American know someone for 10 minutes. teenager who stitches an Anarchy patch on his backpack. As we leave the gym, I catch the end of a conversation between Ryan and Ferg and Joining a game is about picking your one of the dads. “You come to my home, moment. You don’t want to go up to I will give you special alcohol,” he tells them when they’re in the middle of them. He glances around and whispers, the action. You wait for a window of “Iran is the largest prison on earth... opportunity — when teams are switching please tell the world.” halves or taking a break or when someone’s just skyrocketed the ball and is now off to chase it. When Luke sees two kids sit down, jiggling their calves Our next stop is a synthetic fi eld in the and gulping down water, he takes off , center of Tehran. Luke doesn’t want me jogging up to the game. He’s learned to play. We’ve been having this fi ght for how to say, “Can I play?” in 15 languages the past two weeks and he continues it but the boys know what he wants now. “They’ve already come to a decision before he asks, grabbing his shoulder, on this,” he says. “Are you going to try introducing themselves, and sticking him change national policy this week?” on a team, all without a word from Luke.

“But they haven’t come to a decision — Ryan fi lms the game, while Ferg fi lms me it’s against the law for women to wear watching the game. They goof around toenail polish, but women still do wear — not great soccer players, just happy toenail polish.” ones. Watching them play, I don’t see any staunch adherence to rules; I don’t think “It’s against the law for you to play — it’s they’d care if I play. illegal.” Luke blasts a shot and the keeper He’s right; it’s against the law. But there’s defl ects it away, right to the feet of a giant fi ssure between the government’s another guy who fi nishes it soundly laws and people’s actions and beliefs, into the back of the net. The guy sprints and not every law is enforced. at Luke, jumping onto his back and celebrating wildly, legs wrapped around A policeman walks up behind us so I Luke’s waist, arms fl ying high in the air. don’t push it and Luke is the only one who tries to get on.

13 The Vacant Lot

When we are back in the van, Luke sits The players — a mix of old and young next to me, loose and relaxed as the — welcome him to the fi eld, their hands smoggy-Tehran air blows in through the waving him forward. He walks half way windows. Iran, for Luke, is a changed out, and says, fl ustered, in English, as place. When you play, you get to know though he’s forgotten they speak Farsi, people in a way that isn’t possible from “Can she play too?” the sideline. His blond hair, damp from eff ort, sticks straight up and his face His question is swallowed by a general is red and sweaty: he’s happy. And in excitement. Men from both teams are this state of happiness, I know he’s less hanging onto Luke’s arm and kids along convinced the world’s going to end if I the sideline are yelling what we’ll fi nd out try to play. later means, “Golden-haired man!”

When we arrive at a fi eld on the He tries again, this time pointing at me: eastern side of Tehran, close to the “Can she play too?” I shuffl e forward. neighborhood Saeed grew up in, I stand next to Luke and say, “I could try to play.” “Yes, yes,” they answer, but I hang back, waiting to make sure they understand. He doesn’t fl inch. “We can ask,” he concedes. An old man wearing a nylon warm-up suit jogs up to me and hands me a green We begin to walk up to the gate but I bib. (Funny how all over the world, in hesitate at the last second and stride as every country we visit, teams are divided fast as I can back up to Atef, who hasn’t with these same silly bibs, little shrunken gotten out of the van, “Do you think it’s jerseys.) I’m nervous putting OK if I ask if I can play?” it on. I pull it over my head, imagining myself accidentally pulling down the “Why are you asking me?” he says, smiling. headscarf and my hair spilling out. So worried about the head hole, I manage to I laugh uncomfortably and stammer, “I overlook the armholes. A man strides over mean, will I off end them if I ask to play?” to me and lifts the bib so that my left arm goes through the appropriate hole. An “Sure you may ask, but I do not know Iranian man just helped me get dressed, I what they will say. Maybe they say no, think to myself as the game begins. maybe they say yes,” he says shrugging, not getting out, as though staying in the The players grew up on neighbouring car might ward off implication. alleys and have played together for 25 years. Everywhere we travel, the Holding onto my hijab, I run to catch up fi eld seems to be the place where with Luke, who is standing outside the people are most themselves, and here, fence. He looks nervous. It’s not easy to on the eastern side of Tehran, this approach strangers in a foreign language. feels especially true. When a man on my team scores a diving header, he When the ball goes out of play, he speaks sprints around the fi eld, mimicking the his learned sentence: “Can I play?” celebrations of the professional players,

14 Gwendolyn Oxenham

pretending he is going to take off his Later that night, while I’m lying in bed in shirt; of course, he doesn’t. He jumps the hotel room, I think about a woman into the arms of a teammate who then in full chador who walked by the fi eld. falls down. I didn’t expect horseplay, I What did she think, seeing me? She was don’t know why not. defi nitely looking — I thought I saw a smile. But maybe I didn’t. Maybe she The Iranians pass the ball to me more was thinking, who does that American than anyone had in any other country. think she is, coming into her country and Even when I make no attempt to put brazenly joining in, breaking the laws that myself in any sort of advantageous prevent her from playing? The chasm position, still, they pass it to me. If they between these two possibilities bothers are scandalized by my presence, they’re me. It feels wrong to play with men when careful not to show it. The old man in it’s not ok for the Iranian women to do the nylon jumpsuit who helped me with the same; it feels like an unfair privilege. I my pinny appears delighted by me, like didn’t want to play just because Iranians I’m the most interesting teammate he’s can’t say no. had since the revolution, as if this game and my presence remind him of the past — a freer past perhaps. I imagine him in the park, playing with his daughters. If The next morning we visit the main he lived in the United States, he’d be the bazaar in the center of Tehran. Beneath kind of dad who did not miss a single a vaulted stone ceiling, as vendors pedal game. He’d be in the bleachers, clapping hand-knotted rugs, designer jeans, until his hands hurt, walking out of the spices, electronics, and copper hookahs, stadium holding his daughter’s shoulder. we follow behind Atef. There are benefi ts He cheers whenever I do something to a guide: he is able to tell us that good, or even when I try and fail to fi nd the electronic sign fl ashing Farsi script him with a pass. He seems to be wanting advertises bridal gowns for sale, and this for me, happy at the chance to see that’s the kind of detail we miss while an exercising of freedom which, in his we’re roaming other countries on our lifetime, had been taken away. own. But I don’t like being led around. I drift as far as possible away from our When the game ends, the players take a guide, out on my own. picture. They don’t ask me to be a part of it. I watch from a few feet away as the In the rug alley, vendors attempt to Iranians wrap their arms around Luke’s seduce us into their shops. Not wanting neck, joking with him, smiling happily to lead anybody on, I leave and lean over for the camera. They’re still kind to me, the railing of the balcony, staring down smiling and nodding in my direction — below at the people drifting through the saying something to me, although Atef open corridor. doesn’t translate. He is rigid along the sideline, arms crossed in front of his A handsome man with wavy hair, brown chest. It’s raining, and he is cold, wet, eyes, and a stubbled face strolls up to and distinctly uncomfortable with our me. In English, he says, “Soccer — it is cameras and my presence on the fi eld. soccer you want, correct?”

15 The Vacant Lot

I nod, my hands rapping against the But the fi rehouse was diff erent for him. ball I’m holding, worried that this will In Iran, Atef had explained, it is an honour somehow end with rugs. to be a fi reman. The majority are former professional athletes who, once past He leans down on the rail, pointing their prime, receive the position as a gift across the way. “There — there is a fi re from the government. So there Atef was, station,” he says, exhaling cigarette hanging out with the gods of his country. smoke. “In the afternoons, they play Huge men, men out of fables. And you until there is a fi re.” He smiles at me. could tell he thought it was cool. “Follow me,” he says, as Atef comes darting up, panicked. Now Atef is walking toward us incredibly slowly, as though he is making giant “You... I always lose you!” decisions over the course of his 25-yard walk, trying to fi gure out what he will tell us and how much he will tell us. He’s got doom on his face. Standing in the opening of the station I’m again a bystander as the fi remen “You have been reported to the talk to Luke. In , this also happened, government,” he says. but while the Italians treated me like the destroyer-of-man-space, the Iranians seem only shy, respectful. They glance briefl y at me before their gazes Atef, Saeed and I sit down together on fl utter away. Luke and the fi remen talk the bench. Atef is clammy, wiped-out. He Champions League and handballs and doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want goals-of-the-century, acting it all out in to ruin this for us. So he just sits with his what looks like an enthusiastic game of legs crossed, biting his fi ngernails as Luke charades, when Atef, who’d been talking and the fi remen begin to play. on the cell phone in the corner, comes walking back toward us. I can see from Firemen are government offi cials so the hang of his face that something in there’s no chance I could play with that phone call has made things change. them but sitting on a bench outside the station, I don’t even feel like trying. Before the call, I’d go as far as to say he Atef’s not sure what happened or why was buoyant; the mixture of indiff erence we got in trouble. It could be because and anxiety that had plagued him since of our cameras; it could be because we’d arrived and inquired about soccer I played. I feel naive, like I may have had momentarily lifted. Atef didn’t like ruined the trip for everyone. We spent soccer, he told us that the fi rst day when US$11,000 we didn’t have in order to he’d crossed his legs like an academic, come here and Atef’s face says we aren’t pushed his glasses up on his nose, and taking our footage with us. Maybe he’s sneered disdainfully at the game. I’d just letting us fi lm now because he thought to myself, “Great, we managed knows we won’t get to keep the tapes to land the one 26 year old in the anyway. Everybody told us not to come country who doesn’t like football.” and we didn’t care. We didn’t believe

16 Gwendolyn Oxenham

them. But I never really understood that his leg, grinning hugely and pointing at we could end up with nothing. Luke as if to say, “Touché.”

I sit on the sideline in the courtyard, The station chief watches the action sipping tea, watching the light bend from the doorway of his offi ce, his thumb down the narrow alleyway, breaking under his chin, his index fi nger against his against a gold mosque. Three lips. Although he has consented to the 1940s-style Mercedes fi re trucks are game, you can tell he’s not a man who parked in a row. A row of lockers line lets things slip by. the wall, red helmets and black jackets with iridescent stripes around the sleeves Luke blasts a shot, which defl ects off a hung onto hooks, boots scattered below. defender’s leg and rockets into the fi re On the other side of the fi eld, men in station window, which shatters loudly. old-fashioned leather jackets lean against We’ve made it to 23 countries without tilted motorcycles, smoking cigarettes, breaking anything and I regret that this eyes tracking the ball. fi rst happens on the property of the Iranian government. I look straight to They are playing with the doliar, the ball the chief to gauge his reaction. I don’t Ali told us about in the very beginning, know what I expected, maybe a frown, when Iran was still a distant dream. It is a fl ash of regret for allowing us to play. purple, tiny, and light, and I only see how I didn’t expect him to be looking back diffi cult it is to control when it is in front of at me, face full of pleasure as he studies Luke. While his touch is normally perfect, the worry on mine. When our eyes meet, he struggles with the mini-balloon. he glances away and walks back into his offi ce with his hands in his pockets, When shots fl y high, they land on clearly unbothered about the window. top of the fi re trucks. The men heave themselves up the ladder with the speed Dusk sneaks in and I know our time is and familiarity of any fi reman, tossing the limited. Our cameras can’t cope with the ball back down to the game. dark and Atef can’t cope with us being out in the dark. I sit on the bench, itching When Luke has the ball, one guy calls for for interviews, but afraid that this will be a pass: “George Bush! George Bush!” too much for Atef.

Luke, startled, sends it him, a smiling “Atef,” I say, my voice meek. “Do guy who is big and bulky, brimming with you think we could do just a couple muscles and jokes. interviews? Just soccer questions?”

The next time the bulky man has the ball, While Ferg fi lms the game and Luke Luke, with the same casual grace with plays, Ryan and I nab one of the guys which he’d serve a through ball, calls out, on the bench and take him to a quiet “Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad.” spot behind the fi re trucks. We ask him nothing about Iran or the United States, Loud, loud laughter sounds across the only what soccer means to him. He’s an fi eld. The bulky guy slaps his hand against animated guy, open and nostalgic; he

17 The Vacant Lot

grew up playing with his brothers, he His eyes dart toward mine as he lets out wants to play forever. As he speaks, Atef a disbelieving laugh and then sits quietly turns to me. “You know, I must tell them as though I have not asked him anything. that the government will be reviewing your tapes.” Finally he says, “We will have to go to the government. They want to see your I nod, knowing this is the end of it. tapes. I fear they will take them.”

Atef walks over to the offi ce. I watch The rest of the drive home Atef stares the chief stand up and wave his hands: out the window. I feel awful about what the international sign to stop. The we’ve put him through. At one point, he game ends. The chief whistles over smiles. “I did not want to be a tour guide the man we’ve been talking to. He’s forever. It is fi ne.” silhouetted from the light of the offi ce and I can see his arms fl ail. He clasps his forehead and talks frantically to Atef. They call Ryan into the offi ce; I Back at the hotel, we are planning to follow. “The man wants you to erase meet Bahram, a friend of Ali. Although the interview tape,” Atef explains. “He meeting him is outside the standard tour fears he will lose his job. A fi reman is a group itinerary, it so pales in comparison government offi cial you know. You are to our illicit soccer games that Atef American. It is not good.” seems fi ne with it, too wasted to protest. He eyes Bahram, as though assessing We erase the tapes, Ryan doing it as whether this is someone who might help quickly as he can, hands fumbling. him control us. As he leans against the reception desk, he seems relieved to On the court, Luke stands in the dark have someone to dish us off on. with the other fi remen, laughing, clasping each other’s arms. None of the Bahram looks like a mad scientist — Iranians speak English and Luke cannot black hair in cottonball-like poofs, wild, speak Farsi but you would never know it. enthusiastic hands, round eyeglasses. This is what the game can do; this is why It is easy to see why Ali and Bahram we’re making our movie. are friends. Both have a strange mix of rocket scientist intelligence and surfer- By now it is dark and Atef’s distress is cool-lax. Both give off the distinct feel of at its peak. In the van, he gets phone happiness: they are keen to see, to hear, call after phone call and we lean over to taste, to live. the seats and listen. We’re so used to listening to languages we can’t Bahram tells us, “Atef told me not to tell understand that we’ve developed a habit you but you’re not going to be allowed of guessing, almost believing we know to fi lm anymore. And he said I’m not what’s being said from the rush of words to let you leave the hotel.” Bahram just and the fl inch of the face. waves his hands, unfazed. I’ll learn that Bahram loves Tehran, the hulking puzzle “What’s happening?” I ask. of a city; and that these occasional

18 Gwendolyn Oxenham

blockades that pop up are nothing more mistake. Atef turned back in the van than small obstacles, annoyances he toward us, “It was not an accident.” manages to skirt, almost enjoying the maze as he navigates the ins and outs When we drove by a mural of the United and shortcuts and ways around. States fl ag, the fi fty-stars replaced with fi fty skulls, we wanted to turn back and He sits down on the couch. “I will make drive by it again so that we could fi lm you a doliar,” he says. “It has been a long this symbol of the tension between our time. To tell the truth, Ali was always the two countries. Saeed would not turn one who made the ball.” back. He spoke in fast, emotional Farsi, and Atef translated, “That mural is not how we feel. If you fi lm that, people will think we do not like America. The Bahram and Ryan head to a drugstore government paints that, not us. And the in search of the twenty-fi ve cent balls men you see who chant ‘Death to the and then to Bahram’s house to make the US,’ they are scooped up from the poor ball. I feel envious of Ryan as I imagine neighbourhoods and paid to chant it — it him inside Bahram’s home, drinking tea is not real. It is not how we feel. Please, with his mother or shaking hands with I beg of you, do not fi lm that sign.” We his father as the rest of us sit inside our didn’t fi lm the sign. sterile hotel rooms. Luke watches an Iranian soccer game on the TV, captivated and impressed. Ferg sorts tapes as she listens to the news. We’d packed double Around 8pm, Bahram and Ryan arrive the number of tapes we thought we’d back at the hotel. Anxious to see beyond need. For the rest of the trip, Ferg stays the tour-guide-approved Iran, we ask up late, making back-up copies in case him where we should eat. It is risky the government takes the originals. to go out, to walk by the man sitting behind the hotel desk, and in retrospect, I lay on the bed, watching the news it seems brash and arrogant to disobey ticker on the bottom of the screen. Atef’s do-not-go-out mandate. But we Every second piece of news is about do go, Bahram dropping us off at his the United States. I am fascinated by favourite restaurant before racing off to the presentation, contrasted to the chemistry cram sessions. “You will like stories American media presents to this place,” he says, waving his frenetic Americans. In the van, while we drove hands and darting off into the night. past murals that said things like “DEATH TO THE USA,” we talked to Atef about The restaurant is a tiny room lit by US/Iran tensions, about all that was at candles. The Italian menu is scrawled the root of it — the oil, the US embassy, onto a chalkboard, and the plates of nuclear energy, Israel. He told us about lasagna and bowls of minestrone are the airplane crash of 1988, when a US passed down a staircase from a woman missile brought down a plane of 290 in a fl oral smock. There are four or fi ve Iranian civilians. We’d heard of this, just tables, occupied by groups of friends, barely, but we understood it as a terrible men with Latin-lover hair and women

19 The Vacant Lot

with red lipstick whose scarves fall women, government security offi cials, lower and lower as the night goes on. are juggling the ball and giggling. I feel In the two weeks before we left, I read like I’m in a surreal version of that Nike Persepolis, Lipstick Jihad and Reading commercial where the Brazil national Lolita in Tehran, books about Iranian lives team does tricks through the terminal. that unfolded away from the streets, in All over the world, from the ghettos of the privacy of home. Seeing these fl ashes Argentina to the border control in Togo, of hair as the women lean forward across the ball has done this. It has the eff ect of the table — they are little glimpses into a cute puppy, people stopping to touch the world I know I will not see. it, to play with it, to smile at you like you are lucky.

As we wait at the gate, a very old woman The next morning, we take off for Yazd, walks toward us, hunched over at the two days ahead of our itinerary. Atef is waist, one foot moving at a time. She anxious to get us out of Tehran. At the comes right up to me and her stoop puts airport, Atef, Luke and Ryan head to her eyes an inch from my own. Breathing men’s security, while Ferg and I branch heavily, she says, “Where are you from?” off to the women’s. We stick our camera bags and the soccer ball on the conveyer “The United States,” I say, my smile unsure. belt, experiencing the familiar airport- security-nerves: will they open our “Ah!” she says, smiling. Grasping my camera bags? Will they see our tapes and hands between hers, she says, “Welcome if they do, will they care? We’ve each got to our country.” several tapes crammed into our pockets as we walk through the screening Welcome to our country. People keep monitor, hoping we won’t beep. A telling us this and it’s no fl imsy welcome- woman in chador summons us through to-our-country, no polite off ering. They and there is no blaring sound of alert like absolutely mean it. the one I hear in my imagination. The conveyer belt spits out both our bags Yazd is in the middle of nowhere. Desert and our ball. I pick up our gear and am stretches out in all directions. Except for starting to feel the relief of having once the slow whistle of the wind towers — again made it through security when the badgirs they are called, and they look offi cer walks up to me and reaches for like bell towers without a bell; they catch the ball. hold of the wind and keep the buildings cool — Yazd is incredibly quiet. A small She spins the ball in her hands and I wait boy, maybe four years old, kicks a ball to hear what we’ve done wrong. She against the wall. Two teenagers, barefoot walks briskly around the side of the x-ray on a motorcycle, draw aimless fi gure machine — and then tosses the ball to eights in the dust. I call out, “Football” the other security guard, who attempts and tap my knuckles against the ball. to trap it with her chador-engulfed thigh. They slow, standing up on the pegs. The They giggle together. Here we are in the kid in an orange t-shirt and MC Hammer Tehran airport, and two fi fty-year-old pants dismounts, grabs two bricks from

20 Gwendolyn Oxenham

the rubble on a nearby lot and begins to embracing my other arm. “Ok, should we make goals. I lean against the wall and go up?” I say, meaning to my room to get watch Luke and the guys play until dark. the tapes. Bahram and his friends look briefl y at each other and start to follow me upstairs until the desk manager surges up from his chair and around It takes seven hours to cover the 300km the counter, face red, head shaking back to Tehran. We listen to music, violently from side to side: “I am sorry. It fi rst Atef’s (“It is western music — it is is impossible. Room, no. I am sorry.” forbidden,” he boasts), and then ours, because Atef tells us, “I want to hear “Sorry,” I say. “So sorry.” I get up from the young American music — my western couch and run up the stairs, taking them songs are from my other guests… two at a time, face burning as I realize the but they are, well, older.” We play our implications. I am an American hussy who favorite, The National, and all fi ve of us just tried to take two men up to my room. are quiet as we listen to the lyrics and watch the small towns, civilizations from After retrieving the tapes, I give them the past, appear on the horizon and over to Bahram, my hands clumsy, guilty. then pass. I’ve never been a troublemaker. I’ve never fl irted with danger. I can still remember As we enter the outskirts of the city, the time I let Tiff any Price copy my sixth all along the grassy banks and sandy grade grammar homework: indescribable medians of the main highway, every 15 panic. So now, here, shanghaiing my yards or so, there are families, eating new Iranian friend, planning subterfuge, cheese and sitting on blankets with legs I am jumpy. I feel like a drug smuggler. I folded beneath them. “On Fridays, we worry that the man behind the desk will take our picnics,” Atef explains. We pass report us. I imagine two men banging at one family after another. The sun is 5pm Bahram’s front door, raiding his home, soft and the city feels calm. I hang onto tearing at his stacks of chemistry papers, this calm, even as my mind starts moving in search of contraband. toward tomorrow, toward our meeting with the Iranian government. Bahram stuff s the tapes into his satchel and we bow awkwardly towards each other, That night I meet Bahram and his friend standing on the steps of the entrance. Ferg in the lobby of our hotel. Ferg has stayed comes down the stairs as they are about to up the past three nights, setting her leave and without thinking, reaches toward alarm to go off every hour, dubbing tape Bahram for a hug. He looks miserably after tape — our plan is to leave a copy uncomfortable with his head smushed of the footage here in Iran in case the against her chest. “Uh, I’m sorry,” he says, government takes the originals. “but this is illegal in our country.” Red patches creep up Ferg’s neck. “Hi,” I say as I reach for my new friend’s hand and then stop, hand freezing mid- “Tell Ali I say hello — and to come back air as I remember the no-touching policy to Iran,” Bahram calls out as he heads in Iran. I sway awkwardly, hand now down the street with our dubs.

21 The Vacant Lot

Bahram gone, the desk manager stops “How have you liked your time in Iran?” us before we could get upstairs. He says, Ahmadreza continues. “There is a fi eld — a few streets away. They play late into the night — 1 or 2am.” Luke, Ryan and Ferg speak up, helping me gush. We talk about the civilizations I’m moved by this but also confused. scattered across the desert, stuff out of Does he know what we are doing? That the imagination. About the dolmas Atef’s we are fi lming soccer? We won’t go out mother made for us and the beautiful and play tonight — there’s too much at arches and sideways light of Yazd. Then risk — but his willingness to let us go we are out of chatter and wait to see makes it clear that he has no plans to what’s going to happen to us. turn us in. Like everyone else, he just wants to help. “It was a misunderstanding,” Ahmadreza says. “Thank you,” I say. He shakes hands and walks out of the Later, Luke and I sit in the lobby with the offi ce. Soon we are exiting the building, man from behind the desk and the two silent and hesitantly excited, walking fast guys who wait the tables at breakfast, down the tree-lined boulevards until we watching Barcelona play Real Madrid. are far enough away from the offi ce to feel safe enough to ask, “Atef, was that it?”

He smiles his fi rst big smile all week — Packing our tapes the next morning we we can see his gums — and says, “That eat fl atbread and prep each other on was it. We shall go for ice cream.” what to say. “We are twenty-something- year-olds, making a small college documentary; we want to show our pictures of Iran to our friends.” Two days earlier, while we sat in an internet café, I received an email from a friend An hour later, we enter the tour agency of a friend of a friend, an Iranian woman offi ce. Old posters of China and India are named Niloofar who used to play for the tacked to the walls. “Who is Gwendolyn?” national team. I’d emailed her on the off asks a man sitting in the corner desk. chance she could meet us for a game.

I raise my hand. “So you are the one I We are licking nutmeg ice cream when I have been emailing with,” he says. “I am bring it up to Atef, hopeful that because Ahmadreza.” Ahmadreza. The head of the meeting — the review of tapes, the tour company that Atef professed no the assessment of the Americans — knowledge of. passed without incident, he will be okay with this idea. But when he nods I look to Atef. his head and says, “All right,” it is more like we have just broken him down so “Ah, Ahmadreza… I knew only his last completely he can no longer muster name.” any resistance.

22 Gwendolyn Oxenham

The fi eld where Niloofar asks us to I worry we won’t be able to talk to them meet her, the last we’ll see in Iran, is an at all. elevated chunk of Tehran with a hazy skyline backdrop. We arrive before Atef is disapproving and miserable as Niloofar and climb up on a wall with he translates our questions, saying, “OK, a vantage point of all of Tehran. Three is that all?” after every question. We young guys stand nonchalantly on the learn that Niloofar got her moves from overhang, hands in their pockets, backs watching YouTube videos of ; to the city, ignoring the straight drop that her favourite player is David behind them. Beckham; that she grew up playing in the streets with her brothers; that all she Ferg spots two women approaching, wants is to play. one carrying a ball in her arms. Across the square, we smile at each other. Niloofar has green eyes, long eyelashes and boyish mannerisms (a wide stance, When the men fi nish their game, we take hand fi ddling with her wristwatch). over the fi eld. The guys linger outside the Her friend is stunning: bright purple chainlink fence and watch. headscarf, highly arched eyebrows, delicate cheekbones, bright red lipstick, “We must wait until they go away,” long manicured fi ngernails. “This is my Niloofar says as we make a goal out of best friend,” Niloofar says of the woman shopping bags. No matter how slow we whose features are so striking it’s like go, the men will not leave, so Niloofar her face breaks the rules. And it does — explains that we will pretend to leave. We the plucked eyebrows, the bronzer, the exit the fi eld as though we have decided lipstick, the purple hijab worn far enough not to play after all and wait around the back to reveal a few inches of shiny hair corner until the men disappear. Then we — none of it is allowed. head back onto the fi eld.

“Will you play?” I ask. The women undo their manteaus but the fi eld owner comes out, shaking his head Niloofar laughs and translates, and the and fi nger. They re-button their manteaus woman in purple shakes her fi nger. “She reluctantly. I didn’t really think they would likes to watch,” Niloofar says. be good. Two of them played on the Iranian national team but in a country where As two other girls approach, Atef stands women’s soccer seems barely allowed, I 15 yards away, his arms around his didn’t think that would mean much. binder. There are still men playing on the But, again, I’m wrong. They juggle the fi eld and I know we won’t have much ball without spin; they go for the meg; time so I ask to start the interviews right they send through-balls. Every touch is away. It’s reverse order — normally clean. One way or another, they’ve found we play and then talk, and once we’ve a way to not only play but to play well. played, the word “interview” doesn’t feel right. You’re just talking to another When the game ends, it begins to pour, player. But if we wait until after the game, lightning bolts sharp and dramatic across

23 The Vacant Lot

the top of Tehran. We hug goodbye and plane and the women begin removing exchange email addresses. In the van, their hijabs as they walk down the aisle, Atef asks if I had a good time. hair spilling out over shoulders.

“Yes,” I answer, grateful. “Thank you so 15 hours later, we pick up our bags and much.” head for United States customs.

“I would’ve been too nervous and ruined Reaching the front of the line, the your fun,” he says shrugging, smiling security guy looks down at our passports bashfully. “So I waited here.” and our tickets and makes a choking sound. “Iran?” he says. “Why in hell would you want to go there?”

Our fi nal morning, we pack our “Tourism?” Ryan says. belongings, spreading the tapes between us, stuffi ng them in underwear, side He snorts: “Go to line six.” pockets and the insides of running shoes. We drift through security. I am pent-up So we walk to line six to join dark- with nerves as I watch careful inspections skinned people with darker beards of bags, but no one examines the inside waiting for American offi cials to press of ours. An hour later, we board our their fi ngers against glass.

24

Confl ict Management

Confl ict Management Dan Gaspar is a key part of Iran’s qualifying campaign for Brazil 2014 despite holding a US passport

By Noah Davies

When Dan Gaspar walked out into the but for the way the rest of the world massive bowl of Tehran’s views them,” the 57 year old explained. on 16 October 2012, he was greeted “Football results are very important for by the roar of 100,000 Iranian fans. An them. The more successful the national athletics track separated the national team is, the prouder they become.” A team’s goalkeeping coach from the win over South Korea would have taken stands but the eight lanes did nothing Iran level on points with South Korea to prevent the noise from assaulting at the top of their qualifying group at his ears. When he stole a glance into the halfway stage of Asian qualifying, the chaotic mass that surrounded him with top two teams advancing to the on all sides, he saw tri-coloured fl ags World Cup, and the third-place fi nisher everywhere. The Iranian men were out meeting the corresponding side from in force for the crucial 2014 World Cup the other group to determine who qualifi er against South Korea. They would make the play-off against a always came out in force. qualifi er from .

In 20 years as a coach, Gaspar had found Getting to Brazil 2014 means everything himself in the middle of passionate to the Iranian people. Gaspar was in fan-bases from to . Tehran to help achieve that goal. He But this was something else entirely. joined the Iranian staff when his mentor, The football fi eld represents one of the , took the job of head few places—perhaps the only space— in coach in April 2011. In some ways, it was which Iranians can express their emotions just another gig on the endless cycle of in public. “It’s more than a game for them,” international appointments — except that he said. “It’s an event. It’s an opportunity Gaspar was born in South Glastonbury, for them to express themselves freely, Connecticut, a little more than 120 to sing and chant in unison in a spirited miles from New York City. He holds a US way. I think for them that is extremely passport in addition to his Portuguese one. important. It’s at the football stadium that they are allowed to behave and express But Gaspar is not the only Iranian themselves in that manner.” national team coach in recent history with a strong tie to the United States. But football’s signifi cance goes beyond His fellow assistant, Omid Namazi, was that. “The game is extremely important born in Provo, Utah. Although Namazi’s for the Iranian people, not only here family returned to Tehran soon after his

26 Noah Davies

birth, he moved back to the US when he Namazi, a former defender who was was 18, went to college at West Virginia coaching at Semnan’s Steel Azin before University, and had a long career with joining Queiroz’s staff , agrees. “Tehran is a teams around the country between metropolitan city with a large population,” 1988 and 2005. Afshin Ghotbi, the man he said. “Unlike the perception in some Queiroz replaced at the head of the Iran of the US, it’s safe to live here. I have had team, was born in Tehran but left with no issues whatsoever. I have continued his father in 1977 and emigrated to the to work during the day and do some site- US. He lived in and attended seeing when I’m not working. It’s been the University of , Los Angeles fi ne living here,” he said. “People here where he played for the Bruins and view the US as a country where people earned a degree in electrical engineering are given an opportunity to grow. It’s a before embarking on a coaching career positive image.” that has taken him around the globe. The tense relations between the two Despite the tensions between the two nations do create the occasional countries and sanctions that have logistical diffi culty. From 2004 to 2007, been in place since 1979, holding a US Ghotbi served as an assistant coach passport does not preclude a coach from with South Korea. They had to play an working for the national team or club Asian Cup qualifying match in Iran, but teams. That shouldn’t be surprising, a the coach could not enter the country spokeswoman at the Iranian consulate because he only had his US passport. in New York explained. No one there The fact that he was born in Iran was not would talk specifi cally about football in enough to gain him entry. Iran, but she was quick to note that the confl ict is between the governments, not Having a second, non-US passport seems the people. Iran’s general population, a requirement for employment as a coach especially the younger generation with the national team. As Gaspar shows, living in Tehran, is more open, liberal, it doesn’t have to be an Iranian one, but and accepting than the western world it’s highly unlikely that someone like the realises. So is the city itself. New Jersey-born and bred Bob Bradley, the former US national team coach who is “It’s a strange thing. We live in a country currently in charge of Egypt, would land a that we know is being suppressed by job in Iran. “Being Iranian or Iranian-born sanctions, but I don’t have that sense made it easier,” Ghotbi said, an opinion of fear. I feel safe. I feel welcomed. I shared by Gaspar. “My sense is that feel respected,” Gaspar said. “If I wasn’t would be a tremendous challenge for the listening to CNN or BBC, I would have federation to try to sell.” no idea of the perception that Iran has throughout the world. Maybe we are That said, the US passport in his pocket isolated from that as a result of being didn’t prevent Ghotbi from landing football professionals, and perhaps we’re the job, nor did it stop Gaspar and not exposed to that type of political Namazi from being part of the staff that climate, but I’ve had no issues being a replaced him. But those ties to the US Portuguese-American.” are probably not part of a larger trend. “I

27 Confl ict Management

think it’s a coincidence,” Namazi said. “I Sometimes, however, the country’s don’t read too much into it. Obviously, tinderbox politics intervene. That was there have been a lot of people who the case in 2009 after Ghotbi replaced have immigrated to the US at some point , the team’s all-time leading in their lives. Maybe that’s the reason why goalscorer and winner who moved there is a higher percentage of Iranian- into coaching after retiring in 2007. Americans who have come back and With three matches remaining in the tried to coach. But the next technical fi nal round of AFC 2010 World Cup staff could be all from Brazil. It just has qualifying, Iran needed strong results to to be now that there is a staff that has clinch a berth in South Africa. They had experience coaching in the US.” three games in 11 days, away to and South Korea with a home And he’s probably correct. At the end game against the of the day, Namazi and men like him sandwiched in the middle. Ghotbi, bounce around the globe, looking for who had taken over the team just 30 jobs. They simply hope to do what days before, led the squad to a draw in they are hired to do: coach. “I have no and a win in Tehran. A victory political agenda,” Gaspar explained. “As a in Seoul on June 17 would have ensured result of my profession, I consider myself qualifi cation. The manager needed his a global citizen. It’s allowed me to open troops to focus. But that wasn’t possible. my mind. It’s allowed me to experience On June 12, the Iranian people voted diff erent cultures. I think that’s a valuable, in presidential elections. Mahmoud valuable experience. More Americans Ahmadinejad won easily, but irregularities should do it. It also allows us to triggered protests in the country and appreciate where we come from, but at worldwide. It was far from an ideal the same time understand that there are environment in which to prepare a team traditions, cultures, and things that you for a vital match. can be enlightened by.” There football goes again, perhaps not explaining the “There were images on BBC and CNN world entirely, but certainly helping us of people being shot, things being understand bits and pieces of this planet burned, and rocks being thrown. It was a little bit better. really a diffi cult game to get everyone’s concentration,” Ghotbi said. “Without my And, at its core, coaching is coaching knowledge, some players were wearing is coaching, whether it’s in the United the green band [of protest] and some States, Iran, or elsewhere. The job players didn’t have the green band. That remains the same all over the planet: game became a diffi cult game to win get the most out of your players and even before it started. We gave up a goal win. Queiroz, Gaspar, and Namazi have in the 81st minute, and it was a 1-1 draw.” a diffi cult task since the quality of the Hours later, a draw between North Korea Iranian league is not the best in the and eliminated Iran. region, but the national team does have talent, including many players from Ghotbi stayed on — “I decided that maybe Persepolis and Esteghlal, the two biggest the only thing that could really keep the clubs in the football-mad nation. peace and at the same time give people

28 Noah Davies

hope was football,” he said — but resigned October. The crowd passionately and after falling in the quarter-fi nals of the openly demanded a result. A defeat 2011 Asian Cup. It was Queiroz’s turn at home to South Korea wouldn’t to try to return the national team to the have eliminated Iran from World Cup World Cup, a tournament for which it has contention, but it would have been qualifi ed three times (most recently in unacceptable in the eyes of the 2006, although their most famous result 100,000 strong. was the 2-1 win over the USA in 1998). Before kick-off , they chanted, they Gaspar and Namazi signed on for the sang, they screamed. They expressed challenge, a journey that started well as themselves. They kept up the noise the team fi nished fi rst in the third round throughout the scoreless fi rst 45 minutes, and was drawn in the easier quintet for as the head coach and his assistants the fi nal stage of qualifi cation, favourites searched for a way through South Korea’s with South Korea to advance from stout defensive wall. Then, after the break, Group A, which also included , disaster. The Osasuna midfi elder Masoud , and Uzbekistan. They began Soleimani Shojaei, one of the few Iranians the campaign with a 1-0 victory over playing out of the country, picked up Uzbekistan and a scoreless draw with a yellow card in the 48th minute, then Qatar in Tehran. A 1-0 loss to Lebanon, a second one eight minutes later. The Iran’s fi rst ever to the tiny country, was a crowd exploded in protest and despair. major set-back. “That was a bitter defeat, Iran, a man down, looked through. But one that we weren’t expecting,” Gaspar Iran, spurred no doubt by the thousands said. “Now we’ll see what the true football of supporters, found a goal. Their fan of Iran is made of. When you’re faced captain , a 32-year- with this type of a result, we’re curious to old midfi elder for Esteghlal, picked up a see how the people will respond. Up to defl ected free-kick and slotted it home this point, it’s been a great honeymoon. with a quarter of an hour remaining. The We haven’t lost. We’ve been through the fans were still in a state of ecstasy when qualifi cation phases successfully. Now the fi nal whistle blew on a 1-0 win. The it’s a test to see if we can stay united. The coaches would coach another day. press has been very critical.” Drama doesn’t care about international borders. As Gaspar, Namazi and others That was the stage as the coach walked around the world are showing, into Azadi Stadium in the middle of neither, frequently, does football.

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Registered as a Charity in England and (No 211015) and in (SC037789). Also registered in Isle of Man (No 945) Jersey (NPO 369) and serving Northern . 31 Interview

“The church has chosen Rome as its capital city, and so did Boniek, because he knew the church knows what is right.” Zbigniew Boniek

Zbigniew Boniek The Polish great discusses Juventus, the modern game and his friendship with Michel Platini

By Maciej Iwanski

Zbigniew Boniek is probably the television, and has always been a great greatest player in the history of Polish talker. Sat behind a wooden table in his football. He scored 24 goals in 80 offi ce, he showed just why he matches for the national side, was is loved by many and hated by some, the leader of the team that fi nished off ering a string of clear opinions and third at the World Cup in 1982 and brave ideas. had a successful career with Widzew Łódź, Juventus, with whom he won the Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1984 and the European Cup a year later, and Roma. Do you regret the fact that you played Elected chairman of the Polish Football in the eighties, without the fame or the Federation (PZPN) last year, he now money you’d have made today? faces his biggest challenge: despite hosting Euro 2012, Polish football has Not at all. Those were good times for never been lower. football and the quality was high. Of course the intensity of the attention Fans who loved him and those angered from media and fans is much higher now by the on-going problems in the and the money is better, but I don’t like Polish game united to support Boniek to regret anything in my life. If I was a in his election campaign, abusing the player now, I wouldn’t have lived in those incumbent president with fantastic times… chants at league games and matches of the national team. Boniek’s new What was so fantastic about living era involves creating a new system of then? coaching from the age of six upwards and modernising the management Everything. Communication between structure of Polish football. At home, people was much better. Despite not he has been described as the man who having cell phones, or even telephones ended the era of Communism in Polish at all, and the internet — or maybe football after dismissing a number of because of it. If you wanted to play offi cials who had served under the old football as a kid, you’d have to be at a political system. certain place, at a certain time. 3pm at the fi eld and that’s it. Everybody came. Boniek has also worked for many The way of life was much quieter. years as a pundit on Italian and Polish I don’t intend to sound like an old

32 Maciej Iwanski

man — the present is great, too. But your name like Messi and Ronaldo… those times were very diff erent. If you wanted to date a girl, you had to talk Both of them are fi ne players, out of to her, take her for a walk and so on. the top drawer, that’s certain. But I tell Now you just send an SMS. The world you something — I haven’t seen a single has changed a lot. But it’s OK for me. I game in which Messi has been marked like my life and if I were young again it individually. Somebody comes to him might look totally diff erent. In football when he gets the ball. It would be the and in life now, everything needs to opposite in my time. He would have be faster and simpler. Some changes 50% fewer passes. He wouldn’t have the have made the game better — like the opportunity to play between the lines. goalkeeper being unable to handle a ball [Claudio] Gentile wouldn’t even have let passed back to him. Other things are him smell the ball. tough — my manager listened to me, not the opposite. Maradona or Messi?

You played your best matches in the You can’t compare: the football was too evening under fl oodlights. The Juventus diff erent. But if you were really good in president Giovani Agnelli even called you the eighties, life on the pitch was much ‘Bello di Notte’ because you played so harder. You were fouled many times well at night. If you played today, you’d and not protected by the referees. A play even more games under lights, so tackle from behind when you were eye- would you be rated even more highly? to-eye with the goalkeeper meant… a yellow card. The defenders were brutal. It’s not like I’ve played my best games Coming back to this marketing machine, in the night. It’s just I never played badly it can produce so-called “great then. I’ve had good games at diff erent players”. Men in green and orange and times of the day. If you’d been to my pink — whatever — shoes. Mine were home in Rome, you’d see four statues personalised and always black with a of Top Undi — the prize for best players white sole. Some of players are described in Serie A in certain positions. I played as giants and they are earning huge six years in Italy and have four statues. money, but they aren’t worth it. Why? Would you like to know what time Serie They didn’t win games by themselves, A matches were played in those days? haven’t scored goals that gave their 3pm. Bello di notte came from my club or country the title and yet they are perfect performances in Europe. That’s regarded as world-class stars. not humble, but take a quick look at the facts: with Juve I played in four fi nals and Such as? we won three of them, scoring fi ve goals. Of those fi ve goals, I scored three and No names, let’s not make a big noise in a fourth came when I was fouled in the Europe, especially not when Poland are penalty box. playing England this year [laughs]. But I tell you something: the players in the Now, you’d have a big marketing dressing-room know who’s good and machine behind you, adding value to who’s not.

33 Zbigniew Boniek

What was it like in the Juventus Everybody. And that’s not just talk. In dressing-room? Who was the boss — four years, we only lost to , by Platini or Boniek? chance. I see no team capable of beating us in the modern era. If we were at the It looked very diff erent to how it looks same physical level, of course. now. We had eleven players, four used regularly as substitutes and the next How did it happen that a young player four were young and talented. Almost from Poland came to sign for Juventus? every team was like this. It meant that the team was pretty much the same all I knew how to play football. I wasn’t just year. Try to ask Inter, Juve or Roma fans fast, I was also technically advanced and who played for their clubs in the eighties. skilful. You can’t play for four years for They will answer easily. And now? It the best team in the world and not be was also much easier to manage for the really good. Deyna, Lato, Tomaszewski, coach, there were no problems with Łubanski were allowed to leave Poland big names not playing as happens now. at 30 years old for free, as a reward. I Everybody knows the Juve of 1982, and started talking about going abroad when now nobody knows who’s in the attack I was 22, so by the time I was 26 the line — Matri and Vučinić, Quagliarella and Communist authorities knew they had Vučinić or Giovinco? Diff erent problem: to do something about it and let me you can see sometimes that the players go earlier. When I was 23 I had people are fi ghting for their place in the team so from great clubs trying to convince me much that there is a lack of power when I should go on holiday and never come the game comes! We pushed against our back, be disqualifi ed and leave Poland rivals, not ourselves. illegally... I wanted somebody to pay for me, to make it offi cial. I could have gone And about your question — of course earlier to England or . Don’t ask inside the teams there were groups. the names of these clubs; I won’t tell. It Some people were friends and some doesn’t matter now. were not, of course. And with Michel, we are still friends now. We have been Swapping Communist Poland for Italy connected for 28 years. For me, and I’m must have been like going to the moon? pretty sure Michel would say the same, we are real friends. Not because he’s Not at all. I’d played for my country, Uefa President and I’m PZPN president a couple of times for a World now. We completed each other in the representative team in exhibition meaning of character, in football, etc. matches, European matches with And our wives like each other very much, Widzew. That prepared me. I always which helped a lot [laughs]. Seriously liked to have a strategy, but I couldn’t one more thing, Juve could buy only two have thought 10 years ago that I would foreigners, so it was natural for us [as the become PZPN chairman. I matured into two foreigners] to be close. this function.

Juventus from the eighties would Retiring from football was part of the today win against… plan?

34 Maciej Iwanski

When I said fi nito I had 25 clubs at home families of the victims. I must tell you one talking about contracts worth $500,000. thing. If that game had been played at But I didn’t want to play only for the 20:30 we would have won two- or three- money. It was better to start a new life. nil, three-one maybe... We won after the I stayed in Rome. My kids were going to penalty, that probably wasn’t a penalty school there and we had a Polish Pope. because Whelan and I were so fast, the And thanks to that decision I have Italian referee couldn’t follow us and saw me citizenship now. I see life this way: try down in the box. These memories are to be comfortable, take care of yourself hard for the players also, the dogs all and your family and make it as easy as around, the atmosphere. What happened possible. The church has chosen Rome that night around the pitch was a as its capital city, and so did Boniek, nightmare. It shouldn’t have happened… because he knew the church knows what is right [laughs]. An investigation by Europol said over 380 matches might have been fi xed in Looking at your life, it’s like you Europe. What do you think of that? had the Midas touch — playing days, business later and now you’re head of 380? Not much. Polish football. Yet you failed as Poland national team coach… Really?

Everything I did I always tried to do as I read that article to analyse it. If this were well as possible. I thought that the coach true, these players would have had to determines whether the team believes sell the match for around €1500. Can in him. No. The players decide whether anybody believe that? I’m not saying it the coach is good or not. Players win the didn’t happen; I’m saying it looks weird. matches; the coach can only sometimes But dishonest people are everywhere and lose the match. I did not resign from corruption is like doping. You have to coaching Poland after fi ve matches for fi ght it, knowing that you won’t probably professional reasons. It was 10 years ago. win this fi ght. The danger is elsewhere. End of story. First of all, doping is done by private money and is always a step ahead of Speaking about tough experiences, anti-doping, fi nanced by public money. what should have been your greatest The way I see it, the main threat is night, the Heysel fi nal, became the worst. diff erent. Nobody wants to buy matches now. But you can go on the internet, It wasn’t only a horrible tragedy for these put some money on a certain result and people [who died] and their families, it be dishonest this way. Take four of the was also terrible for us. Yes, we had to team, they bet their money and lose the go out and play. But the world wants match… The opponent cannot know to forget that night. I want to forget about it. The referee can bet also and the it somehow… it was defi nitely the eff ects can be horrible. worst moment of my career. I thought taking the winner’s money would be You are the face of one of the betting inappropriate, so I donated it all to the companies in their commercials…

35 Zbigniew Boniek

Yes, but they are on the good side. Why? If you lay a carpet on cement and It’s easy. It’s the betting company can see start crying it will also be very wet. if too much money is put on a certain Somebody didn’t prepare the pitch and match. And they’ll inform the police that that’s it. something seems not to be right because it’s them who’ll lose their money. Michel Platini could stand against in the elections for Fifa Has anybody ever tried to bribe you? President. Would you vote for him?

Speaking about it after 30 years makes Michel Platini is my friend. No matter no sense for me, but I must tell you what the vote would concern, he always something. I never wanted to play unfairly. starts with one vote from Boniek. Once at Juve we played the last match of the season in Cagliari and if they lost they Will he try to be football’s most were relegated. We won 2-1. That tells powerful person? everything. I played football to win. If I were Uefa president, I’d be totally And now you try to change Polish satisfi ed with it. Fifa is a diff erent world, football for the better. diff erent people, diff erent continents… But I think Michel doesn’t support my We’ve changed a lot. Really a lot and point of view. I don’t know what his plans will keep on working so the basics and are at the moment but I can assure you organisation of Polish football are much that wherever in the world of football better than in the past. Platini comes up for a vote, I’m sure he will get the credit for everything Have the problems at the National that he has achieved so far. He knows Stadium in Warsaw been solved, or and understands football and that’s might it lose the battle with rain again? absolutely what’s needed.

36 37 For the Good of the Game

“Prostitutes outnumbered delegates while a Filipino rock band fi lled the place with ugly noise.” The Only Way is Ethics

The Only Way is Ethics Fifa’s super-cop Michael J Garcia explains his mission to wash the corruption out of football

By Philippe Auclair

“The FIFA Executive Committee, be the fi rst targets of a truly independent chaired by President Joseph S exploration of Fifa’s darker side, of which Blatter, took another major step in its new recesses seemed to be discovered good governance process today by at every turn. The past two years had unanimously appointing Michael J been a tumult of scandals. Two ExCo Garcia (USA) and Hans-Joachim Eckert members — Amos Adamu and Reynald () as the chairmen of the Ethics Temarii — had already been suspended Committee during its extraordinary from all football activities following meeting held in Zurich.” a sting operation mounted by the Sunday Times. The Qatari Mohammed This statement, published on Fifa’s bin Hammam, head of the Asian website on 17 July 2012, was not Football Confederation and would-be greeted with wild enthusiasm by what opponent of Sepp Blatter in the 2011 the organisation likes to call ‘the family Fifa presidential election, chose to retire of football’. Reactions ranged from from football altogether after failing to moderate optimism (mostly in Zurich) fi ght off a series of bribery, fraud and to scepticism and even derision (almost embezzlement allegations. Accusations everywhere else). How could a tainted of vote-rigging, collusion and corruption offi cial body be expected to fear had preceded and followed the granting investigations led by people of its own of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to choosing? A number of those members and Qatar in December 2010. of the Executive Committee who had The old business of the ISL debacle1 “unanimously appointed” Garcia and lagged on, interminably, with no Eckert had good reason to believe they’d resolution in sight.

1 The Swiss marketing company International Sport and Leisure — ISL — went bankrupt with debts of £153m in 2001. Court documents released in 2012 showed that the former Fifa president João Havelange and the former president of the Brazilian football federation and Fifa ExCo member Ricardo Teixeira, who now lives in exile in Miami, had received over US$40m in bribes and kickbacks. Swiss law, however, made no provisions for bribes of that kind in its criminal code, which explains why neither was prosecuted in civil courts; they (and others, including the CAF and Conmebol presidents Issa Hayatou and Nicolás Leoz) could, however, still be subjected to investigation and, if found guilty, punishment by Fifa’s newly established Ethics Committee.

38 Philippe Auclair

This is the landscape which Fifa’s ‘super- conviction of some in the US that Garcia cop’ Michael J Garcia discovered in July was in bed with the outgoing Bush 2012, an unholy tangle of corporate administration, a slick politician who’d dysfunctionality and plain human served the neo-con agenda in order to wickedness. He must have known, even further his own ambitions. then, that very few people expected him to be able or willing to pick up It should be added that Garcia is one of the threads that could lead to the 18 American citizens who, since April unravelling of a rotten web. His integrity 13 of this year, have been banned from was questioned for no other reason entering the territory of the Russian than the belief that, to take on this Federation for alleged (and rather impossible mission, he had to accept unclear) “human rights violations”. he would not complete it. Eckert was This was a direct response from the the requisite safe pair of hands, a man Russian authorities to the publication with three decades of experience in of the so-called ‘Magnitsky list’ in the German tribunals, the current Presiding USA, which named 18 Russian citizens Judge of the Penal Court, Munich I, to suspected of having played a role in give him his full title. Garcia was a far the mysterious death of the lawyer and more controversial fi gure. He’d made fraud investigator Sergei Magnitsky in a his name as a federal prosecutor with prison in 2009. Garcia had been the Offi ce of the US Attorney for the targeted by the Russians for the part he Southern District of New York from 1992 played in the successful prosecution and to 2001, taking care of “high-profi le conviction of the Russian arms dealer cases, involving national security and Viktor Bout, who is currently serving a complex extraterritorial issues, including 25-year jail term for “conspiring to sell the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World weapons to a US-designated foreign Trade Center and the 1998 bombing of terrorist group” — the Colombian FARC, US embassies in East Africa”, to quote in this instance. from the résumé that is provided by Kirkland, the legal fi rm of which he is Not what you’d call a lightweight, then. now a partner. He’d also been “Vice- But could he be trusted to devote the President of the Americas for Interpol same kind of energy to fl ush out the and [...] served on Interpol’s Executive slurry from within Fifa, when Fifa itself Committee, the body charged with had cherry-picked him — and was overseeing the budget and strategic footing his wage-bill? direction of the organisation”. The former US General Attorney (2005- Setting up this interview, which is 2008) had been the architect of the published here in full and in the original dramatic fall of Eliot Spitzer, who was English for the fi rst time, was a time- seen as a genuine contender for the consuming or, as Garcia would put it, US presidency in Democrat circles and “time-intensive” task. He is easy enough resigned from his post of Governor of to get in touch with. His personal email New York State in 2008 after a vicious address can be found on the Kirkland battle conducted in the media as well website, together with his offi ce’s direct as in the courts, which hardened the line number. Should you wish to share

39 The Only Way is Ethics

any information about ISL, Russia quickfi re yet unhurried. For two and a 2018, Qatar 2022, or any other matter half hours we listened to him, and this is which touches on violations of Fifa’s what we heard. Ethics Code, you know where to go. But, apart from a brief appearance on German television in the summer of 2012, Garcia had politely declined How would you defi ne your role and all the media requests that had come the exact nature of your mission? his way since his nomination — until he agreed to have lunch with us in My role is clearly defi ned. I’ve got to a Zurich restaurant. In this case, the investigate the conduct of football game-changer was the publication by people and see if it violates or has Football, on 29 January 2013, violated the [Fifa] governance codes — of a dossier which dealt in great detail now or at the time when the violations with the particulars of the choice of would have taken place. Qatar as a World Cup host nation for the 2022 tournament. Garcia had the whole Where have you got to with your dossier translated, found some of it of inquiry into the ISL aff air? interest, consented to a meeting on the basis (or so we felt) that we — that is If we’re talking about ISL, that’s my colleague Eric Champel and myself slightly diff erent. That’s something — would tell him viva voce more about that landed on my desk the day that I the information we’d gathered, and took up my position. I’ve got to look how, and from whom, than we could into the dismissal order of the criminal print; in exchange for which we hoped investigation on Fifa, Teixeira and he’d speak to us on the record. ‘Hoped’, Havelange and make a report. I’ve got to not ‘knew’, or ‘expected’, which might take that in it as I’d take in whatever else explain why it was with some trepidation that might raise the question: “Have there that we sat down and waited for our been violations in the conduct of these guest. He was fl ying direct that morning people?” I have to follow the normal from the USA, which was hit by a bout process and report to Judge Eckert, of cold weather. To our horror, it was who’s the chair of the adjudication so severe that a number of airports and chamber; according to the parameters all government offi ces in Washington of the code. I’ll go to him, he’ll read my DC were shut down; the CNN domestic report and take his decisions. I’ll follow news bulletins I watched throughout the process in this case, while obviously a sleepless night seemed to consist informing the Executive Committee of entirely of reports by snow-choked what I’m doing. I’ve spent a lot of time journalists whose overcoats were lately looking at the facts to see what fl apping in a howling wind. Would he happened. Who’s involved? Have there turn up? But at 12:30 on the dot, just as been violations? There are many other the bells of a nearby church rang, Garcia public cases under investigation, like the walked in, dressed like an up-dated, one on the [vote for the 2018 and 2022] upmarket version of Frankie Valli. The World Cups, which has been referred to handshake was warm, the conversation me formally.

40 Philippe Auclair

“Formally”, so you’re confi rming that? lots of powers for obtaining information. That’s one of the most rewarding things Yes, and it’s open. That’s the message about being a prosecutor in the US, I’m trying to get across, and I believe that you can use lots of tools to understand it’s very important. This is the time for what’s happened. When I’ve worked for folks — whoever they are — who have private companies, generally, I had access information to come to me. I haven’t to that company’s documents, to their got any preconceived ideas on what employees, to their email systems, etc, all happened or did not happen. Everything that was at my disposal. It’s not the same is wide open. Sometimes, you hear a lot scope but… it’s pretty good. of talk from people saying they’ve “got something on this, or they might know And in your current role? that.” Well [I’m saying to them], if you truly believe it, the moment has come to Offi cials in football have an obligation show yourself. There are things that we to talk to the adjudication chamber can do under the code that will protect and to establish the facts. They have your anonymity. I will work with people an obligation to give me records but on that front. what I have understood, when it comes to Fifa, as you know well, is that Fifa What I think would be… not helpful is if doesn’t function like a big multinational this review goes forward on that broad corporation, with one database, one area of the bidding [for organising the [central] document archive system. World Cups of 2018 and 2022], then It’s [an aggregator] of a bunch of afterwards, somebody says, “Well, they confederations and associations, of got the facts wrong,” when they knew diff erent personal email systems… It’s that before. You know something? an honour system almost, when you Tell me! I’m working, working hard to go outside of Fifa. People who are uncover what’s there or isn’t there. This outside of football, they haven’t got is the form, the venue people have got any obligation to talk to me. When you to come forward to if they really think go out of Fifa itself and you say, “OK, they have something to say. On any side give me your bank records, give me of any issue! On some aspect of some your personal emails,” how do I check question related to the World Cup. And I if there are other accounts, other email believe it’s a message that should be out addresses? It’s really more diffi cult. So, there. People have talked, written articles when I speak to people and these people but what you have now is an offi cial body are in football, I ask them questions, which is in charge of this case and it’s because there is an obligation [for them] important that people go see me to tell to respond and it would be a breach me what they have. of the code if they didn’t do it. They’ve got to meet me, speak to me, answer It’s a very new role for me. I’ve been the inquiry commission to establish the a federal prosecutor, where I had a facts. And that is good. When it comes to very wide authority. I could requisition people who aren’t in the football world documents or subpoena witnesses before itself, then… I’ve worked as a prosecutor a grand jury, sign search warrants; I had overseas where I had no authority; we’re

41 The Only Way is Ethics

in the same way of working, we’re trying, an enormous amount of work. It’s by various means that you [journalists] all documents-intensive, travel-intensive, use regularly so that people talk to you doing lots of interviews. Like when I was [smiles]. We ask questions, it doesn’t hurt a prosecutor, or when I was working for to ask them, and, sometimes, someone private companies, you have to be very will talk to you. meticulous in the details because that’s where you make or break a case. And I’ve You’ve opened a line of needed assistance for that. I have used communication, open to everyone, people on the inside, I have used external which allows people to come to you investigators, law fi rms, in in complete confi dence, knowing that and in other countries… their anonymity will be protected, that sources will not be revealed. Without You’ve used external investigators? revealing confi dential details, has this initiative been followed by results? Oh, yes, obviously! I used external investigators, independent lawyers, Yes. Yes. Yes, to the extent that people experts in diff erent legal frameworks, have reached out to me and that some for example, Swiss law. And in all that, — not all — have been… the best way to there was never an issue when I felt I describe what I’ve obtained up to now, needed something. There haven’t been it’s that I’ve been sent information of a any disagreements, [comments like], “No, general character, but also very specifi c that’s expensive.” To be thorough, you information. And that’s really a matter [for have to see witnesses, face to face; of me], as for you, to look at your sources course you can speak on the telephone and at the ‘angles’, and I’d tell you there but for real detail, you’ve got to have are a lot of angles in this case… After them with you, you’ve got to travel, which it’s up to you to build something you’ve got to review documents [in situ]… around what people are telling you. This and you can have people who do that process has started. And there are people for you. To do it all alone is impossible. It [who have come to me] who, I believe, would take too long. It’s time-intensive have really wanted to try to be helpful and costly. Myself, I’ve spent a lot a time and give me information. We are still at on that [laughs]… an early stage. To be honest, there has been truly a lot of work for me… More than you expected?

What collaboration have you received More than I expected! [laughs]. Listen, from Fifa and…? this is very important, very interesting work. But I’ve had the support and the [He cuts in] resources I’ve needed. governance commission is also interested in that. In fairness, I would Have you been supported by Fifa say I’ve obtained the resources I have itself? By Blatter in person? asked for and I thought I’d need. I haven’t had an issue from that side. In a general way. I haven’t been in Investigating these questions requires personal contact with the Fifa president.

42 Philippe Auclair

I am in contact with his secretariat, those kinks got worked out over time. It’s which, by virtue of the code, supports my working well. chamber [of investigation]. When I need to communicate, I generally go through Let’s talk about these investigations. them and, once again, I have never had For the ISL one, as Winston Churchill put the slightest issue when I’ve needed it, you’re “at the end of the beginning…” this or that. In fact, they have even been proactive in suggesting, for example, A very good quotation! “You need a Swiss lawyer for that,” etc. If they had had an issue, it could’ve …but also working in parallel on the been a game-changer. That wouldn’t investigations into the award of the work. I want this to work, and I repeat, World Cup [hosting rights]. The one “OK, I’m here, perhaps I’ll do nothing, for 2022, have you got the information but I will certainly listen to whomever together, and how much time will that who, on whatever subject it might be, investigation take? says something that is relevant to my jurisdiction.” That new whistleblower Very good question. It’s a drawn out line is a very good thing. A vast majority process, and that depends on what we of [what we are learning] through that were talking about before. How much line of access is not relevant to the information is still out there? How many jurisdiction of the ethics commission, people will be proactive and come to and certain things can be referred to me? On the other side, have I got to other places, but… it’s one more line that decide to take the time to travel and people can use to get to my chamber, so convince people they’ve got to talk? The we can look into what they have to say subject itself is complex. I believe that — and I look at every single thing. I have it’s a good opportunity for everyone, a direct access to that system. everyone will do well out of it. I honestly haven’t got any preconceived ideas. As Some will say, “That’s all fi ne, but it’s a you know when you talk to the people way of pretending that something really about the [2022] World Cup, they have is being done, and…” pretty strong views... or interests. One or the other. Not me. I haven’t got a [He cuts in] One of the keys to that single opinion on subjects such as the system is that what I’ve wanted was to date when it has got to take place, etc. have direct access. It’s not like I was But I will listen to everything and I will making a report that I’d deliver to Fifa examine all the information with the asking them, “OK, there’s what’s come same impartiality, whether it comes across my desk, what do you want to from the US, from Qatar, from Russia, do now?” I am in the system. And every from . My view remains the day — every day! — I’m looking into same. “What happened? Where were information, I’m asking myself questions, there issues, if there were any? Have “Do I refer this to the commission, do they violated the Code?” That is the I need more information?” Every day. fi rst of the priorities. And then also to At the beginning we were inundated, examine certain subjects that you’ve people who all sent the same things, but mentioned in your investigation — were

43 The Only Way is Ethics

they close [to a breach of the Code]? to extract [the data it contains], and there And is that a problem related to the are things that are relevant to a specifi c structure that existed at the time? And expertise, even in a law fi rm, we contract has that been considered in the reform that out, people on the outside. I do that, eff orts? I think that all these questions and then I use it if I can. You have your are very interesting but my top priority investigators who can say, “This is how is obviously to determine if there have we have obtained these documents, been, or not, breaches of the Ethics these came from this server,” or who Code by football offi cials. help you know what this witness said or didn’t say. You don’t want to spread it Who are the people who’ve helped too widely, since I want to keep control you in your daily work? Other employees of everything which comes in to us. I try from your law fi rm Kirkland, for to do as much as I can, but I have to pick example? my shot.

I use some of them. It’s fl uid. It depends. And then there’s the Fifa congress And there is a subject that I fi nd very in Mauritius starting on 31 May. Could interesting, that we haven’t spoken about that be an opportunity of a new ‘end of — match-fi xing. the beginnning’ as far as the World Cup investigations are concerned? Or is that Are you taking care of that too? too early?

It could be a full-time business! In It’s too early… Listen, that’s a nice marker general terms, I’d say that in terms of out there. It would be good if we can jurisdiction, it’s common ground with the make it, but it’s too early for me to say Security Division [of Fifa]. They take care that I’m fi xing myself a date like that. I of players, referees; myself, of offi cials, of hope that signifi cant progress will have the associations… To me it’s a fascinating been made, one way or another. But I subject in which I would like to involve haven’t got any idea today where we myself more, and I’ve started to do will be. Or not. But I hope that we will that, but I have time imperatives. I need at least have made signifi cant progress more leverage, I’ve called on Kirkland on the direction [we’re taking], that people who can serve me as lieutenants. there will be a crystallisation of specifi c I’m using Chief Justice Robert Torres problems, on which we will be able to [a former Guam judge], who is also a concentrate, because we could sit here member of Fifa’s Ethics Commission and talking about issues… until the end of who’s helped me. He is very good. [I’ve the weekend. One part of the work of also called] other lawyers, people who a good investigative journalist, or of an are specialists in technology, people investigator is, yes, to have all the facts who have the knowhow that I don’t have in mind, but also to have in your mind myself. And external investigators, who where you would like to go. To know are very important, because they are what you’ve got to do to get there, yes? doing specifi c things which, for us others Whatever the date you want to set or — lawyers, law fi rms — aren’t really our whatever. When I have encountered ‘thing’. If you have a laptop, and you try problems of this kind before, it’s because

44 Philippe Auclair

of [the impossibility of] doing that. But have you got the feeling of an Because then, you’re constantly looking adherence to the reform process right at at the whole fi eld without breaking it the heart of Fifa? down and that’s terribly ineff ective. I hope that with this ‘funnel’ for [new] Look, I think there’s been a lot of good information [Garcia is referring to the work done in the reform process. I do. whistleblower line] we can do this work I believe it’s hard to generalise when on the mapping. we’re talking about the position of Fifa because there are diff erent personalities, So you haven’t got a fi xed calendar, diff erent approaches at the heart of the no deadline? Your contract is up at the organisation. The thing I feel confi dent end of May, yes? talking about is the way in which I’ve been received and how I’ve been Yes. supported; and the key point for me, is resources [put at my disposal] where it’s And after? black and white. Without the resources, you could do all you want, set up all [Laughs] That’s not up to me, right? the commissions you want, for nothing. That’s up to the [Fifa] Congress to decide. Today I have all the resources I need. Listen, I believe that there is a lot of I know that there is a whole range of work to be done, and it’ll be a busy time. reform propositions but I‘m not that Where we will be at the end of May… I’ve knowledgeable on that subject, on who never been to a Fifa congress, so… is from what side. What I see is my role in that reform process and to me it’s Has it been a surprise for you, a received the support [I wanted]. lawyer, to come into the football world and see its controversies, its There are people who have called into complexities, its universality? question your independence at Fifa. Are you truly independent? I understood that football was much more important outside the US than Yes, absolutely. And that’s very interesting. inside. I’d been told that. But there I hear the criticism: “How can you be was a big diff erence between hearing independent when you are paid by Fifa?” something and seeing it with your own Well, that’s not such an unusual thing in eyes. So, yes, it’s been somewhat of a the US. In the US, when a company gets surprise to see the attention that what into trouble, we call for an external audit, I am doing brings, or what the Ethics generally under an agreement passed Commission is doing. That’s true. But I by the government. This auditor will be was at the Ballon d’Or gala and it was completely independent and, generally so nice to see the beauty of the game, will report to the government — but he’ll the most beautiful goals, the best be paid by the company. It’s certainly players, [I could] feel what people love not the government who pays for an and admire in this sport, I’m watching independent auditor, OK? [Laughs] The football now, my daughter plays… and key isn’t the paystream, it’s the audit. Is it’s great to see that. there a pole that information is made to

45 The Only Way is Ethics

fl ow towards, unaudited by the business Without the slightest hesitation? in question? And, in this case, under the Code, this audit, I’ve gotten it, just like Absolutely. Here’s the thing: I will put Hans-Joachim Eckert. It’s we who take what I have, or what I don’t have , on the our decisions together, it’s he who gives table, all right? It’s not like I’ve had this the verdict on penalties. My idea, “What’s in the past is done,” and connection with Fifa is the same as an whatever I fi nd, I will put on the table, [external] administrator’s would be. I use which will confi rm it. I will put on the them sometimes to get messages out, table what we fi nd and what we haven’t or when I can have access to the original found. And I believe that it’s in everyone’s [documents] in an investigation, or when interest. A fair look. Hard look, but fair I need to reimburse the expenses of an look... By listening to everyone, and by investigator or a lawyer. But there is making a fair evaluation. no supervision of what I do. I am really independent of that organisation. I think On what basis will you make your that it’s not such a strange relationship recommendations? as all that, seen from an American perspective rather than a European one or I’ll send everything to Mr Eckert and there the rest of the world, because there are a you are. I’ve got a very good relationship bunch of cases of this type [in the US]. with him. I didn’t know him at all before. Obviously, he has a terrifi c background, But where’s Sepp Blatter in all this? he occupies a very prestigious position. Does he want to hear what you have to He works very hard and he is genuinely say on Qatar, on Russia? interested in the reform process, making this work. We aren’t in contact day to That’s a question… I’ll go back to what’s day. He isn’t directly involved [in my my role here: I don’t deal with Blatter work]; he takes the ultimate decision. on that level. I do not report to him. He If this is proved, what am I going to doesn’t talk to me about what I’m doing. do? What will be the sanctions? That’s I couldn’t tell you anything, in one sense his call. It’s gone very well. The Code or another, on these subjects because is… very good. In terms of process, it’s we haven’t got this kind of interaction. specifi c. When I came in, I thought that He’s kept himself — appropriately — out we would have to set aside time to build of my sphere. He is the president of Fifa, a process around the Code, that we he does what he does. I have met him would spend a month or two for that to perhaps… once in the fi rst three months work. And that didn’t happen. We were of my job. off and running from day one.

And if you have concrete information Really? to communicate on the award of the 2006, 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Yes. We got into it from the fi rst day, into Germany, Russia and Qatar, you will put precise cases. The structure has really that on the table? come together to support that code. There will always be someone who [Immediately] Absolutely. will disagree with you, who will think

46 Philippe Auclair

you’re crazy because you did this or Is it conceivable that with the crazy because you didn’t do it. I accept evidence you have gathered, the 2022 that. I’ve accepted that throughout my World Cup won’t take place in Qatar? career. What counts is that you have to have faith in the process, whether you I know everybody is very interested will agree with its result or not; that you in that. But I think, and I think that will be convinced that it’s not corrupt or Judge Eckert would say as well, that submitted to infl uence, from one side or our jurisdiction is limited to people. another, to pressure to not do something So... the only thing that we can do is when you have evidence, and that you say, “You, football offi cial, violated this have relationships in place, or a confl ict provision of the Ethics Code and you, of interest, or pressure to do something football offi cial, are going to suff er when there is an expectation. “Oh, it’s so this sanction.”2 But that’s only as to clearly so, if you didn’t do something…” people. That what we can do, right? You’ve got to put these things aside. And Those decisions, on the venue of the you [journalists] are very important in World Cup, you know, that’s outside the all that. There are so many people who jurisdiction of the Ethics Commission. are looking for signs, who read you, and That’s just a completely diff erent process. who have got to have confi dence in the Otherwise, it may be a particularly process even if they think, “This bloke interesting issue, but it’s not for me or ought to have been charged,” etc, but, at Judge Eckert, and that’s the bottom least, the process works. line of how that process works.

2 The Sri Lankan Fifa ExCo member Manilal Fernando, a close ally of the Thai FA president and AFC presidency candidate Warowi Makudi, was suspended on Michael Garcia’s recommendation a few days after this interview took place. The precise nature of the charges which led to this ban hasn’t been revealed by Fifa.

47

Power Play

Power Play The Asian Football Confederation’s presidential elections highlight football’s murky governance

By James Corbett

12pm, 2 May 2013, Kuala Lumpur As 100 or so reporters chased the 77 year old around the hotel, his aff able For the small band of sports news French press attaché somehow keeping reporters, it was familiar territory: us all at bay, Blatter said virtually the anteroom of a fi ve-star hotel nothing. Responding to a question conference room, the expensive about the tone of the occasionally uneaten nibbles, the stale coff ee, the bitter election campaign, he smiled and laminates hanging from our necks. For replied — as only he can — “I have seen the uniformity of it all we might have total transparency.” been in any of sport’s staging posts: , Zurich, Paris, . But today it Later that afternoon he put out a was the turn of Kuala Lumpur. statement praising the AFC for its “unity as well as solidarity”. It might as well have Among the delegates who drifted out just said, “Thank you for not choosing my of the hall there was a sense of quiet enemy’s friend.” excitement and relief. A new president of the Asian Football Confederation had just been elected. Most people agreed that it was politically the right result, even some AFC elections have pedigree in of the defeated candidates. Football was representing some of the very worst of not mentioned, of course. football. In few other areas of global sport do national interests, regional One by one the vanquished and the rivalries, corruption and bitterness victors emerged. But, dictaphones mingle into as noxious a mix as they primed, we all only had eyes for one man. do in Asian football. At once they have absolutely nothing and everything to do Then there was a charge and there he with football. They are about power for was, amid the scrum, the king of world the sake of power and are an extreme football himself, Sepp Blatter. He was a example of the way that the game as a little more stooped and shrunken than whole is governed worldwide. the last time I had seen him, a couple of years earlier, but still very much The previous presidential elections in the same; beady-eyed and cunning, a 2009 between the incumbent, Mohamed politician’s smile stretching every sinew bin Hammam of Qatar, and Bahrain’s of his face. Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa,

50 James Corbett

were a case study in personal abuse, and widely used Arabic metaphor,” Bin conspiracy theories, alleged vote-buying, Hammam later explained, comparing it corruption and general misbehaviour by to the English phrase “Heads will roll”, men who should have known far better. but Chung was unconvinced. “I am To many in world football, this was less a afraid that Mr Hammam may be a sick leadership election than a referendum on person who needs to be at a hospital Qatar’s role in global sport. At the time rather than at Fifa,” he told reporters. “It the tiny Gulf country was bidding for the looks like Mr Hammam is suff ering from 2016 Olympics, the 2022 World Cup and mental problems. I want to advise him Bin Hammam was said to have an eye to consider going to hospital.” He then on the Fifa presidency. Win the election went on to allege that Bin Hammam was and Bin Hammam’s position as head of “acting like a head of a crime organisation” Asian football and on the Fifa Executive and that Asian football suff ered from a Committee would have been enshrined, serious lack of transparency, democracy giving him and Qatar huge leverage in and the rule of law. contests that lay ahead. The allegations also included claims What followed was a concerted eff ort of vote buying. José Mari Martínez, to stop Bin Hammam. The Korean president of the Philippine Football industrialist and Fifa vice-president, Federation, later alleged that his national Chung Mong-Joon, aligned with his association received fi nancial off ers perennial rival Sepp Blatter to stop as grants from the Philippine National Bin Hammam. The Olympic Council Olympic Council (NOC) in return for of (OCA) headed by the powerful voting for Sheikh Salman. The federation Kuwaiti, Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah, declined these off ers and supported Bin also stepped in on the side of Sheikh Hammam (Martínez was accused in a Salman. In holding authority over a 2012 PWC audit report commissioned great swathe of Asian sport and acting by the AFC of receiving $60,000 from as a meeting point between various an AFC account when Bin Hammam national political interests and sport, the was its president). OCA’s importance far transcends sport. “The forces of hell lined up against us,” In the days leading up to the election, recalled one Bin Hammam associate. the atmosphere was murky, frenzied “We faced Blatter and Fifa, Chung, and all manner of procedural horseplay the OCA, the East Asian countries… went on. It was not clear until the day Can you imagine all these individuals before the vote whether , East and groupings casting aside all their Timor, Mongolia, Brunei, Afghanistan diff erences just to stop us?” and Laos would be allowed to vote. With a constituency of just 46 voters, The volatile atmosphere soon erupted these are not just the margins by which into name-calling, allegation and elections are won and lost, but deciding counter-allegation. Bin Hammam factors. In the end they were all allowed, suggested in a TV interview that Chung and despite facing a grand alliance Bin should be decapitated; his head and Hammam won by 23 votes to 21. Two of arms cut off . “It is a popular, harmless the ballot papers had been spoiled.

51 Power Play

“Unfortunately some bad acts have taken as important as the whole of South place,” Bin Hammam refl ected a week America. Mindful that this was such later in London. “I hope that we in Asia a key battleground, at the summit up overcome these bad acts and that we will to 25 CFU offi cials were each off ered be able to conduct our [future] elections envelopes containing US$40,000 in in a much better way.” cash to persuade them to vote for Bin Hammam. But the Qatari was betrayed. A fi le was sent to Fifa, which included sworn affi davits by several CFU members, For the two years that followed, Bin secret recordings and photographs of Hammam kept on winning. It became the bribes. Bin Hammam was suspended habitual. Nothing Sepp Blatter, Fifa, by Fifa two days before the presidential the AFC or any of his rivals did could election and subsequently banned from stop him. No matter how big or small football for life. It meant Blatter was re- the battle, he went on winning. On 2 elected unopposed. It also meant that December 2010, he claimed the biggest the AFC needed a new president. prize of them all for Qatar: hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup. It probably represents the most extraordinary — and the most questioned — result in the While Fifa justice dealt with Bin Hammam history of football. over the next two years, the AFC was led on an interim basis by China’s For Blatter, there was one prize that Zhang Jilong. After the turmoil left was bigger even than the World Cup: in Bin Hammam’s wake, it was felt the Fifa presidency. Concession after that he represented the steady pair of concession had been put the way of Bin hands that might bring some unity and Hammam since he was re-elected AFC redemption to the organisation. As a president — advisors sacked for upsetting long-term option, however, some judged him, political shenanigans overlooked him to be overly passive and lacking in Asia, muted outrage after the World charisma. Others suggested that the Cup decision — but when he announced Chinese National Olympic Committee his candidacy for the Fifa presidency in — after coming under pressure from March 2011 he appeared to have crossed the OAC — told him not to stand for the the Rubicon. position permanently. When nominations closed for the AFC presidency in March On 10 May 2011, Bin Hammam appeared 2013, Zhang’s name was not among the at a meeting of the Caribbean Football four listed. Union (CFU) to present his election manifesto at the Grand Hyatt in Port The UAE’s Yousuf al-Serkal was of Spain, Trinidad. Because the Fifa considered one of the two frontrunners. Congress adheres to a one-member- A vastly experienced sports politician one-vote system, in electoral terms both within the Emirates and Asia, Antigua is as important as England; he was a friend of Bin Hammam but as a voting bloc carrying the CFU, is without the blemish of corruption like carrying half of Europe and twice allegations throughout his long career.

52 James Corbett

He was someone to be taken seriously. in 2009, had kept his head down, but He employed Vero Communications, continued to cultivate support across the PR agency run by the British spin Asian football — a base that had doctor, Mike Lee, whose campaigning previously brought him agonisingly close successes included the London and Rio to the confederation’s presidency. He and, of course, Qatar was confi dent of success too. “In 2009 I 2022. Unlike the other candidates Al- said that I had a 50-50 chance and I was Serkal actively engaged with the media right,” he said in March. “In this election, and published a manifesto that used so far things are moving well. I think now words like “transparent”, “improved I am 70-80% there.” governance”, and “football”. Football, as we will see, was a word often far from But amid this support within international the other candidates’ lips. football, serious questions were raised about Salman’s suitability for high offi ce. Hafez al-Medlej, a 43-year-old Saudi, In February 2011 the Arab Spring came who chaired the AFC’s marketing to his native Bahrain. Pro-democracy committee, was considered a wildcard protests by the Shia majority challenged selection. Although few took his the absolute monarchy of its Sunni candidature seriously, there was leaders. The Pearl Roundabout in recognition that as the son of a regional downtown Manama became a focal superpower anything could happen. “All point for peaceful protests, which were it takes is two or three calls from the at one point even encouraged by the Saudi royal family and the other Arab royal family. Emboldened, footballers, candidatures are over,” claimed one athletes and other signifi cant fi gures election insider. Al-Medlej would spend joined in. It would be the biggest mistake most of his campaign waiting for those of their lives. As the rule of the Bahraini calls to come. royal family teetered on the brink of collapse, soldiers augmented by a Gulf The inclusion on the slate of Worawi Cooperation Council (GCC) force from Makudi, a longstanding Fifa Executive Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and beyond committee member, also represented swept in to help the Bahrainis ruthlessly put something of a surprise. Makudi had down the protests. Activists claim that four faced a multitude of allegations in his protesters were killed in the operation. native Thailand concerning ownership of land on which the Thai FA headquarters What happened in the wake of the were built with Fifa grants. Although failed protests was perhaps even more cleared by Fifa the stink had not quite shocking. The Bahraini authorities used gone away. Like Al-Serkel he was known television and photographic evidence for his links to Bin Hammam. Indeed to identify protestors and arrest them. over the subsequent couple of months These included doctors and other all three of these candidates would be medical staff who had cared for injured accused of links to Qatar. protesters. According to the Associated Press a special sports commission was The overwhelming favourite was Sheikh also established to pick out athletes Salman, who, since his narrow defeat involved in the protests and as a result

53 Power Play

150 sportsmen and women, referees and But if Taylor was only following orders coaches were arrested. They included — which seems the best case scenario the brothers Mohamed and A’ala Hubail, for the former Leicester boss — whose heroes of the national football team, were they? This was never clear, but the who had brought Bahrain to the verge head of the Bahraini federation was none of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. other than Sheikh Salman. Worse still, “We saw some masked men get out of the Associated Press alleged that Salman the car. They said, ‘Captain A’ala, get you “chaired” the committee that “identifi ed brother’ and we went with them,” A’ala them [the athletes] from photographs of later explained in an ESPN documentary. the protests.” Salman did not comment “They put me in the room for the on the article at the time, nor has he ever beatings. One of the people who hit me issued an outright denial that he sat on said I’m going to break your legs. They the committee. The furthest that he went knew who we were... We were forced was blandly claiming that he has never to endure it. I had to endure it. If I didn’t violated the statutes of either Fifa or the something worse would have happened AFC, which seems a strange moral code to me.” to invoke when faced with allegations of such magnitude. Mohamed Hubail was tried in secret and sentenced to two years in jail in April 2011. When Fifa belatedly intervened in June that year he was released on It was the day before the election. Kuala appeal, but with his brother forced Lumpur’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel was to play in exile in Oman. A’ala’s case, abuzz with rumour and intrigue. For all coming after the Fifa intervention, was its grandeur, the lobby was compact thrown out of court. A third national enough for the electoral rivals to have team player, Sayed Mohamed Adnan, left to sit within touching distance of each for Australia and played for the other through the clouds of cigarette Roar. None were made available for smoke that encircled every delegation. national team selection again. On one side of the room Sheikh Salman’s entourage spread out around a coff ee Sensitivities ran high in Bahrain about this table. The president of the Kuwait issue. Peter Taylor, briefl y England coach Football Federation and younger brother in 2001 and by 2011 in charge of the of Sheikh Ahmad, Sheikh Talal Fahad Al Bahrain national team, claimed he had Sabah, sat wearing a cap, leering never heard of A’ala Hubail. Which was at his rivals across the room, a mobile funny, because when I asked him about phone permanently attached to his ear. his non-selection of the Hubail brothers at a post-match press conference in Opposite him was the sizable Qatari Qatar in November 2011, he erupted delegation spread out across two into a rage so intense that I feared he tables. An anomaly in the AFC statutes was going to jump across the table and meant that the new president was not assault me. It seemed odd that a player automatically assigned a seat on the Fifa he had never heard about could produce Executive committee. The presidential such a volcanic reaction. election would be followed immediately

54 James Corbett

by one for the Exco seat, which Hassan fairly bleak, with players uncosseted and al-Thawadi, the charismatic CEO of the national associations struggling to pay Qatar World Cup organising committee, their bills. I’m certain that the modest was contesting. El-Medlej and Al-Serkal Afghan players would have been slack- had decided to step aside for this jawed in these surroundings. contest, fanning another series of Qatari conspiracy theories. Behind the Qataris The Afghans were joined by the heads sat the Emiratis, wearing blue-logoed of the federations of some of the ‘Football at Heart’ T-shirts. Al-Serkal was world’s poorer nations: Bhutan, Timor omnipresent in the lobby, stalking it, Leste, Burma, Nepal, all at the expense wise-cracking, shaking hands. In a world of the Asian Football Confederation. in which the real business is conducted At a time when its annual spending behind closed doors, this was not a good on “football development” is just sign for his campaign. $12million for the entire continent there seemed something grotesque in I watched from the sweeping staircase so much cash being ploughed into a as the president of the Afghan Football junket for men in suits. But then football Federation sat with his general secretary. politics exists in a complete vacuum: one The hotel is a place of opulence and delegate was reminded not to feel sorry wonder, where rooms start at $300 per for the North Korean delegation — all night and a coff ee and cupcake on the wearing Kim Jong-un haircuts — when beautiful verandah cost $20 — around a one of their number produced from his week’s average wages in Kabul. briefcase the latest and most high-spec MacBook available. Two years earlier I had embarked on the last leg of an arduous journey that had Makudi and Al-Medlej were conspicuous taken the Afghanistan national team from by their absence, but no one considered Kabul to Dubai, then to Delhi, Amman either a serious candidate by that stage. and fi nally Palestine for a 2014 World A colleague had arranged to interview Cup qualifi er. Criss-crossing Asia rather the Saudi a day earlier and was told to than fl ying direct was the cheapest way meet him in a branch of Starbuck’s. their impoverished federation could “When will I come?” he asked. “I’ll be fulfi l their fi xture obligations. On the bus here all day,” came the reply, as if he through the West Bank, the players sat had nothing better to do. El-Medlej had with their legs raised, trying to prevent then shown up at the Mandarin early the swelling and cramps that come from evening and sat in the lobby watching such a lengthy journey. They arrived at the AFC Champions League on his tablet their down-at-heel hotel, in which they computer, seemingly oblivious to the slept three to a room, 22 hours before frantic handshaking and lobbying going the match and went almost immediately on around him. There was something to the stadium for a training session. It endearing about the way he approached was a timely reminder that away from the inevitability of his defeat and he the glamour and TV spectacles that we openly admitted he would be pulling out. associate with international football in At 7pm, a statement from the Saudi FA Europe, the reality elsewhere is often confi rmed the inevitable.

55 Power Play

Sheikh Salman, by contrast, appeared important void. To followers of the here and there, in and out of meetings. endless rhetoric, conspiracy theories He lacked the presence of his rivals and and, frankly, nonsense in the region’s assumed the aspect of a provincial GP; sports newspapers, the AFC election was sombre, meticulous, serious. Al-Serkal as close to democracy as they got. muttered that he was just a “shadow” of Sheikh Ahmad and one glance would tell Indeed, there followed a certain logic to you that his perception was accurate. their obsession with football politicians. The Kuwaiti towered above everyone and If your country doesn’t have a Messi, was as loud and charismatic as Salman Rooney or Ronaldo to believe in, why was demure and unassuming. He was not pin your hopes on a Sheikh Salman trailed everywhere by a huge bodyguard, or Mohamed bin Hammam? At least who merely had to cast a menacing glare Bin Hammam can claim that he helped to part the waves of Arab media. ‘win’ his country the World Cup, which is something none of those players can say. For them this was a circus. I was just one of two journalists to have travelled The shadow of Bin Hammam, from Europe, and only one made the nevertheless, hung heavily over journey from Australia. Apart from the proceedings. Statements were circulated newswires, virtually every reporter came by the Kuwait Football Association from the Gulf. Every night an array of expressing its ‘deep concern’ about a Arab-language networks broadcast live media report that Bin Hammam had election specials. It was diffi cult enough visited various national associations in to report 500 words of interesting written order to support the candidacies of Al- copy, even harder to fi ll 30-minute Serkal, Makudi and al-Thawadi. The fact primetime broadcast slots with the that he might simultaneously support rival day’s news. In reality these amounted candidacies spoke loudly of the paranoia to extended rants, denunciations and and complexities of AFC politics. propagation of regional conspiracy theories. Football, as ever, was of “Upon my arrival today in Kuala Lumpur secondary interest. I have witnessed that the entire group of the former AFC president was present One was often left with the feeling that and speaking to various members for them this was ‘proper’ politics by of the AFC family,” noted Husain Al proxy; that the Gulf Arab candidates, with Musallam, the vice-chairman of the their vast entourages and huge media KFA’s International Relations and Legal interest, would take it less seriously if Committee, in a statement. Fifa sent a they had parliamentary democracy in fax warning that Bin Hammam was not their home countries to fi ll their time a man people should be talking to. The and TV schedules. But under the rule Kuwaitis obligingly circulated it for them. of absolute monarchs — or as parts of Earlier that week Fifa’s ethics committee the royal families themselves — and had, for reasons unexplained, handed in the absence of players and teams an eight-year ban to Bin Hammam’s that can compete among the global one-time ally, the Sri Lankan Fifa Exco elite, for them football politics fi lls an member Vernon Manilal Fernando. It

56 James Corbett

represented a stark reminder that Fifa in general think that I am a better choice justice can be particularly punitive for the than Sheikh Salman,” he said. “In this Qatari’s friends and, perhaps, a warning case as well, I think I’m fi tter. He’s not fi t. to those considering a vote for Al-Serkal. When it comes to politics I’m a sports man. I understand nothing in politics.” “Where is Bin Hammam? He is not here,” said Al-Serkal when we sat down for a Everything suggested Sheikh Salman chat in the lobby. “Who is here? Sheikh would win, even if Al-Serkal’s worst crime Ahmad is here. The OCA is here. Who was no more than being friends with is running? I know I am running. Can the vanquished Bin Hammam. There you tell me is it clear Sheikh Salman is was no suggestion that he shared any running? Can you picture Sheikh Salman form of culpability in the Qatari’s sins. alone? You close your eyes and who do Al-Serkal repeated his concern about the you see? You see someone else. Sheikh involvement of Sheikh Ahmad and the Salman is only a shadow.” OCA. The Kuwaiti is a close ally of Blatter and at an earlier election in January It was diffi cult not to like the 2011 I’d seen how he played a key role in engaging Al-Serkal, who in manner ousting former Fifa vice-president (and and demeanour reminded me of Bin one-time presidential hopeful) Chung Hammam. History has cast the Qatari Mong-Joon. The OCA had proved highly as one of Fifa’s ultimate villains, but I sensitive to these allegations and when always found him courteous and deeply a story was published about it booking infatuated with football — attributes that an entire fl oor of the Mandarin — the in my experience characterise few in the implication being that they were buying Fifa family. While he had been accused of favours with their allies — it was promptly many things and wronged many decent cancelled —and then (according to their people for his own purposes, human rivals) switched over to the Ritz Carlton. rights violations were certainly not among the accusations he has faced. Stalking the corridors of the Mandarin, it was obvious that what was going to I asked the Emirati about the allegations follow was a carve-up, but it was diffi cult made about Sheikh Salman’s role in to see any signs of overt corruption. Even the suppression of athletes involved in the suspicious Arab media were silent on pro-democracy protesters. The Bahrain this issue. There was no sign of the high- Centre for Human Rights had just written end prostitutes for whom fi ve-star hotel to Blatter calling on him to withdraw lobbies are a magnet throughout Asia. Salman, whom they accused of “human rights violations … against players, But if everyone was well-behaved administrators, referees and clubs who in Kuala Lumpur, elsewhere on the participated in the democracy protests.” campaign trail things were not as they might have been. Given that most of the The Gulf’s conservative social norms candidates came from one of the most usually make it seem bad form to cast socially conservative regions on earth, aspersions about neighbouring royals. what they had to overlook or encounter But Al-Serkal did not hold back. “I, myself seems surprising.

57 Power Play

A key date on the lobby trail, the Asean giving the AFC presidency to Salman with Football Federation Awards at a resort a place on the Fifa Exco for Hassan al- hotel in Kuantan, , in April, was Thawadi? We would soon fi nd out. described by one attendee as “seedy and appalling… prostitutes outnumbered Into the hall we trooped and the formalities delegates while a Filipino rock band fi lled were under way. A welcome speech by the place with ugly noise.” Who knows the outgoing president Zhang Jilong. what favours were carried out in the Blatter pleading for unity (“United we stand, name of cleaning up the name of Asian divided we fail,” he said, misquoting the football that night, or on others? Aesopian wisdom). A roll call. A vote on whether to aff ord Brunei voting privileges. And then, fi nally, the vote. Candidates were called two by two, entering clear glass By the morning of the election, a wave voting booths to the left and right of the of exhaustion seemed to have washed stage. These were apparently introduced over everyone. On both of the previous after candidates were alleged to have nights, many of the election teams had photographed their ballot papers with stayed up until the small hours became camera phones in order to prove their the wee small hours, watching the loyalty in previous football elections. Champions League semi-fi nals unfold six time-zones away. A two-thirds majority, or 31 of the 46 available votes, were needed for a fi rst- We journalists waited in the foyer in front round victory. Most observers expected of the Congress Hall, trying to read the Makudi to be eliminated fi rst time round runes and gain a glimpse of what might followed by a run-off between Salman unfold inside. One by one they came: and Al-Serkal. But then the Arab media Sheikh Ahmad and his man mountain started fi lling the back of the Congress bodyguard, Makudi, Sheikh Salman, Hall and it seemed that something Hassan al-Thawadi, Michel Platini, Blatter was afoot. Camera lights fl icked on and fi nally Al-Serkal. None gave anything and a dozen TV reporters readied their away. Only Blatter stopped, exchanging microphones for an instant reaction. a word with a Japanese photographer who was dressed in a full Brazil kit and Alex Soosay, the AFC general secretary, wearing fl uorescent orange astroboots. stood up and told the Congress that all the votes had been counted and they But then, from the corner of my eye, what were all valid. The roar of elation from was this? A senior member of the Qatar the Kuwaitis and swathes of the media delegation embracing Salman? A man told us that Sheikh Salman was a fi rst- they had been at war with for months? round victor with an astonishing 33 This wasn’t a subtle act of courtesy, it votes. Makudi had seven votes, he said. was carried out in the full glare of the Al-Serkal had six. There would be no run Arab media. Was this Asian football’s off . The AFC had a new president. Judas Iscariot approaching Jesus in Gethsemane? Had a backroom deal Twenty minutes later Soosay confi rmed carved up the spoils of Asian football, that there had been no backroom deal

58 James Corbett

between Salman and Qatar. The Bahraini “Could you just clarify some of had prevailed 28-18, although the reality the serious allegations that were was that there were just fi ve votes in it. made against you about sitting on a commission in Bahrain that identifi ed In the darkened hall, my phone glowed athletes that were involved in the pro- with messages and tweets from Bin democracy protests, and can you also Hammam’s enemies. “Bahrain 2 Qatar 0,” comment on an accusation made by one read. the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights that you were involved in human rights violations, please?”

Afterwards, among delegates, exhaustion Media offi cer: “I think he has answered it gave way to relief that the ghost of Bin so many times that…” Hammam had been exorcised. It seemed slightly unfair on Al-Serkal, who had “Well, can he answer it for me?” seemingly been made to pay for the sins of his friend. His defeat had been Sheikh Salman: “I have no problem crushing: besides Qatar and his own answering it. I have one question: federation, just four other countries had you talk about allegations, but the voted for him. Even the hapless Makudi question is proof. Somebody talks about polled more. “Despite the force of OCA, government, I don’t think that this is despite the force of all kinds of countries our business. We are football people. I accepted to continue with the race and If anybody has proof that the Bahrain accepted the result whatever it is,” he Football Association has violated the said. Asked for comment, Makudi said statutes of Fifa or the AFC let them simply, “I have no idea.” present it. Otherwise we will move to the other question.” In the press conference afterwards, there was much talk from Sheikh Salman about Afterwards, variations of the same answer “unity”, “smooth transitions”, “realistic were given to the BBC and Australia’s SBS. goals”. Given the virtual blackout of the In an interview with AFP, Salman went western media in the days running up further, suggesting that allegations made to the vote, it was my fi rst encounter against him were the work of an unnamed of him at close quarters. There was a foreign government determined to smear civility and seriousness there, but no him. But still there was no denial. The spark. He seemed a safe pair of hands, Associated Press stands by its August probably the right choice after the 2011 report, which alleges his role as tumultuous few years that followed Bin chair of the commission. Hammam’s fall. Even Al-Serkal’s friends admitted as much. “Sheikh Salman has talked of the need for reform and accountability at The press conference ground on and on, the AFC, but he still has very serious but still the elephant in the room sat there. questions to answer about his role in the serious abuses of protestors, including I put my hand up. footballers and athletes, in the anti-

59 Power Play

government protests of 2011,” Human party infl uence was not the fault of the Rights Watch’s Nicholas McGeehan told Member concerned.” The Blizzard. “In replacing Mohamed bin Hammam with Sheikh Salman al Khalifa, Sheikh Salman may or may not have the AFC has replaced a man accused of violated these statutes. He also knows making bribes with a man accused of that Gulf monarchies are absolute and ordering torture. The ever-increasing that his own country is notoriously involvement of serious human rights intolerant of dissent. The likelihood violators in the funding and governance of a whistleblower going public, or of of football should be of real concern to documents being leaked is so slim as anyone who loves the sport.” to be virtually non-existent. Equally, the proof he demands may or may not Article 3 of the Fifa Statutes demands exist: it could be the work of a foreign “Non-discrimination and Stance Against government, after all. Racism”. It reads, “Discrimination of any kind against a country, private But what is indisputable is that the person or group of people on account careers of the Hubail brothers, Sayed of ethnic origin, gender, language, Mohamed Adnan and others now lay in religion, politics or any other reason is tatters for partaking in peaceful pro- strictly prohibited and punishable by democracy protests at a time when he suspension or expulsion.” Article 14 of was president of their federation. the Fifa statutes insist those bound by Fifa rules maintain political neutrality. “We are his responsibility and people like Article 11, paragraph 1, sub-section him should solve the problem, not ignore R of the AFC statutes demand each it,” Mohamed Hubail told the Associated member association “manage its aff airs Press on the eve of the election. “I have independently and with no infl uence a lot of anger. I really miss playing for from third party, even if the third- my team and for Bahrain.”

60 Genesis

Genesis How a tournament in China in 1988 changed women’s football for ever

By Davidde Corran

Heidi Store had never been so 1,000 people; now they were playing completely surrounded, and yet she was in front of a packed house for the sixth struck by how isolated she felt. time in twelve days. For many it was the realisation of a dream they’d never fully Standing in the middle of a packed believed they’d experience — the fi nal in Guangzhou, the of the fi rst offi cial women’s international Norwegian central midfi elder looked to tournament and the pilot event for an her right and saw her childhood friend, eventual World Cup. right-sided midfi elder Liv Straedet.

Hailing from Raade, a tiny town south of Oslo, the two women had known each A couple of years before that 1988 fi nal, a other since birth. They started playing Women’s World Cup was just an idea and the game together with the boys who ideas can be fragile things — especially lived on their street and rose up the ranks when they’re being pushed back by before entering the national team at the years of prejudice and misconceptions. same time. Women’s football was a fragmented sport. In Taiwan, players enjoyed almost Straedet had been a reassuring fi gure for full-time fully funded careers while in Store throughout her career. There to her Australia the national team struggled to right — an outlet ball, a calming face, a get anything other than second-hand friend. At that moment, though, Store could men’s kits to wear during games. see Straedet’s mouth moving, but couldn’t hear a word she was saying as 55,000 This schism extended into the game’s cheering Chinese fans drowned her out. administration. At Fifa, where women’s football was fi nally starting to gain It was 12 June 1988 and the 24 year old traction, two factions were fi ghting over looked around and took in the scene the future of the game. The cause for unfurling around her. Beyond Straedet women’s football was led by football were her teammates interspersed with associations pushing for a World Cup players from Norway’s fi erce rivals in the belief that only the recognition and then, of course, there was the crowd. that would come with an offi cial Fifa tournament could lift the game towards Before arriving in China neither team had professionalism. The doubters promoted experienced crowds bigger than around questionable initiatives such as women

61 Genesis

playing shorter games with a smaller and in which Fifa decided to host a trial sized ball than the standard size fi ve used event, what the then president João by the men. Havelange called a “World Tournament for Women”, in China. Watching a presentation from an offi cial Fifa doctor at a seminar in Sweden, Heidi Store experienced that reality fi rst hand. “The fi rst time I heard the discussion One morning the letters arrived. 18 of about the number four or number fi ve them dropped into letterboxes across ball I was at a seminar with my head the country. They were addressed to coach Even Pellerud in Sweden,” said each member of the Australia national Store. “There was a doctor saying girls women’s team and came from the were so small and tiny they couldn’t use federation’s CEO, Heather Reid. “We a number fi ve ball.” would always get news by letter,” said Dodd. “If you got something in the post Store is tall. She looks like someone from Heather (Reid) you thought, ‘Oh, get built to dominate a football pitch. “Her this one open, something exciting inside.’” nickname in our team was ‘Lurch’, because she was so tall,” said the And this letter wouldn’t disappoint: an former Australia midfi elder Moya Dodd. invitation to represent Australia at the “Someone’s got to get Lurch on the fi rst offi cial women’s tournament. “We corners! Who’s going to get Lurch?” were just completely excited,” said Dodd. “The tournaments we went to then were Pellerud is almost a full head shorter than ones where you never quite knew who Store and he wasn’t happy at what he’d was going to be there. You’d hear the just heard. “He grabbed my shoulder and Italians are coming or the Germans are he raced me up [to the doctor],” said coming and you’d think let’s hope it’s Store. “Both of us are standing there next the full national team, but sometimes it to each other and he says, ‘Please sir, can wasn’t. Sometimes it was a state side or you repeat that question?’” a club side and you’d play whoever you could play. “We thought it was a ridiculous idea,” said the former USA international Carin “It had been basically a bunch of Gabarra of the suggestion women should friendlies or self-organised tournaments play shorter games with a smaller ball. with no offi cial status on the global scale. To move from that to a world where The response from players was almost you’re having a Fifa world tournament universal. “I just remember anytime that was hugely exciting. We knew that was came up we were so mad,” said Joan the turning point, we knew that was the McEachern, who used to play in midfi eld beginning of an era. We knew that was for Canada. “It’s just so insulting. We the greatest opportunity probably most would just get mad.” of us had ever had in football.”

It was in that environment that the notion But the opportunity came at a cost: of a women’s World Cup started to form AU$800 (around £350 given exchange

62 Davidde Corran

rates at the time) per player — a knees for take-off and landing because signifi cant sum for an amateur footballer that was the only way they were going to in 1988 to have to fi nd. fi t in the seats.”

There might have been issues with the travel and uniforms, but the accommodation In late May, after a fi ve-day training camp in Guangzhou was beyond reproach. in , the Matildas began their 24- Sitting on the banks of the Pearl River, the hour journey to China. The importance luxurious 28-storey White Swan has seen of the adventure they were embarking visitors that include US presidents and upon was refl ected in the clothes the Queen Elizabeth II and housed most of players were wearing. the teams at the start of tournament.

“We got our fi rst travel or formal outfi ts Amid the opulence of the White Swan ever,” remembers the midfi elder Julie the teams escaped from the city’s thick Murray. “It was a skirt and jacket. I’d never heat and refl ected on a growing sense had one before. None of them fi t. Pretty of pressure, not just to perform for much up until the morning that we were themselves and their countries, but for leaving people were sewing and putting the game in general. “We knew that safety pins in our skirts — I had to roll we were representing our country, but mine over at the top.” we also thought we were representing women’s football,” said McEachern. According to the team’s post- “Because a good showing at that tournament report, the quick tournament would mean there would be adjustments worked. “Also impressive a World Cup. That was our understanding was the travelling uniform, which not and that’s how we viewed it.” only looked good en route, but also made a pleasant change to tracksuits when we attended an offi cial function,” it reads. “There were of course some As the Canadian team arrived at Tianhe problems with the fi t and the shirt was Stadium for the tournament’s opening not ideal, but certainly the uniform was game the fi rst thing they noticed were well received and supported.” the bats circling above. With the opening ceremony taking place on the pitch, the After stopping in Hong Kong, the Canadians were forced to fi nd a clear patch Australians boarded a state-run Chinese of ground outside the stadium to warm airline plane that “shuddered a lot” for up. “It was dark because there were no the last leg of their journey. “The seats lights and there were bats fl ying around,” were quite close together,” Dodd said. McEachern said. “You could actually hear “There were a couple of larger American these bats fl ying over your head and it tourists who were on the fl ight as well was kind of hard to concentrate. But and they couldn’t sit on their seats, they then we walked into the stadium. couldn’t fi t in. I remember they had to kneel on their seats facing the rear with “I have the picture of the starting XI the seatbelts around the back of their [before kick-off ] and there’s one person

63 Genesis

who’s just the smiliest, happiest person, And so it would prove. During the game so she was smiling and the rest of us look Janine Riddington found herself through like we’re walking to our execution. We on goal and scooped the ball over the were just terrifi ed. The stadium was full. onrushing Brazilian goalkeeper to put None of them were cheering for us. the Australians 1-0 up. “I think scoring actually just fl oored us,” said Murray. “The Chinese won 2-0 and we were “Holy shmoly, we just scored! I would never really in that game and we were have instantly assumed Brazil were one nervous. But we knew where the ball was of the best women’s teams in the world. by the noise the crowd made. Every time So to score against the best team in the they made one of these 50-yard long world from what I imagined, I don’t think balls in behind our defence the whole there was any way up from there.” crowd would go ‘Ohhhhhhh’ and we knew to turn and run to our net.” “We had to soak up a lot of pressure,” said Dodd. “Back then we were all just The tournament also off ered a fresh playing state club football. So your week challenge for coaching staff s — after in, week out football was at a level of years of playing against the same teams city-based football really. So to go from from their region over and over again, that to a sweltering stadium in China they now had to prepare to face nations with 25,000 people in it, playing against from the other side of the world that Brazil and to be able to lift yourself to they’d never encountered before — the standard, that was what was really something made harder by the fact that heroic about it. I remember coming on it was rare to be able to scout teams as a substitute and we were leading 1-0 using videos. and coming on as a left-back. Playing on the left wasn’t my usual position and The Australians had to be resourceful in certainly not left-back. So that was a the lead-up to their fi rst game against character-building moment to come on one of the tournament favourites, when you’re leading 1-0 against Brazil Brazil. “The intelligence we had was and be thinking, ‘OK, we need to be still based on one of our coaches sneaking winning this game when I come off ,’ and off , watching them train and saying thank God we did. I wasn’t sure if the they were playing a 4-2-4 formation,” bigger emotion was relief or disbelief. says Dodd. “After we’d beaten Brazil I remember we all The Australian coaches coupled this wanted somehow contact home and say, information with their belief only the ‘Guess what? We won, we beat Brazil 1-0.’ slowest and least talented Brazilians We weren’t sure what reporting had gone played at the back to formulate their home and who knew. So at this hotel you tactical approach. “We had to be able had to book a phone call and they would to defend and defend for long periods call you back in your room when the call against four strikers, but [the coaches] was on. So they might call you back in an felt with a fast transition and a counter hour or six hours and they might call you attack we would have a chance of back at three in the morning with your scoring,” said Dodd. phone call back to Australia.”

64 Davidde Corran

At a time when women’s football They had a huge advantage in terms of struggled to get any mention in the fi nancial and professional support. “The Australian papers, it was understandable players got paid,” said Store. “If I had the odds of people back home fi nding to leave my job for a week or two the out about their victory were low. Yet federation would pay my salary. They in the days after the match a telegram would cover my costs not only for travel arrived: a congratulatory message from and lodging, but for being away from the minister of sport. my work. That was a fantastic situation at that time for women’s football in Norway. If you needed to practise in the morning you had a discussion with your With four Olympic gold medals and two employer and tried to make a solution World Cup titles, the USA have dominated where you can go to practice in the women’s football over the last 22 years but morning, go to work after that and then in 1988, while competitive, the Americans go to practice in the evening again. We were still trying to bridge the gap between practised twice a day with our clubs. It themselves and the Scandinavian nations. makes it easier, much easier.” A 5-2 win over Japan in their fi rst game was followed by draws against Sweden Gabarra played against Norway both in and Czechoslovakia before Norway sent the 1988 quarter-fi nal and in the fi nal of them home by beating them 1-0 in the the inaugural World Cup three years later, quarter-fi nals. which the Americans won. “You could tell [Norway had more support], because “Support,” said Gabarra when asked what they played together they were fi t, they the diff erence was between this side and knew how to play soccer, they played the team that just a few years later would like a team,” said Gabarra. start its period of success. “US Soccer supported us, US Soccer enabled us to So, for the Norwegian players coming have more and more training camps into the tournament fi nal, in the most together. We didn’t have fans [in 1988]. important game they’d ever played, the The team was not well known at all fi nancial security, the backing of their because we never played in the US. We employers and their federation’s support always played abroad. So nobody knew would help make the diff erence in a 1-0 we had a team or what we were doing.” win. “Norway and Sweden have been fi ghting and quarrelling for years and With a squad that included the future at that time Sweden had been a better World Cup winners , Julie team than the Norwegian team,” said Foudy, Kristine Lilly, Store. “Norway won over Sweden for the and Brandi Chastain, that would soon fi rst time in 1987 so this was the second change. Brazil and China were the next time. That was huge for us as Norwegian big nations to fall as they lost their semi- players to beat them in what we thought fi nals, meaning Sweden and Norway, of as the World Cup fi nal at that time.” the two teams who made up what was arguably international women’s football’s After they lifted the Store and fi rst big rivalry, would face off in the fi nal. her teammates went back to their hotel.

65 Genesis

There was no partying, no drinking. sacrifi ced and struggled, administrators. They went to bed and the next day fl ew Those accomplishments don’t exist if you home for another new experience. “We don’t have the years of walking through had a reception at the airport when the desert. So [the tournament in China] we arrived with media and everything,” was the start of what we’re seeing now Store recalled. “That was very unusual 25 years later. We wouldn’t be here for a female to have without that. Once we got a World Cup, these receptions with media and people Fifa’s saying it’s a valid sport and that just from the federation and everything. So opens doors.” then you realise you’ve been a part of something special.” The players who took part in the 1988 tournament were pioneers for their sport. The generation before them had fought hard to raise the profi le of women’s BC Place lights up the sky on a freezing football in their countries and these cold night. It’s 27 January players enjoyed the opportunity to take 2012 and in a couple hours Canada the game onto the global stage. But for will have walked off the pitch having many it came at a cost that went beyond claimed a 3-1 win over to qualify the $800 the Australians had to fi nd. for the 2012 London Olympics. On the concourse outside the stadium around “The truth is all of us suff ered career a dozen women are gathering. They disadvantages from doing it,” said Dodd. greet each other like old friends meeting “For many players they would never ever up to reminisce. Someone’s brought a complain about it, but the fact is most of Canadian fl ag along and they all pose for the playing group have probably suff ered pictures with it. some life-long economic disadvantage as a result of their participation on the Around them the crowd continues to fi eld because their career advancement build, moving past the group and into has suff ered in some way and you never the stadium oblivious to the fact they are really catch that up. passing some of the Canada’s greatest ever players. Among them is Joan “But at the same time we’ve got so McEachern and after a while she heads much else from the game, no one would up to her seat to watch the game. As complain for a moment about having she takes in the record-breaking crowd, spent those years representing their she can’t help but think to herself, “We country. There’s no other feeling like helped build this”. putting on the jersey and going out there thinking I’m representing Australia. There “The World Cup, the U17s, the Olympics is just nothing like it.” — you don’t get that overnight,” said McEachern thinking back on that evening in Vancouver. “There’s years of struggle and fi ghting behind the scenes that we Hesterine de Reus played 44 times for the can’t even imagine. There’s players that at a time when many nations sacrifi ced and struggled, coaches who could go years without a game. She set

66 Davidde Corran

up PSV ’s women’s team and Saturday?’ and every week they had to is now in charge of a talented young tell me, ‘No you can’t.’ Australian outfi t with high expectations. But back in 1988 de Reus made a tough “After a year they got sick of me and they decision — she boycotted the women’s decided to let me play again. From that invitational tournament in protest against point on I played every week with the some of the decisions being made behind boys. It was illegal, because the rules said the scenes by the federation. it wasn’t allowed. And so I played from seven to twelve. When I played in the Since 1988, the Netherlands haven’t boys competition they knew I was a girl qualifi ed for a Women’s World Cup and, so they weren’t friendly to me. So instead without knowing it, De Reus was giving of quitting I just thought, ‘You wait, you up what would be her only opportunity won’t touch the ball anymore in the to play on the global stage. A sacrifi ce second half.’ Sometimes I think how made all the more signifi cant by the could I be so naïve? I just liked the game obstacles she had overcome to play and I just wanted to play and I didn’t football as a child.“I was born in a understand that I couldn’t because I was village and there was not much to do,” a girl. It didn’t make sense to me.” De Reus explained. “We could swim and play football. Playing football was for But because of her boycott, De Reus the boys and I was not allowed to join stayed at home 25 years ago while the club.” 200 women journeyed to China and played 26 games that helped reshape The seven-year-old De Reus, though, the football landscape. They disproved refused to give up. Instead she started the prejudiced beliefs many held about turning up at the training sessions, tried women’s football and earned much to act like a boy and quietly watched. craved recognition for their sport. It led “Eventually the coach invited me to to the 1991 World Cup, the admission of play with the boys and that’s what women’s football into the Olympics and I did,” she said. “After a while they all the progress that has come since. discovered I was a girl and they felt sorry for me so they didn’t want to All of these players believe women’s football tell me, ‘You’re not allowed to come still has a way to go, but can take heart from anymore,’ and I was allowed to join the fact a young girl in the Netherlands no in the training sessions. But of course longer needs to pretend to be a boy every week I would ask, ‘Can I play on just to play the game she loves.

67

69 Theory

“Rinus used to say that if you’re purely a counter-attacking team you’ll win some games but won’t win the title.” The Weight of the Armband

The Weight of the Armband The Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella explains why he made Lionel Messi national captain

By Joel Richards

“There are diff erent types of leaders,” to Germany in the quarter-fi nal of that explained Alejandro Sabella. “You have competition, or even that they failed to the ones who lead by sheer ability beat despite playing against 10 and others who lead because of their men for most of the match in the Copa personality. In rare cases you have América, was what had happened to the someone who brings together both of most important player. Leo Messi had not those. You could say that is absolute scored in 16 matches. leadership.” The introverted and softly-spoken Sabella is wearing his tracksuit at the Messi clearly does not tick Sabella’s national team’s training facilities in two boxes to qualify as an “absolute” Ezeiza outside on a rainy leader, or at least not in public. Yet midweek afternoon. It is where he sees selecting the Barcelona forward as out the interminable periods of inactivity captain was Sabella’s fi rst decision on between matches with his coaching taking over the national team. Just as staff , studying his players and future the new coach was a departure from opponents, as well as granting the odd previous profi les, so too was the new interview with the press. His English captain. ’s leader is still good from his time at Sheffi eld was Javier Mascherano. “My team is United and Leeds, but he prefers to speak Mascherano plus 10,” he’d say, before in Spanish. that soon evolved, or descended, into “Mascherano, Messi, Jonás (Gutiérrez), The question of leadership was at plus eight.” the heart of Sabella’s appointment as Argentina coach in 2011, though he Sabella shies away from off ering admits, “I don’t know if I did enough the press catchy headlines in press to deserve this chance,” a short — but conferences or interviews. But having successful — stint at Estudiantes having been ’s assistant coach been his only experience as a fi rst-team for 13 years, and a contemporary of coach. He inherited a squad of top Maradona, he knows Argentina’s two international talent that was rudderless, World Cup winning captains well. Both and far more damning than the way they Passarealla and Maradona demonstrated scraped through the World Cup qualifi ers “absolute leadership”, as Sabella defi nes for South Africa, or that they played it. So why change his captain? “Messi with four centre-backs in losing 4-0 is accepted as the leader,” said Sabella,

70 Joel Richards

“and Argentinians always need a leader, of Barcelona and Real Madrid players, the father fi gure who does something for with the odd player from another us. Our society is like that. In Leo’s case, side. The same [template of a national the captaincy has done him good and he side largely made up from two clubs has taken on that responsibility. And what is true] for Germany. On top of the is good for him, is good for the team.” quality of those players, you have the understanding among them. Also, Del Ever since Messi began to wear the Bosque continued the work of Aragonés, captain’s armband, his form for Argentina and Löw continued that of Klinsmann.” has fl ourished. Racking up a goal- He did not need to underline how that per-game strike rate and equalling contrasted from the situation he was in. ’s record for goals in a calendar year — 12 — have silenced Months after he had taken the job, with the complaints that he doesn’t sing the Argentina comfortably top of the South national anthem. Yet Messi is necessarily American World Cup qualifying table, playing a diff erent role for Argentina from Sabella walked into a packed conference the one he does with Barcelona. “We are room in the Four Seasons Hotel in lacking creative players,” said Sabella. Buenos Aires. He was the last speaker “We are lacking those more cerebral at an event that had seen the Argentina players who make things happen, volleyball and basketball coaches, Javier players like Iniesta or Xavi Hernández. Weber and Julio Lamas, explain their Historically we had those players, or at vision of what leadership is. Guillermo least that style of player. We had Aimar, Vilas spoke of how he and Björn Borg D’, Riquelme, Verón, Gallardo, shaped tennis. The event was unusually Ortega… that kind of player with great slick and corporate. “See! Things can be skill and technique, and who created done properly here,” said one Argentinian play, from deep or closer to the area, journalist who was still adjusting to life but who fulfi lled that role. We are losing back in Buenos Aires after years in Spain. those kind of players.” Sabella was given an ovation as he Messi scores a diff erent type of goals for walked out. “I recently met with Argentina. “We can’t forget that Messi Pochettino,” he began, speaking of a will play one way with us and one way recent trip to Spain before the younger with Barcelona,” Sabella said, pointing of the two had swapped Espanyol for to the national team’s more direct style. Southampton. “He told me that for him “We have scored a lot of goals on the the most stressful part of the job was counter, but most of his goals with the team talk. I told him I felt exactly the Barcelona aren’t like that, because they same. I dread giving that talk.” dominate possession and play in the other team’s half.” Despite the nerves, Sabella went on deliver what is his blueprint for leadership. Together with the creative DNA of the It was as far removed from the old- players he has at his disposal, continuity school superstition or tub-thumping from club to country is something that that his predecessors had espoused as concerns Sabella. “Spain is made up is imaginable. “The relationship between

71 The Weight of the Armband

the coach and the players is sacred,” the virtuous circle of “encouragement- he said, stressing the importance of support-help” that his players must brutal honesty. “You have to earn the show — in Spanish it is a more catchy respect of the players, you can never lie A-A-A (Aliento, Apoyo, Ayuda). Forgiving to them.” He admitted to having once mistakes is key. He paraphrased Kennedy done so and then feeling so bad that he — “ask what you can do for your team,” apologised every week until the player in and although he forgot the exact Gandhi question asked him to stop. He outlined quote about humility he was looking how he builds that respect with his for, he had made his point. He said the players, through knowledge, through better person is the better professional, ability to work and through the personal and hammered in the notion of Success relationship and bond with the squad. Equals Team, and vice versa.

He recounted stories of how he handled Finally, he brought up what is a situations before the Estudiantes- constant theme in Sabella’s discourse Barcelona World Club Championship — regardless of where he is speaking — match, but stressed that the key, no the sense of belonging and the honour matter the match, is motivating the of representing the shirt. In his fi rst players. The power point presentation press conference as Argentina coach, brought up a slide entitled, “The Team he said they must follow the example Talk and Me” — an eight-point plan of and generosity of the Argentinian what he drills into his players before a independence hero Manuel Belgrano, game. It hit on what he expects of his the man who “gave everything for his players, from “emotional balance” to country” — an absolute leader.

72

Pep’s Four Golden Rules

Pep’s Four Golden Rules How Guardiola made Barcelona the masters of the pressing game

By Simon Kuper

We could all see that ’s Before getting into the detail of their Barcelona were brilliant. What’s harder style, it’s crucial to understand just how is understanding how they did it. much of it came from Guardiola. When That’s where my friend Albert Capellas a Barcelona vice-president mused to comes in. Whenever he and I run me fi ve years ago that she’d like to see into each other, we talk about Barça. the then 37-year-old Pep be made Not many people know the subject head coach, I never imagined it would better. Capellas is now the assistant happen. Guardiola was practically manager at Vitesse Arnhem in the a novice. The only side he had ever Netherlands but before that he was coached was Barça’s second team. coordinator of Barcelona’s great youth However, people in the club who academy, La Masia. He helped bring had worked with him — men like the from a rough local club’s then president Joan Laporta, neighbourhood to Barça. He trained and the then director of football Txiki Andrès Iniesta and Victor Valdes in Beguiristain — had already clocked him their youth teams. In all, Capellas as special. Not only did Guardiola know spent nine years working for his Barcelona’s house style inside out, he hometown club. also knew how it could be improved.

During our last conversation, over Guardiola once compared Barcelona’s espressos in an Arnhem hotel last style to a cathedral. , he year, I had several “Aha” moments. said, as Barça’s supreme player in the I had watched the Barcelona of the 1970s and later as coach, had built the Pep Guardiola years umpteen times, cathedral. The task of those who came but only then did I fi nally begin to see. afterwards was to renovate and update Guardiola’s Barcelona were great not it. Guardiola was always looking for merely because they had great players. updates. If a random person in the street They also had great tactics — diff erent says something interesting about the not just from any other team today, but game, Guardiola listens. He thinks about also diff erent from Barcelona teams pre- football all the time. He learned from Guardiola. Barça were so drilled on the another Dutch Barcelona manager, Louis fi eld that in some ways they are more like van Gaal, but also from his years playing an team than a soccer for Brescia and Roma in Italy, the country one. Their luscious game wasn’t nearly as that pretty much invented defending. spontaneous as it looked. Yet because Guardiola had little desire to

74 Simon Kuper

explain his ideas to the media, you end Wembley in 2011, said that up watching Barça without a codebook. the way Barça pressured their opponents to win the ball back was “breathtaking”. Cruyff was the single most formative That, he added, was Guardiola’s infl uence on Guardiola. When the innovation. Ferguson admitted that Dutchman returned to the Nou Camp as United hadn’t known how to cope with it head coach in 1988, he did something in the Champions League fi nal in Rome that few Barça coaches had ever done in 2009. He thought it would be diff erent before: he went to the pitches where at Wembley. It wasn’t. the youth teams played. There he saw a skinny kid in central midfi eld hitting Barcelona start pressing the instant they perfect passes. “Take that boy off at lose possession. That is the perfect time half-time,” he told the boy’s coach. to press because the opposing player “Why?” asked the coach. “Because I’m who has just won the ball is vulnerable. putting him in the fi rst team,” said Cruyff . He has had to take his eyes off the game Guardiola went on to spend a decade in to make his tackle or interception and he the fi rst team. has expended energy. That means he is unsighted and probably tired. He usually Cruyff was perhaps the most original needs two or three seconds to regain thinker in football’s history, but most of his vision of the fi eld. So Barcelona try his thinking was about attack. He liked to dispossess him before he can give the to say that he didn’t mind conceding ball to a better-placed teammate. three goals, as long as Barça scored fi ve. Well, Guardiola also wanted to score fi ve, Furthermore, if the opponent won but he minded conceding even one. If the ball back in his own defence, and Barcelona is a cathedral, Guardiola added Barcelona can instantly win it back again, the buttresses. Even in his last, somewhat then the way to goal is often clear. This disappointing, season as coach, they is where Messi’s genius for tackling conceded only 29 goals in 38 league comes in. The Argentinian has such quick games. Sir Alex Ferguson’s assistant refl exes that he sometimes wins a tackle manager at Manchester United, René a split-second after losing one. Meulensteen, told the Dutch magazine , “Pep Guardiola’s The Barcelona player who lost the ball Barcelona made the biggest change at leads the hunt to regain it. But he never the top of football, and I’m especially hunts alone. His teammates near the talking about how they played without ball join him. If only one or two Barça the ball. They applied very fast and players are pressing, it’s too easy for coordinated pressure to win back the ball the opponent to pass around them. as quickly as possible.” There were four Meulensteen said, “You see that few key Guardiola tenets: teams have the individual skills to play themselves out from under pressure. Pressure on the ball Guardiola saw that very well. But Barcelona’s is also the playing style with Before Barcelona played Manchester the highest degree of diffi culty. You need United in the Champions League fi nal at players with the tactical qualities to shift

75 Pep’s Four Golden Rules

very quickly from possession to defence, of the pitch. That’s when the nearest and who are physically capable of doing Barcelona players start hounding him. that constantly. It’s a very short moment of hunting the prey.” There’s another prompt for Barça to press: when the opposing player on the The “fi ve-second rule” ball turns back towards his own goal. When he does that, he narrows his If Barça haven’t won the ball back within options: he can no longer pass forward, fi ve seconds of losing it, they then retreat unless Barcelona give him time to turn and build a compact 10-man wall. The around again. Barcelona don’t give him distance between the front man in the wall time. Their players instantly hound the (typically Messi) and their last defender man, forcing him to pass back, and so (Javier Mascherano, say) is only 25 to they gain territory. 30 metres. It’s hard for any opponent to pass their way through such a small The “3-1 rule” space. The Rome fi nal of 2009 was a perfect demonstration of Barcelona’s If an opposing player gets the ball wall: whenever United won the ball and anywhere near Barcelona’s penalty kept it, they faced 11 precisely positioned area, then Barça go Italian. They apply opponents, who stood there and said, in what they call the “3-1 rule”: one of eff ect: “Try to get through this.” Barcelona’s four defenders will advance to tackle the man with the ball, and the It’s easy for Barcelona to be compact, other three defenders will assemble in a both when pressing and when drawing ring about two or three metres behind up their wall, because their players spend the tackler. That provides a double layer most of the game very near each other. of protection. Guardiola picked this rule Xavi and Iniesta in particular seldom stray up in Italy. It’s such a simple yet eff ective far from the ball. A packed midfi eld, with idea that you wonder why all top teams no out-and-out strikers, enhances the don’t use it. compactness. Cruyff has said, “Do you know how Barcelona win the ball back No surprises. When Barcelona win the so quickly? It’s because they don’t have ball, they do something unusual. Most to run back more than 10 metres as they leading teams treat the moment the never pass the ball more than 10 metres.” ball changes hands — “turnover”, as it’s called in basketball — as decisive. More rules of pressing: once Barcelona At that moment, the opponents are have built their compact wall, they wait usually out of position and so if you for the right moment to start pressing can counterattack quickly, you have an again. They don’t choose the moment excellent chance of scoring. Teams like on instinct. Rather, there are very precise Manchester United and Arsenal often try prompts that tell them when to press. to score in the fi rst three seconds after One is if an opponent miscontrols a ball. winning possession. So their player who If the ball bounces off his foot, he will wins the ball often tries to hit an instant need to look downwards to locate it and splitting pass. Holland — Barcelona’s at that moment he loses his overview historical role models — do this too.

76 Simon Kuper

But when a Barcelona player wins the immediately. Possession gets Barcelona ball, he doesn’t try for a splitting pass. into a virtuous cycle. The club’s attitude is: he has won the ball, that’s a wonderful achievement Barça are so fanatical about possession and he doesn’t need to do anything that a defender like Gerald Piqué will else special. All he is supposed to do is weave the most intricate passes inside slot the ball simply into the feet of the his own rather than boot nearest teammate. Barcelona’s logic the ball away. In almost all other teams, is that in winning the ball, a player has the keeper at least is free to boot. In the typically forfeited his vision of the fi eld. England side, for instance, it’s typically So he is the worst-placed player to hit who gives the ball away with a telling ball. This means that Barcelona a blind punt. This is a weakness of don’t rely on the element of surprise. England’s game, but the English attitude They take a few moments to get into seems to be that there is nothing to formation, and then pretty much tell their be done about it: keepers can’t pass. opponents, “OK, here we come.” The Barcelona think diff erently. opposition knows exactly what Barça are going to do. The diffi culty is stopping it. José Mourinho, Barcelona’s nemesis, tried to exploit their devotion to passing. The only exception to this rule is if In the Bernabéu in December 2011, the Barça player wins the ball near the Real Madrid’s forwards chased down opposition’s penalty area. Then he goes Valdes from the game’s fi rst kick-off , straight for goal. knowing he wouldn’t boot the ball clear. The keeper miscued a pass and Karim Possession is nine-tenths of the game. Benzema scored after 23 seconds. Yet Keeping the ball has been Barcelona’s Valdes kept passing and Barcelona won key tactic since Cruyff ’s day. Most teams 3-1. The trademark of Barcelona-raised don’t worry about possession. They goalkeepers — one shared only by Ajax- know you can have oodles of possession raised goalkeepers, like Edwin van der and lose. But Barcelona aim to have Sar — is that they can all play football 65-70% of possession in a game. In the like outfi eld players. That characteristic 2011-2012 league season, they averaged will be key in Barça’s hunt for Valdes’s more than 72%. successor. The club may well choose to sacrifi ce core keeping skills in favour of The advantage of possession is twofold. ball-playing ability. Firstly, while you have the ball, the other team can’t score. A team like Barcelona, The “one-second rule” short on good tacklers, needs to defend by keeping possession. As Guardiola No other football team plays the once remarked, they are a “horrible” Barcelona way. That’s a strength, but it’s team without the ball. Secondly, if Barça also a weakness. It makes it very hard have the ball, the other team has to for Barça to integrate outsiders into the chase it, and that is exhausting. When team, because they struggle to learn the opponents win it back, they are the system. Barcelona long had a policy often so tired that they surrender it again of buying only ‘Top 10’ players — men

77 Pep’s Four Golden Rules

who arguably rank among the 10 best Here it’s really very diff erent. Everyone footballers on earth — yet many of them has his own position and you can never have failed in the Nou Camp. Thierry lose it from sight. I had to go back to my Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimović did, while youth days at Barça to master the basic even , who knew Barcelona’s principles again.” game from playing it with Spain, has often found himself on the bench. Barcelona needed Fabregàs precisely because he had once mastered those Joan Oliver, Barcelona’s previous chief basic principles. An even better example executive, explained the risk of transfers of this staffi ng principle is Pedro: not a by what he called the “one-second rule”. great footballer, but because he was raised The success of a move on the pitch is in La Masia he can play Barcelona’s game decided in less than a second. If a player better than stars from outside. The boys in needs a few extra fractions of a second La Masia spend much of their childhood to work out where his teammate is going, playing passing games, especially Cruyff ’s because he doesn’t know his teammate’s favorite, six against three. Football, Cruyff game well, the move will usually break once said, is choreography. down. A new player can therefore lose you a match in under a second. Nobody else thinks like that. That’s why most of the Barcelona side is That’s particularly true at Barcelona, homegrown. It’s more a necessity than whose system has such a complex a choice. Still, most of the time it works orchestration. Soon after Cesc Fabregàs pretty well. returned home from Arsenal, he said, “Barça have a very specifi c system and No doubt Guardiola will want to everyone has to adjust to it. Everything transplant most of this system — has been studied down to the last plus new ideas he has thought up in millimetre. In my fi rst matches I really Manhattan — to Bayern Munich. But had to adjust. I was so used to Arsenal, in a team that grew up without these where I could roam around the whole principles, such a complex knowledge pitch without worrying about anything. transfer could easily fail.

78 Taking the Initiative

Taking the Initiative Andy Roxburgh, the former Uefa technical director, on how football tactics are changing

By Nick Ames

Andy Roxburgh remembers the day top coaches, from their education at pitched up in grass roots to the regular symposia held New York. “He’d only just arrived. He for Champions League managers by the went down there, right in the middle, 35 side of Lake Geneva. yards out. Looks up here, points to the top right corner. I’m going ‘Yeah, yeah, If it was a surprise to see Roxburgh take ok’. Steps up, ball hardly spins, whoosh! on a fi rst position in club football in his A little while later, training camp in 70th year, becoming sporting director of Florida, he does it again. I got the point! , questions are allayed On set pieces, that guy… wow.” by the whippet-like energy he evinces in conversation — fact, opinion and theory Not for the fi rst time in our hour bouncing off the walls. IHis contemporary together, he’s jumped to his feet, and close confi dant Sir Alex Ferguson may motioning towards the careworn Red fi nally have retired, but Roxburgh’s hunger Bull Arena pitch below. Wiry and spry, he seems as voracious as ever. has been left unscathed by a chilly east- coast winter, even if a crash course in the intricacies of has had an enervating eff ect. As well as working with managers at the highest level, you’ve spent most You expect he’ll cope. His 18 years as of your career nurturing prospective Uefa’s technical director having begun coaches. Is it diffi cult to ask players, or in an era that saw Europe struggling ex-players, to take a more academic — in football and wider political terms view of the game? — to adapt to unprecedented upheaval. He emerged as one of his continent’s That’s a word I really don’t like — genuine visionaries, constructing a “academic”. I’d just call it “thinking”. I framework designed to protect a hitherto don’t fi nd that there’s anything academic undefi ned coaching profession at both about coaching; it’s all extremely ends of the spectrum. A man whose practical. Coaching guys for their Pro own management career has been Licences, the stumbling block is that understated — seven years in charge of they’re still thinking like players. On the Scotland the only senior experience on pitch, a player thinks from back to front. his CV — can fairly be credited with a That’s why, when you’ve got your tactics guiding infl uence on most of Europe’s board in the dressing-room, you put

79 Taking the Initiative

the goals at the top and the bottom. A really improve you on the pitch. Those coach sees the game from side to side, guys went on to prove it. and it’s totally diff erent. As a player, you know what’s happening in front and In an environment where ex-players behind; when you’re coaching, you’re have often walked straight into jobs with responsible for the whole show. A lot of barely as much as an interview, was it them just follow the ball around when initially diffi cult to assert the value of they start, can’t stand back, because it’s coaching qualifi cations? what they’ve always done. Sometimes, when you give them a crowded 11-a-side Maybe, but we worked hard at it. My 18 game to work with and say “Stop — what and a half years at Uefa can be boiled happened there?”, they’re totally lost. down to one crusade — a crusade to You need to teach them how to isolate a make coaching a genuine profession in problem within a game and then develop Europe. All 53 countries are now part of it, and that’s an art. You need a trained Uefa’s Coaching Convention and, while eye to do it. Some master it straightaway, it’s not complete by any means, the but others can’t take that backwards step foundation is now in place. Everybody and see the big picture. understands what it means and respects its value — the fact that you can’t work In that case, is there a clear advantage in at the top level without your licence studying for your coaching qualifi cations has seen to that. You’ll always get a few while still a player — and recognising individuals who are naturally gifted, both viewpoints at an early stage? but relying on that doesn’t protect the business at all. To protect football I came through with Sir Alec [Ferguson] players, at whatever stage in their and, as he said to me numerous times careers, you need to develop people when we were players together at who know that they’re doing — people Falkirk, he’d decided very early on that who know how and when to give input, his future was going to be in coaching and who can make you better. and management — so the quicker he got on with learning about it the better! People who are outstanding teachers… Like me, he began coaching alongside his playing career and would admit Yes — but again, it’s much more of a that it completely changed his thinking practical business than an academic about the game. I was exactly the same. one. The fi rst thing I’d say about José We applied ourselves in what was an Mourinho is that he’s brilliant at teaching incredibly practical environment. That’s methods. He’s wonderfully detailed at why, years later, I used to urge players organisation, outstanding in terms of to enroll on our coaching courses. It’ll knowing how to teach football. You can set you up for your future career and draw a parallel with , who give you a head start, but it will actually was just the same. Pep Guardiola, who’s help you as a player too. I had them all: been living here [New York], is another Alex McLeish, , Willie great example: absolutely pragmatic, so Miller, , . If you’re clever and shrewd about what he does, learning about the game like that, it can always quizzing. I had lunch with him

80 Nick Ames

recently — amazing actually, we were in tell me that the football pitch is the one a public restaurant and nobody knew him thing that keeps them sane, because — and he was asking me what Sir Alec’s the peripheral stuff around it is so much secret is. You have to know something more intense now. about working with players to keep going for as long as he has, after all. Training coaches nowadays, you have to make sure they are absolutely ready But isn’t Guardiola proof that you for everything they’re going to face — need much more than the coaching and because if you go into a job and make man-management aspects? By his own a mistake, you might never get another admission, he burned himself out while crack. I always say that you have to moulding arguably the best club side wear three hats: technician, manager we’ve seen. There’s so much going on and leader. Your technical part might be around the role now… very good, but if you’re not capable of handling the rest you’ll have a problem. For a start, your media awareness needs At the highest level, leadership is the key to be far greater than it ever was. Gérard element — can you persuade people, Houllier reckons that the most important inspire them, deal with a crisis? How you 30 seconds of the week for a top coach deal with a defeat will often defi ne your nowadays is the television soundbite after a career — the Champions League coaches match, especially if you’ve lost. Everybody’s were all agreed on that when they met listening to it: your players, their wives, the last September. If you can’t handle defeat board, the fans. It’ll be re-run every hour. well then you’ll die a death as a coach. During our coaching courses, we started saying that this is the moment you begin In your technical report on the 2011- preparing for the next game. What you say 12 Champions League, you said that will already have an impact, and your face the manager’s role as “psychologist” to is an advert for the health of your team. his players is as important as anything You’ve got to become clever at it if you else now… want to be in it for the long-term. How a manager behaves will rub off on And isn’t that harder than ever? his players, so the fi rst thing to do is to assess your own behaviour. If you come No doubt about it. Player power hasn’t in on a Monday morning after a defeat helped — players are so infl uential now and you’re wrecked then you have no and club owners take note of it. In the chance with that team. I believe that past you’d leave a player out, perhaps talent always rebounds, so if you’ve any he’d tell his father and his father would kind of mental strength as a coach — or say, “Aye, that coach is useless.” Now a player for that matter — you’ll bounce he’ll just tweet immediately or phone back, and that’ll fi lter to your team. That’s his agent, and the next thing you know what all the top guys do, because there there’ll be criticism of you all over the are no guarantees about anything. media. Agents are another drama, of course. You’ll notice that none of this Last time I saw he was is to do with football. Many colleagues saying that, for all the power you have,

81 Taking the Initiative

as a head coach, the one thing that you things, while taking that step back when can’t control is the result of a football they need to. match. You can do all your preparations and make your selections, but it’s a world In the Euro 2012 Technical Report, of ambiguity — so you have to stick to a you ask whether “overcrowding in the very clear vision of what you want to do backroom” is becoming an issue. If we and how you’re going to handle things. accept that the CEO-cum-manager There’s so much noise around you, but position now exists, is the burgeoning you have to fi nd a way to be yourself. number of specialists beneath him a cause for concern? With all of these extra strains, can a younger manager really expect to go I think you can end up with too many. through his career being more than a You mustn’t just have bodies in there coach now? for the sake of it, which is where that “control” word comes in again. It’s crucial Again I’ll give you Alec as an example that there is organisation and structure — he’s more like a CEO than a manager — sub-leaders for all the groups, be they in the conventional sense. He’s got all medical, coaching or anything else. It’s the background, knows all the practical an organisational issue and the person at elements, but like the head of any big the top needs to be able to oversee the business he knows how and when to whole show. You can extend it and look delegate. That in itself is a gift. At big at the people players themselves have clubs now you have such a massive around them these days. I remember one staff that the key word — and I know it’s national coach telling me that his players Alec’s favourite — is “control”. That’s the didn’t just bring an entourage with them secret if you’re going to stand a chance, — they eff ectively brought a business. whoever you are. You have to be in He counted out 20 individuals that a control of the whole operation, be able particular player had with him: a private to stand back to see everything, hear physio, trainer, businessman, PR guy, everything, judge everything. Your staff all sorts. The manager needs to be well have to know that you’re doing it. aware of these “staff ” as well as those he is directly responsible for. The best way to reach that level and survive is to train your way up, make your Sports scientists, performance fi rst steps as an assistant, perhaps take analysts and their ilk are presumably a job at a lower league club. Make your included in these swelling backroom mistakes there, in an environment where numbers. Is their infl uence becoming you might have limited resources and are such that, at some point, a coach’s constantly required to deal with tough tactical planning will be overtaken in frontline activity, and build gradually. You importance by analytics and statistics? see shooting stars who rise quickly and disappear without a trace, but look at the The bottom line for me is that football top boys like Alec, Arsène Wenger and is more of an art than a science. Of . They’ve worked their way course sports science has a big infl uence up and learned how to keep their eye on and it’s another element that coaches

82 Nick Ames

have had to take onboard, but these Champions League teams. Elements analysis programs and tracking systems of the competition seemed stale, can be described in one simple word: predictable. Since then, goals per game tools. Most top clubs use them now, have risen by almost 0.3; statistical and but to what extent should you? What visual evidence suggests the trend is many coaches will do is judge with their reversing. What’s changed? eyes and use the tool to back up that judgement. If you have the facts at hand, Pep and Alec both said something then people will listen to your opinions. similar at one of my last Champions If I say to a winger: “You’ve been lazy in League coaches’ meetings. They felt the fi rst half,” that’s an opinion. If I then that more teams — not everybody, but hit him with: “You ran 8km on Saturday more — were taking the initiative. If you — you’re usually running 10km, is there look down the years, most successful anything wrong? Should I leave you out?” teams at the top level have done that. then I’ve confi rmed it with a fact and he Rinus used to say that if you’re purely a should listen. As tools that support what counter-attacking team you’ll win some you are already doing, these facilities are games but won’t win the title. That’s the useful — but there is no way they should Dutch attitude, of course, and it hasn’t take over. always been borne out. Chelsea proved last year that a “contain and counter” So the relevance of tactics themselves game could be successful, and José did is undimmed? it with too — he was explicit in saying how comfortable his team was I prefer to use a word like “principles” — without possession. But I think they’ve but for me, tactics simply means “how”. been exceptions; the trend has been Does a player know how to recover the that expressive teams like Barcelona and ball quickly, how to press in advanced Manchester United will come out on top. areas? Does he know how to make angles? How will he operate in a certain How do you defi ne ‘initiative’? context or situation? Looking at it that way, it’s always going to be critical. Good Look at Borussia . They attack coaching today is not about drilling or with and without the ball, and that’s telling — that was the old-fashioned way. essentially what it means. It’s not just One of the gifts of a top modern coach about having possession, full-backs and is the ability to ask questions. You’re wingers charging up the pitch. Jürgen out there creating a practical dialogue: Klopp is always talking about intense “How would you beat this guy now pressing, the ‘Barcelona’ bit if you like. that he’s tuned into you?” or “We’re not Barcelona and Spain have set the tone getting down the line — what would your and it’s now being shown by a lot of solution be?” It might seem simple, but the others. You try to play an aggressive you have to know exactly how to get the attacking game, but you stay on the right response. off ensive as soon as you lose the ball. In the old days, even when I was in charge When we last spoke, late in 2007, of Scotland, we would sporadically press you referred to a “sense of caution” in if the opportunity was there. Barcelona,

83 Taking the Initiative

Dortmund and others do it automatically, work out how quickly.” I asked what he and it’s incredible. You have to be very meant — you need depth in your attack, fi t to do it, and also know how to do after all — and he explained it would be it properly. And the results justify the a back four with an interchanging six, a style. Xavi said that, fi ve or six years ago, bit like we used to see from Holland. I he was about to become extinct — but still didn’t believe him but, sure enough, the bottom line is what Barcelona have Barcelona started doing it: Messi up achieved by playing the way he and his front but not; no real reference points teammates do. for centre-backs to play against. Spain ended up doing it as well, as we saw If it’s inevitable that trends are last year — says he followed, does that reduce the scope for sweated and sweated about it before new developments? thinking “Why not?” And, of course, Spain replicated Barcelona’s success. Arsène made a good comment that suggests you’re right: “We’re the They had the players for it, though… generation of coaches that use old shapes; we don’t invent any new ones.” The players defi ne the shape. Going back It’s true that results trigger trends. I to Barcelona, what they did happened remember the Spain v France game because they had Messi. He was the in Bruges in 2000; they both played one that could come out of the middle, 4-2-3-1 and I’d never seen it before. It with guys like Iniesta and now Fàbregas was unusual, incredibly structured, and bombing on past him. So Arsène is a lot of teams obviously went down actually right, because what they’ve that road afterwards. The 2002 World basically done is to play 4-3-3 without Cup fi nal is another example, Brazil an out-and-out striker. The correct playing three at the back with two fl ying way to put it is that we still don’t have wingers and Germany doing the same. If any new shapes as such, but variations there’s success using a certain shape or on existing themes that arise through approach, people will follow it — and the individual quality. phase at the moment is about possession play and trying to take the initiative. You’ve travelled the world over the past few decades, primarily to spread It’s reasonably common to see teams the coaching gospel. Are there any operating without a genuine striker now, areas whose football is evolving at though. Did that come out of the blue? particular speed?

It’s funny actually. In 2002 I sat with I’ve been going to Japan for 15 years or and we spoke so now, and that’s the place that strikes about shape. He told me that this was me. The development there is fantastic the way it was going — we’d soon be — the J.League is strong and the national at 4-6-0. I thought he was joking, but team keeps getting better. It’s a similar he was quite serious: “Mario Zagallo situation in Korea: there has been a lot of told me in 1992 that it’ll go that way. investment and hard work all over the Far I’m sure he is right, but he just didn’t East. When the Japanese see a model,

84 Nick Ames

they’ll develop and adapt it to its absolute level below, but actual ‘local’ football fruition, so I have no doubt they will keep doesn’t seem to exist. I’m not going to getting stronger. Football is fl ourishing in solve it, but the lack of a club structure is that part of the world. certainly an issue for development here.

And are there any more established All the same, here you are — in your regions that should be looking over fi rst club role since you were a player. their shoulders? What took you to New York Red Bulls?

South America remains a traditional Somebody asked me to come! I’d stronghold, but the only country on already extended my term at Uefa twice that continent that is really starting to and it was an appropriate moment for embrace coach education now is Brazil. us both to go in our own directions. It It’s a surprise to me, but then you can was a very polite parting of the ways, a see that they’ve based everything on natural conclusion. I spoke to a number a natural environment that gave them of people after that but Gérard Houllier, excellent players. That’s how it used to whom I’ve been friends with for 20 years, be in Europe too, but the environment told me about this project and stressed changed and we had to concentrate that it had fantastic potential. It would be on developing footballers — they didn’t a completely diff erent role for me and I’d just come from the streets anymore. It fi nd it fascinating. So I went to meet the trickles up to how you deal with coaches. owners twice, and between them and At some point they’ll be faced with that Gérard they really sold it to me. There in South America, too. was a third factor — I came here on holiday last August and went for a walk You’re getting a fi rst-hand look at with , who tuned me in to another region of vast potential now. everything and added to the impression How do you assess the USA’s situation? that this would be a great challenge. Now I’m sitting at this desk, and we’re Here in America there’s vast participation about to open a new training ground — the biggest of all the sports — but the that will put us right up there in terms of problem arises somewhere between the facilities. I didn’t know the fi ner points grass roots and the top. I don’t really of how MLS worked, and I’m getting to detect a middle. Here’s an example: grips with them now, but it seemed an the reserve team here at New York Red intriguing project in an environment that Bulls. I expected there to be a small was quickly growing. It just shows you stadium in the area for them to play their that none of us ever stops learning. games in, capacity of 2,000 perhaps, but there’s nothing. You’ve either a college or university ground, or the huge arena we’re sitting in. I came here Roxburgh’s offi ce is rather sparely from Switzerland, where every village decorated, but as we rise to leave he had its own stadium — the one at Nyon picks up a large, framed photograph held 8,000! There’s massive interest in from one of the shelves. It’s a variation MLS now, and then other teams at the on a famous one: the then-Scotland

85 Taking the Initiative

manager holding aloft a tartan scarf after elimination from Italia 90 at Brazil’s hands. “I thought it was the only way I could remind the supporters, everyone back home, that I was one of them — you know?”

I think I do. For all his championing of methodologies, principles and structures, there’s something visceral, elemental, that you suspect has sustained him over a lifetime. Half a century in the game has done little to reverse the earthing process he underwent with Sir Alex and their peers back in . Tomorrow night, in fact, his old, old friend will be in town: the two will share dinner, doubtless a decent bottle of something, perhaps another chuckle at Guardiola’s quest for the elixir of eternal youth. And now, as back then, there’s a fair chance that they can do it all as virtual unknowns.

86 87 The North

“We have to do more than build with lottery money some grand projects, like a football stadium” City and the City

City and the City What does Sheikh Mansour’s investment mean for the city of Manchester?

By David Conn

There are very many ways to edges by injury and Pablo Zabaleta’s contemplate the extraordinary story of professional excellence. The supporters Manchester City, from the tragic-comic are crucial too, even as Abu Dhabi brands slumped giant slogging round the City into a global advertisement and grounds of the third division as recently projection of a glamorous image for as 1998-99, to victors the dynastic state of which Mansour is just 13 years later, thanks to the £38m one of the inheriting princes. The loyalty Sergio Agüero. In that journey the major the City fans showed down in that third tributaries of English football’s modern division season, the immovable presence transformation can be mapped: the of 30,000 when there was nothing more money lapping into the Premier League, cheerful to sing than “City Till I Die”, the failed stock market fl oats and was a key component when Mansour cock-ups of English owners looking to decided it was the club for him. cash in for themselves, more recently, of course, the mega-rich buyers from Then there is the new stadium, built for overseas. Through the 1990s, City the 2002 Commonwealth Games and were cast as the lovable, authentic converted at the public’s expense for City Manchester alternative to corporate, plc afterwards, the centrepiece of the local United, who won the treble in the same council’s vision for regenerating post- season City just scrambled up from industrial east Manchester. This was great the third following their play-off fi nal good fortune for the club and the most heroics against Gillingham. So even fi ve concrete reason why City were bought years after Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al by the sheikh, while Everton, needing Nahyan of Abu Dhabi bought the club, a fortune spending on grand, sagging it still feels improbable that he really Goodison Park, cannot attract a buyer. is here, that he did pick City for his The council hit the jackpot with Sheikh Premier League venture and has poured Mansour, and now, the stadium renamed £1bn in. Etihad after the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, the club is building a The story features home-grown players training ‘campus’ on 80 acres of exhausted supplanted by overseas stars — in City’s land. Jobs are meant to fl ow in from this, case only Micah Richards, signed from and east Manchester, the former engine Oldham Athletic aged 14, is clinging on room of the industrial revolution, is to from the club’s youth academy (Joe be reinvented for the modern era, into a Hart was signed at 19), pushed to the sports and leisure “destination”.

88 David Conn

I grew up in Manchester and supported lieutenant was hawking the Manchester City from the age of six; the club, its club around the Arabian gulf. Mansour, 1970s cohort of stars, and football itself, who had been wanting to buy a Premier bestowed sky blue blessings on my League club for a while, saw in City the boyhood. As an adult and a journalist, enduring big-club potential, with the I came to understand the professional loyal cadre of fans, and a new stadium game, how it works, the great clubs’ already built. His people told me he volunteer origins and the culture- paid £150m for the club, which always changing greed and exploitation of seemed very much more than he needed the Premier League era partly through to, as Thaksin was a fugitive, his assets investigating the eff orts of various frozen in Thailand, and City were sliding new City owners to make money for towards administration. Thaksin had themselves. This culminated in 2007 with paid £21.6m to Wardle, David Makin Thaksin Shinawatra, who had just been and the other previous owners, and had ousted as prime minister of Thailand in a borrowed £40m. So less that outlay, military coup, arriving to buy out the club. Thaksin Shinawatra, arguably the least appropriate person ever to be involved in Thaksin was pursued by Human Rights a great English football club, made £90m Watch, which wrote to the Premier for himself, from just one year. League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, to argue that following two In following all of these changes to murderous episodes in Thailand under Manchester City, examining them, visiting Thaksin’s rule for which nobody was ever Abu Dhabi and talking to Mansour’s held accountable, Thaksin was “a human executives, trying to understand what rights abuser of the worst kind”. He was it all meant to us, one of the most also formally charged with corruption signifi cant documents was research off ences in Thailand before he took over itemising the poverty of the people, the Manchester “people’s club” and the in Manchester, living right around the stadium the council built with public stadium. The offi cial English Indices money. But none of it was a bar to the of Deprivation, 2010 ranked every owners wholeheartedly recommending small neighbourhood of 2,000 homes that all City shareholder-supporters sell in England, according to accepted to Thaksin, nor to Scudamore’s Premier measures of social misery. Poverty, League approving the man as an owner worklessness, low life expectancy, of one of its major clubs. “income deprivation aff ecting children”, “health deprivation and disability”; all Thaksin was in charge of City for just combined to give a ranking, area by area. one chaotic year, beginning with the hiring of Sven-Göran Eriksson and the Manchester, despite the two top signing of Brazilian midfi elder Elano, Premier League football clubs, owned and ending the following summer with by overseas billionaires, broadcast Thaksin on the run and the former to 200 countries, its hosting of the chairman, John Wardle, forking out Commonwealth Games, the new from his own pocket to pay the offi ce stadium, velodrome, arena, conference staff ’s wages. That was why Thaksin’s centres, concert hall, metrolink tram

89 City and the City

system and the makeover of the city newer estates by the stadium, behind centre, was the fourth most poverty the two pubs City fans were anxiously stricken local authority area in England. drinking in. She is a community activist The other three were in London: and optimist, who maintains the changes Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Hackney. have hugely improved the area and Of the northern cities which had grown given it a chance of a future, that the into metropolises on cotton, coal, steel, Commonwealth Games, stadium and City docks, shipbuilding, and engineering, at least has brought people and some Manchester’s modern day decline was investment to the area, which for 20 years the worst. had felt abandoned. But she also said that when she moved here as a girl everybody Almost half of Manchester’s worked, in the factories or engineering neighbourhoods, 45.6%, were in the works, leaving home in their overalls — most deprived 10% in England, now they could go from one job to another suff ering another crash, this one of the the same day. Now, not one person on economy supposed to replace heavy the estate leaves home in the morning industry: banking, services, consumption. and goes to a regular job, she said. Of those areas, 19 of Manchester’s were among the most deprived 1% in It is a cliché to compare poverty to the country. The seven worst, the most footballers’ galactic earnings, but the deprived, for lack of work, desperation, facts are relevant here. Just across the child poverty, physical and mental road and over the wall of the stadium illness, were in east Manchester, after bowl, there were Yaya Touré and Carlos all those millions spent and made in the Tévez, paid £10m a year. regeneration business, greatly to the benefi t of the Premier League club, its So with all its dizzying themes, I came to billionaire owners and millionaire players. see this modern chapter in the City, in its broadest terms, Collyhurst, a football district famous for as a stark, simple, but deeply challenging having incubated United’s and England’s spectacle. Over the old football club, , and other hardy formed originally in the muck and smog lads, was second worst in the whole of east Manchester, the poverty and country, for “income deprivation aff ecting collapse of our industry and economy, children.” Right around the stadium, built is meeting a country that has just found almost a decade earlier specifi cally to itself one of the richest on earth. revive the fortunes of the area and local population, were still the most deprived The football clubs used to nestle within Manchester neighbourhoods: Bradford, the grimy bustle of the cities. They Miles Platting and Newton Heath, sprang up as outlets in the late 19th Harpurhey, Gorton South, Charlestown, century, for lads and men seeking an Ardwick and Gorton North. escape, a breath of air, excitement and sporting benefi t, from the toughness I talked before the fi nal, title-winning of Victorian urban streets and the grind match of the 2011-12 season to Barbara of work. Many of the grounds were Taylor, in her neat home on one of the thrown up around the scraps of land the

90 David Conn

players fi rst found to kick a ball on, or the football club alone, because Premier later they moved, as City did to the then League football, with its £3.1bn TV deal, open space at Moss Side, and built the £1.4bn and counting from overseas, is vast expression of faith in the future of a fl ourishing industry like the ones used football, . The clubs were a to be which collapsed around the clubs. part of the great cities, and changed their As Mansour put it in his initial open letter names from one of the neighbourhoods, to City fans. “In cold business terms, Ardwick, or Newton Heath, to represent Premiership football is one of the best the name of the city itself. The City entertainment products in the world badge I fell for as a boy had the and we see this as a sound business Manchester symbols, the red rose and investment.” the ship, after the mighty innovation of the canal which made a port of the In the other sections of the letter, inland city — but by the time I grew up in Mansour promised to value the club’s the 1970s the shipping was over and the history and the loyalty of the fans, its cranes on the docks were rusting relics. contribution in local community projects. His executives, led by the chairman, Now the football club, moved to Khaldoon Al Mubarak, have been true to the stadium the council built, a little that, nurturing the fans’ local feeling of marooned in acres of car park, prompts belonging in smart ways, while building a frightening thought. Is this all that the club into one capable of winning remains of real value, that the world the Premier League and projecting the actually wants of us? glamorous international image they want for Abu Dhabi. After Sheikh Mansour fi rst arrived and Manchester had rubbed its eyes and seen They have been in Manchester fi ve the takeover was truly, unbelievably real, years now and do not appear to have a spread appeared in the Manchester found much else they consider a Evening News, projecting an impression sound business investment. There is of how Abu Dhabi would transform the talk of Etihad bringing its European area. The artists’ impression showed bars, headquarters to Manchester, which restaurants, hotels, new apartments, would be a coup for the city and the the destination east Manchester of the airport, and create jobs, but that does council’s dreams. Mansour’s men were not amount to investing in something not slow to make it clear they had no Manchester-bred. interest in doing any of that. There had been no market or demand for bars When City unveiled plans for the and restaurants in an area blighted by campus, with its 7,000-seat stadium for economic catastrophe and population- the reserves — which seems like over- fl ight for 30 years. They have more ambition even for Abu Dhabi — the money than they know what to do with, rooms for young recruits from all over literally, with funds devoted to how the world (ringed by unobtrusive but very to spend it, and they have the whole reliable security, I was told), it was hailed credit-crunched world to invest in. In as a football marvel, and, again, for its east Manchester, they were interested in regeneration benefi ts. This is true again;

91 City and the City

it is a large development on land which built their arena, metrolink and G-Mex has lain derelict since the last factory, conference centre while the other cities US-owned by then, packed up, and it will were still paralysed by their economic add hugely to the rehabilitation of east disasters. Manchester secured the Manchester. When built it will provide 90 Commonwealth Games after cheekily jobs, City said. bidding twice to bring the Olympics to east Manchester. With public money Of the 80 acre site, 5.5 acres, around being squeezed for schools, libraries, one sixteenth, will be given over to social care and parks, that brought the community use, decontaminated at City’s money in: to run the games and build expense. The council is hoping it will the facilities, including £78m from the build a sixth-form college there, because lottery to build the stadium which would there is no sixth form in the whole of afterwards re-home a Premier League east Manchester. There is also talk of a club. The other £49m the council put in sports centre and swimming pool being itself, council tax payers’ money. Many built for community use. While Abu City fans are under the illusion that after Dhabi plough on with the £140m it will the Games, the club paid to remove the take to build the training campus they track, lower the pitch and build the new hope will rival Barcelona and Manchester north stand, but that is simply not true. United for the best boy footballers, Public money paid for the conversion the council must patch together a for football because that was the deal funding package for the school and the council agreed with City. In a very sports centre. In an environment in Premier League-era arrangement, City which the council had to cut 2,000 jobs had only to pay for the bars, restaurants and services, to save £170m over two and corporate facilities they wanted — years cut by the Conservative-Liberal £20m for that fi t-out. Democrat government, the money for the community benefi ts will not be easy You can argue about the terms City to fi nd. agreed: they had to pay nothing towards the stadium’s construction and no rent What the council has done faced with whatsoever up to the Maine Road 32,500 the apocalypse of industry visited on capacity. Above that, on seats up to the Manchester from the late 1970s has been new stadium’s 48,000 capacity, City paid admirable, entrepreneurial; the envy of a share of income, which the council , Leeds and other cities. While has said amounts to £2m a year when Liverpool was vainly fi ghting Margaret the stadium is full. I have always taken Thatcher’s Conservative government’s the view that this was a very generous assault on local government fi nances deal indeed to City, who could never after her re-election in 1987, the former have aff orded to build such a stadium council leader Graham Stringer told me, themselves, as Everton, a similar club Manchester made a strategic decision to in many ways, cannot. But the council play as well as they could by her rules. wanted the stadium and games to Forced to bid for funding of specifi c happen, to be a catalyst for regeneration, projects competitively with other cities, and the chief executive, Sir Howard Manchester became expert at it. They Bernstein, argues it is a good deal,

92 David Conn

ensuring the stadium was not a white investment. In the event, City overspent elephant, the rent keeping the other during ’s time as manager sports facilities around it in good order. and arrived at the stadium making The council also controlled any naming losses and in debt. Wardle and Makin, rights over the stadium, so when City recommending all shareholders sell were concluding their deal with Etihad, to Thaksin Shinawatra, wanted out by the council had to agree. It did so, for then, and sold at a loss. Thaksin made a further £2m a year, while Etihad are his £90m a year later selling the club to paying City £35m for the airline’s name Mansour, which would never have been on the shirt, stadium and campus. possible without the new stadium built for £127m of lottery and public money, You can argue that the council has been but there was no return for the public. generous, or accept that £2m is decent money for the fourth most deprived The was originally not local authority in England. Independent designed to be converted for football auditors have approved both deals. You afterwards because the mayor of could argue the council should have London’s offi ce under Ken Livingstone squeezed out a little more, or you can could not countenance a handover to applaud it for getting a deal done and a Premier League football corporation. securing the campus and its projected When, under Boris Johnson, London economic benefi ts. changed its mind and decided they would convert the stadium at vast But one central aspect of the stadium expense for West Ham, they negotiated deal I could never understand was that a claw back of money should the owners it was given to City with no money to of West Ham, David Gold and David return to the council should the club’s Sullivan, sell the club at a profi t. owners sell at a profi t. When the deal was being mooted in the late 1990s, I But besides the specifi cs of the deals they had travelled my path from wide-eyed have done, I worry, as a Manchester man, sky blue fan to adult understanding that that there is a risk of making too much my club was a company. Its shareholders of the east Manchester regeneration were Wardle, Makin, the kitchen-making projects. Part of the strategy is to talk Boler family, the former player Francis up the place and to keep encouraging Lee and even Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB, investment, but I worry that at times the who had bought a 9.9% share. Lee, hype can take the place of reality. I found Wardle and Makin, with David Bernstein, in a regeneration document about east the future Football Association chairman, Manchester the following proclamation: an early investor, had wanted to fl oat “Into the 21st century Manchester has the club on the stock exchange, which [undergone] and still is undergoing a would enable them to make a gain on remarkable economic transformation, their shares, if the club was doing well. moving inexorably towards become The council was giving this company, the UK’s fi rst post-industrial city, where owned by these shareholders, a huge the new economic base will be geared gift of public money, which should almost exclusively around a service and have greatly increased the value of their knowledge-based economy.”

93 City and the City

That phrase, the “knowledge-based leads you to the reality of the collapse economy”, is a diffi cult one anyway to which caused it, and to question if we accept — as if there was no “knowledge” have really found a convincing way to in creating a ship canal and docks, economic improvement. Manchester cotton, trains, and engineering. As if all in the 1800s became the world’s fi rst of that was just muscles and brute force. industrial city and visitors came from The image of reinvention, conjuring France, Japan and other countries to up some kind of Google-land, can marvel at its wonders, and grimace at its also, while understandably wanting to harshness. Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s attract businesses, veer into overstating patron, chronicled the city’s startling the case. If this had happened so inequality in his classic 1844 work successfully, this “remarkable economic The Condition of the Working Class transformation”; including the outlay of in England. Manchester City football public money to create “sport city”, then club descends from an initiative by hitting the jackpot with Abu Dhabi, why Anna Connell, the vicar’s daughter of are the areas right around the stadium St Mark’s church in west Gorton, in still mired in England’s worst deprivation? November 1880, forming a football team to promote the benefi ts of sport, I worry that some of this, propounding and the church itself, in one of the the potential of a football club, its toughest neighbourhoods. stadium and training ground to revive an economy, can get in the way of You can read the 20th century in a city a wider proper recognition of where like Manchester as a diffi cult eff ort to we really are. A more recent study maintain and modernise the industrial of offi cial statistics by the End Child economy in the face of international Poverty campaign found in February competition, while the post-1945 2013 that Manchester is the second welfare state and local authority worst local authority for child poverty. civilised conditions. The football clubs In Manchester, 38% of children live in grew remarkably in popularity from households earning less than 60% of the off , homes of belonging for urban median income, the offi cial measure generations, the Football League in eff ect of poverty. Manchester Central ward organising the clubs into an industry — right there amid all the costly themselves, from 1888. improvements, a breath away from Deansgate’s new, outsized Giorgio Then, during Thatcher’s time, with Armani store — is the very worst in the high interest rates, lack of government whole country. Neighbouring Tévez, intervention, an almost religious belief Touré, £35m naming rights deals, in the redemptive qualities of “market the football club which beams the forces”, one factory after another, whole international invitation for tourists to visit industries, closed down. The records say Abu Dhabi, 47% of Manchester Central’s that 150,000 manufacturing jobs were children live in poverty. lost in Manchester between 1979 and 1984, many of them in the districts of the Understanding the scale of these social east. Tens of thousands of people left problems which endure in Manchester the areas and have never returned. “Firm

94 David Conn

by fi rm, there were savage cut backs,” he then builds a mighty training complex, wrote Professor Alan Kidd, in his book which will create 90 jobs. Manchester, A History. “The 1970s and 1980s were decades of national industrial For the 45,000 City fans who danced and decline in which the Manchester region wept ecstatically when Agüero scored more than played its part.” his 94th-minute title winner last season, the club is the same one they followed Now, the economy which was supposed to the Gillingham play-off fi nal, only to replace industry — banking, the rebuilt. Its remarkable recent history tells stock market, some very vague notions us football’s story, about how the game of entrepreneurship and aspiration, has been unleashed by pay TV. And as “knowledge” — has been exposed as a football always has, the game refl ects debt bubble and collapsed. Since then, the world we are living in. Born as a the crash coinciding with the Manchester professional sport when workers began City purchase by Abu Dhabi, who have to enjoy a half day off on Saturdays, oil, and therefore real, not bubble the football clubs in the northern cities money, our industrial collapse is slowly are in danger of being a large part of all being recognised more for the disaster we have left to celebrate. The meeting it was. How did we let so many jobs, of new, rich, lucky Abu Dhabi with industries, traditions and skills developed post-collapse Manchester speaks of over generations, simply close down? football’s irresistible global attraction, How did we think we could reinvent an the reinvented modern fl ourish of economy on “market forces”? What on our traditional clubs. But rather than earth are we going to do about it now? see in the City story a passport to a How do we “rebalance” the economy? better future, the circumstances of its acquisition by Sheikh Mansour should These are questions beginning to be jolt us into facing up, a touch more asked with more urgency, 30 years on. realistically, to the post-industrial The answers will surely be that we have mess we are in. to do more than build with lottery money some grand projects, like a football stadium. Even if it enables a club to be bought by a member of the global super David Conn’s book Richer Than God: rich, who wins the Premier League by Manchester City, Modern Football and paying footballers more than they could Growing Up, is now out in paperback, earn elsewhere, £10m each, or so. Even if priced £8.99

95 12345 6

12345 6 Meanwhile Back in Sunderland

Meanwhile Back in Sunderland How a Tyne Tees documentary on Cup fi nal day 1973 captured the spirit of the town

By Jon Spurling

Ian Porterfi eld’s expression after to present and narrate a programme hooking the decisive goal past the called The Pride and Passion of Leeds keeper David Harvey, Jim Sunderland. Broadcast on the Thursday Montgomery’s incredible mid-air twist before the fi nal, when Tueart, Porterfi eld to deny a certain goal, and the striker Billy Hughes were meeting ’s dash across the Wembley Suzi Quatro and The Sweet as guests of turf into the arms of Montgomery, a honour at the Top of the Pops studio, the moment of unbridled joy later captured BBC documentary focussed mainly on in bronze outside the Stadium of the impact of the manager — and former Light: the victory of second-division Newcastle defender — Bob Stokoe, Sunderland over ’s mighty and how his galvanising presence had Leeds United in the 1973 FA Cup fi nal lifted the spirit of the town against a was replete with iconic images. backdrop of high infl ation, strikes and the impending energy crisis. “Bob was a It was, in the captain Bobby Kerr’s people person,” said Tueart. “One of the words, “a victory for a one-club city, fi rst things he did at the club was change where literally everyone, from miners the day of midweek home matches to shipbuilders to shop workers drove so that shipyard workers could attend us onwards.” The football club was the games. He also changed the kit so we face of the whole town. “Even now,” the played in black shorts [rather than white, forward Dennis Tueart said, “men and which had been introduced in 1961], women of a certain age are moved to which pleased older fans. He understood tears when they talk to you about the and connected with supporters in a game. Our run to the fi nal, and the fi nal subtle way.” itself, created a perfect pitch between the club, its fans and the entire city.” In the A young John Motson was dispatched build-up to the match, documentaries to Wearmouth Colliery, where miners were broadcast by the BBC and Tyne who’d just completed their shift spoke Tees Television that captured perfectly glowingly about Stokoe. “He’s saved this just what was happening in Sunderland town,” claimed one. Asked by Motson and precisely what it meant to everyone why he believed Sunderland would connected with the town. defeat Leeds, another miner replied incredulously, “Because we’re the better The BBC commissioned Harold team.” Although a brief segment of the Williamson, born in Houghton-le-Spring, Motson interviews survives, The Pride

97 Meanwhile Back in Sunderland

and Passion of Sunderland fell victim suits, were making their way to the fl eet to the BBC’s purging of the archives in of Wembley-bound coaches, heading the late 1970s. Fortunately Tyne Tees’s south to the A19, and the station, where off ering, Meanwhile Back in Sunderland, specially laid on trains headed to Kings remains fully preserved and is arguably Cross via Newcastle. “About a week the most treasured social documentary before the fi nal,” recalled Stokoe, “the to emerge from the North East. town had simply run out of red and white material. You couldn’t get a scarf or a “I went to see Bob Stokoe and chairman rosette anywhere.” The documentary Keith Collings,” said the head of explains the shortage: as fans trooped features at Tyne Tees, Leslie Barrett. down the streets, virtually every shop “It soon became fairly clear that we window had some kind of candy-striped weren’t going to get into Wembley, display; in clothes shops wax dummies and the BBC and ITV had the team were clad in Sunderland garb. Even the hotel covered to the hilt.” So Barrett undertakers had a discreet rosette tucked was forced to think outside the box, to one side. and opted to shoot footage in the town from 5am to midnight on Cup The FA Cup fi nal was arguably sport’s Final Day, using four diff erent camera biggest televison event of the year in crews. He decided that there wouldn’t the seventies, often attracting in excess be a narrator; the people of Sunderland of 20 million viewers across both BBC would provide their own narrative to the and ITV. The BBC commentator Barry day. Although the production team was Davies argues that the 1973 fi nal was initially disappointed not to be going to the fi rst time the two broadcasters had Wembley, Barrett tapped into the waves really tried to outdo one another with of enthusiasm sweeping through the the build-up. ITV were granted a live town and insisted, “If we win, we have feed on the Sunderland team bus (Revie got a hell of a programme here.” refused to allow cameras onto the Leeds bus) and although the technology broke At daybreak on the morning of the game, down on more than one occasion, it the players were sleeping soundly in showed the team in a decidedly relaxed their Selsdon Park Hotel beds. Some, like state. They were still grinning about Hughes, had supped a couple of cans Hughes setting off a “laughing box” during of lager the night before to ease their the team’s interview with Davies earlier nerves; Stokoe, riled by ITV’s Who’ll Win that morning. The players dissolved The Cup? late-night show, on which into fi ts of giggles on live TV, much to panellists , Davies’s astonishment. The players’ antics and Pat Crerand predicted a comfortable contrasted with the far more sombre Leeds victory, tossed and turned. Leslie BBC interview conducted with Revie’s Barrett’s fi lming crews, meanwhile, squad, who wore pin-striped suits. The were already hard at work on the streets Sunderland team watched the Leeds of Sunderland. By 5.30, groups of interview on Cup Final Grandstand before supporters, clad in giant red-and-white leaving for Wembley and rosettes, natty red-and-white hats and, recalled the “dread and fear” on the Leeds for the majority of male supporters, players’ faces. Having watched the tense

98 Jon Spurling

interview, Tueart became “even more barely watch, others chain-smoked; convinced that the day would be ours.” some chain-smoked while not watching. The fi nal whistle was met with a tumult Back home, the locals closed up their of Klaxons, whistles, and cars tooting shops and descended upon those their horns. On the streets, groups of neighbours who were fortunate enough women performed renditions of “Ee to own colour televisions. Local boys, aye adeo, we won the cup,” and men accompanied by a dog with a rosette embraced, according to one fan, “in a pinned to its collar, had a kickabout in a way Sunderland blokes have never done, side street within a few yards of Roker except perhaps when we last won the Park and large groups began clustering cup in 1937.” With the players preparing around Vision Hire on Fawcett Street for for their reception at the Savoy, the an impromptu street party. When the town partied in inimitable early seventies game kicked off at 3.00pm, the town style. A young woman revealed knickers was deserted but for a solitary policeman embellished with Sunderland logos and trudging a lonely beat. Television viewers men with Rod Stewart-style feather cuts saw the players emerge from the tunnel got more beers in. Most poignantly of on a gloomy London afternoon, with all, a group of senior citizens sang along Bobby Kerr, the smallest-ever FA Cup to a pling-pling version of You’ll Never Final captain, surging ahead of his Walk Alone, led by a pianist clad in an counterpart . Kerr was yelled enormous red-and-white top hat and at by Jim Montgomery to slow down and a drummer with red-and-white twirling his teammates, barely able to control drum sticks. “Whenever I see that fi nal their glee, bounced up and down as they clip on the documentary,” Tueart said, prepared to meet the Duke of Kent. “I watch it with a lump in my throat, because those older supporters are long When Porterfi eld scored after 31 minutes, since passed away. Many of them had the emotion of Sunderland fans at been to the Final of ’37, and Wembley was mirrored in the houses couldn’t believe it when, 36 years later, and streets at home. Plastic hats were Sunderland did it again.” thrown into the air, beer was slopped over tables in pubs, working men’s Due to Sunderland’s backlogged fi xture clubs and cinemas which broadcasted list, they had to travel to Cardiff on the game, and teenage girls screamed Monday (the game ended 1-1) before and wept. The reaction among fans coming back home on Tuesday, in to Montgomery’s remarkable double advance of their fi nal league game of the save was one of baffl ement initially, season against QPR (an understandably because it took so long to understand exhausted group of Sunderland players what had happened. Jimmy Hill, were hammered 3-0 by the Second co-commentating, only realised Division runners-up) at on Montgomery had saved Lorimer’s shot Wednesday. “None of us had a clue when he saw a second replay. about what had been going on at home,” explained Watson. “We’d been As the game reached its climax, the in our Wembley bubble.” As the team atmosphere was fevered. Many could approached the town, they had a taste

99 Meanwhile Back in Sunderland

of what was to come. “There were it from time to time, Hughes describing supporters hanging over bridges, and it as “a perfect piece of TV, simple and cheering from the grass verges. There eff ective”. Stokoe, whose Wembley were cows in fi elds wearing rosettes and dash is included at the end of the when we got into Sunderland, there were documentary, is said to have wept when tens of thousands out and Roker Park he saw it. just buzzed for the trophy parade.” Lance Hardy, author of Stokoe, Sunderland And Towards the end of the programme, ’73, estimates that around 750,000 turned several supporters insist: “We’ll win it out to welcome home the conquering next year,” and Sunderland were installed heroes, and thanks to a local amateur as promotion favourites for 1973-74. fi lm maker, grainy images remain of Things quickly went awry. Tueart and the Roker Park homecoming, at which Watson departed to Manchester City around 50,000 crammed in to see the and the class of ’73 disintegrated amid cup paraded. For those who missed it, grumblings about a lack of investment there was always the QPR game the in the team by the board. Stokoe guided following night, at which the team to Division One three years allegedly knocked the FA Cup off a table later but, stricken by ill-health, resigned by the side of the pitch for a bet, enraging after a disappointing start. Sunderland, the 43,000 who had squeezed in. who were losing fi nalists to Liverpool in 1992, have been unable to match Meanwhile Back in Sunderland was the ecstasy of the ‘73 fi nal since, but broadcast on the Monday and when the as Tueart notes, “That would be nigh players watched it at a private screening, on impossible. You can’t recreate what they were staggered by what they saw. happened back then.” “We’d been out and about in the town during the cup run, meeting and mixing Kerr once described the ’73 Cup run as with supporters, so we had a feeling “something that you cannot put into what might have happened, but the words.” Yet, thanks to Leslie Barrett’s documentary reaffi rmed exactly how the brilliant improvisation, Meanwhile Back whole town was involved,” said Watson. in Sunderland does a splendid job of Only Yorkshire TV and Wales bought encapsulating the joyous mood of the the rights to the programme, but it is time and will remain a compelling oral occasionally repeated in the area now and visual testament to the bewitching and is accessible on YouTube in all its power the FA Cup held over glory. Several former players still watch Sunderland in 1973.

100 That Grandish Pile of Swank

That Grandish Pile of Swank Tracing Leeds United’s place in the tradition of Northern Realism

By Anthony Clavane

At the beginning of 2013, several years. A working-class iconoclast and announcements were made which provincial braggart: Northern Man. In caused me to refl ect on the connection novels, the theatre, television and the between football and art. First, Radio cinema, he suddenly became the subject 4 announced they would broadcast of ground-breaking dramas. He found his the complete text of Tony Harrison’s way into the glare of the spotlight via his poem V, which was written in 1985 writing ability, photography, acting talent, in the midst of the miners’ strike and musicianship or football skills. He was an caused something of a fuss when it antidote to both the upper-middle class was aired, two years later, on Channel tweediness portrayed by Dirk Bogarde 4. Then Leeds Waterstones announced and Kenneth More and the warm- it would commemorate the 50th year hearted proletarian stereotypes off ered of Billy Liar’s release at the cinema up, in a previous era, by Gracie Fields and by holding an event at its bookshop. George Formby. The government then announced the second phase of the £32bn HS2 high- Before the 1950s, ‘the North’ had been speed rail network. And, fi nally, Leeds reconstructed on London fi lm sets; in United announced the sale of their best the classic Fields vehicle Sing As We Go striker to Norwich City. (1934), for example, the streets of her home town were rebuilt in the Ealing At fi rst glance, only the last of these studios. Filmed on location on the back- developments relates to a footballing streets of Leeds, Bradford, Nottingham theme. But to those who, like me, are and , these social realist fi lms obsessed by such things, they are all brought a new vitality to British cinema. part of the contradictory narrative of They were inspired, and very often northern realism. written by, a post-war generation of edgy, ‘tell it how it is’ northerners I should explain. In my book Promised hailing from several cities and towns. A Land, I set out to pull together several disproportionate number hailed from strands into this one narrative. By Leeds and its surrounds. Indeed, West “northern realism” I mean the cultural Yorkshire, for a few glorious years in movement characterised by the so- the early 60s, became the unoffi cial called kitchen sink writers of the 1950s home of an infl uential movement that and 1960s. A new kind of man sprang drew upon the lives and experiences of into the public imagination during these the aspirational, newly-socially-mobile

101 That Grandish Pile of Swank

working-classes. Keith Waterhouse’s Billy The rise of this movement was paralleled Liar (1959), for example, told the story of by the ascent of Don Revie’s great, if a daydreaming fantasist and his desire to tarnished, Leeds United team. In my view, escape the confi nes of his upbringing. this team was the footballing apotheosis Alan Bennett wrote bittersweet tales of of northern realism. The kitchen sink unfulfi lled ordinary life. David Storey’s stories could be lifted from any one This Sporting Life (1960) followed the of their autobiographies. There’s Joe emotional struggles of a bitter young ‘Dracula’ Jordan emerging, like Machin, coal miner who was recruited by a rugby with his front teeth missing following team in Wakefi eld after being spotted a clash with a defender. There’s Jack fi ghting outside a nightclub. Charlton threatening to knock Norman Hunter’s block off as a Leeds fan shouts, Waterhouse, Bennett, Storey, Stan “Go arn, Norman, ‘ave a go at him.” Bartsow, Willis Hall and, a few years There’s Big Jack chasing a Valencia later, Tony Harrison, all wrote about defender half-way round the pitch after working-class anti-heroes — Billy Fisher, the Spaniard had punched him. There’s Joe Lampton and Frank Machin — who Billy Bremner, described by Michael were characteristic of the revivifi ed Parkinson as “ten stone of barbed new north in their energy and belief wire”, hurling his shirt to the ground that the good things of life were within after scrapping with Kevin Keegan at their reach. They were, as Lampton Wembley. There’s Bite Yer Legs Hunter declared in Room at the Top, “going lamping Frannie Lee after another dive to the Top”: Leeds “was stirring out of by the Derby striker. There’s Gary Sprake its pre-war, post-Edwardian sleep,” decking a lad at the Mecca after being recalled Waterhouse. “There was a civic accused of eyeing up the lad’s bird. restlessness about, a growing clamour There’s a tearful David Harvey telling his for clearing away the old.” unsympathetic team-mates how his pet monkey had switched on the oven and Waterhouse wrote Billy Liar in 1958, gassed himself. There’s Revie giving his the year his city’s architect insisted players their wages in readies “so you can the multi-storey block was the only go straight to the bookies.” There’s the way forward, the fi rst British motorway coach Les Cocker telling his defenders — the M1 — opened between Leeds to go in hard with the fi rst tackle, the one and London, and Leeds United signed the referee never books you for. Don Revie from Sunderland. It was published a year later and, after John Each chapter of Promised Land’s section Schlesinger’s screen version was released on that team begins with a quote from in 1963, the name of its eponymous Waterhouse’s classic novel. In the Leeds protagonist passed into popular culture. fanzine Square Ball, ‘Moscowhite’ wrote: Like Lampton, Machin and Jimmy Porter “Leeds United — the perennial runners- in Look Back in Anger, Billy spoke to up, the eternal chokers — are recast as a generation of ambitious provincials Billy Fisher, the frustrated northern man barging through the privileged ranks of so convinced of his own potential, if he the elite. A working-class anti-hero was could only get the breaks, yet who, with something to be. everything he ever dreamed of there for

102 Anthony Clavane

the taking, will always leave Liz (Julie tallest fl oodlights in Europe, waving to Christie! Julie bloody Christie!) alone on the crowd in their matching tracksuits. the train to London, will always sabotage Don Revie’s achievement, and his failure, his own chance of happiness and go was to make Leeds United into a full back for the milk… representation of his own personality, its brilliance, its style, and its fl aws. It isn’t “Leeds United were a team of heroes hyperbole to call that a work of art, as that existed only through the irresistible well as a work of football management.” force of the will of Don Revie, bearing the indelible hallmark both of his brilliant I love this idea of Revie’s Leeds as a work blueprint for success and of his fatalistic of art. It certainly runs counter to the lack of confi dence. Chelsea’s troupe popular image of the side, reinforced in of fl ash, brash, nightclub-hopping ’s (2006) seminal novel The dandies were an expression of swinging Damned Utd. How can Dirty Leeds, of London, but Leeds’s greatest side were all teams, forged in the gritty cynicism an expression of the personality of just of brutality, be described in one man. The sensible haircuts, the such terms? carpet bowls, the bingo; the spectacular football, the innovation, the 7-0 wins; Fast forward from the golden age of the time-wasting, the hard tackles, LUFC to 1987 and we have Channel 4 the win-at-all-costs mentality; the defying a growing, Mary Whitehouse- dossiers, the superstitions, the crippling led moral panic about “TV obscenity” fear of losing; these were all facets of by broadcasting a fi lm of Harrison Don Revie, impressed upon a team of performing V. Two years ago, another players who depended on Revie the way frequent contributor to Square Ball, characters in a novel depend upon their in his blog The Beaten Generation, author. Revie fused his every character demonstrated the discerning Leeds trait — the good and the bad — with the United fan’s respect for the poem by character of his team, until the two were posting the 35-minute broadcast in full inseparable; like Barbara Hepworth or on his website. “After discovering his Henry Moore, he moulded Super Leeds parents’ grave has been vandalised,” TBG as a monumental refl ection of his self, writes, “Harrison composed a narrative and was every bit as much an artist. that is fi ercely confrontational, detailing ‘Revie’s Leeds are not often lumped an imagined exchange between author together with Billy Liar, The Beatles, and perpetrator in a bout of civic-minded David Hockney, the New Wave writers, mudslinging against the backdrop of the Liverpool poets…’ writes Clavane, but Elland Road.” Like the Damned Utd, it — he makes a persuasive argument that superfi cially at least — updates a trope they, The Beaten Generation, should that has been present in popular culture be. Leeds United as art is not as far- since Charles Dickens described Leeds, fetched as it may seem: the urban myth in a mid-19th century talk, as a “beastly still persists that the Smiley badge was place”: a grim, sullen, down-to-earth, designed by Andy Warhol and I could anti-intellectual, proudly independent, look for hours at a photo of the Super no-frills, dark and gritty town. A town — it Leeds team, lit like fi lm stars by the only achieved city status in 1893 — you

103 That Grandish Pile of Swank

would not want to visit, unless looking for to V, which tells of Harrison’s visit to his material for a dark novel or state-of-the- family grave, a traditional family plot in nation poem; and one which, if born into, Holbeck Cemetery. The famous poem you would certainly attempt to escape stands alongside dystopian fi lms like A from at the fi rst available opportunity, Clockwork Orange — some of whose preferably on the train to London. outdoor scenes were fi lmed in Leeds My argument is that Leeds United, — which lamented the “progress” made as moulded by its ‘auteur-manager’, in the 60s, particularly the rebuilding of embodied the contradictory narrative the north. In Get Carter, Charlie Bubbles, of northern realism. Revie’s team were, O Lucky Man and The Reckoning, the in many ways, about escaping a life of north’s prodigal sons — the Billy Liar provincial confi nement, about struggling generation — returned home to discover to become accepted in mainstream a concrete wilderness of demolition society, about grafting for your patch. sites, car parks and crumbling terraces. Like Waterhouse, Harrison, Hall, the Their old towns and cities had not only Beatles, the Liverpool poets and been crippled by the decline of heavy Hockney, they were part of a cultural industry but also corrupted by big insurgency fuelled by full employment business and concreted over by urban and rapidly rising industrial wages. motorways, fl yovers, shopping centres Like their fellow northern iconoclasts, and tower blocks. Get Carter begins with they would not be bought off with a our working-class anti-hero catching the few extra bob — or the odd trophy. train from London to the north, going They were an angry young northern back to his roots to “sort things out”; a team who were, by hook or by crook, journey into the bowels of New Britain. It “going to the Top”. Unlike the Lennons, ends with him being shot dead. McGoughs and Hockneys, however, they never quite made it. Their biggest V was the culmination of a series of fantasies, like winning the European Cup, broken Britain scenarios documented remained unfulfi lled. in the books, plays and fi lms of the 1970s and 80s. It is signifi cant that it Their decline and fall in the late seventies was transmitted on Channel 4, a station and early eighties was celebrated established with a remit to provide with a fervour normally reserved for viewing for under-represented groups the ceremonial dynamiting of a high- in society. For, by this time, the northern rise. According to their detractors, working-classes briefl y feted by The they had been just another brutalist Establishment — and incorporated into blot on the post-war landscape. They an illusory Swinging Sixties meritocracy polluted football in the same way — had returned to the margins of British modernist architecture polluted northern culture. When the poem was broadcast, cityscapes. Like all those appalling arterial right-wing columnists and Tory MPs roads, they had ruthlessly sliced their declared themselves to be shocked by way through cities and communities. its “torrents of obscene language” and Like the out-of-town high-rises, they “streams of four-letter fi lth”. Harrison were an ugly development of a deeply- declared himself to be shocked by both regretted decade. This is the background the graffi ti Leeds United skinheads had

104 Anthony Clavane

daubed on his father’s headstone and his I knew that he’d decided to die beloved city’s descent into the abyss. As not by the way he lingered at the bar The Beaten Generation refl ected, “Written not by the look he’d give me with one in the aftermath of the miners’ strike, and good-eye set on a hill-top cemetery in Beeston nor by the fi rmer handshake and the overlooking Elland Road, the stadium’s gruff ta-ra diamond fl oodlights the only glints in a But when he browsed the station decade of decline,” the poem used the bookstall sales darkening national mood as a backdrop to he picked up ‘Poems from the Yorkshire Harrison’s own internal torment Dales’ ‘ere tek this un wi’ yer to New York At the beginning of the Channel 4 to remind you of ‘ow us gaff ers used to version of V, standing — like so many talk. kitchen-sink protagonists had done It’s up your street in’t it? ‘ahh buy yer before him — on top of a hill overlooking that! his city, Harrison reveals the “panoramic The broken lines go through me view over the whole of Leeds”. He points speeding South.” out the Town Hall, Elland Road, Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University Harrison, unlike Billy Fisher, had taken the “where I got the education that took me decision in the sixties not to sabotage his away from this background”. There are own chance of happiness. The son of a many confl icts described in V — north baker, he had escaped his background at v south, black v white, Leeds United v the earliest opportunity. At the end of this everyone else — but it is his own, inner poem he gets on the train to London, as confl ict which is the poem’s heartbeat; he has done so many times before, and his face-off with a Leeds United heads south. But at what cost? A loss hooligan, who has taken the traditional of identity? It is almost as if, in catching short-cut from the football ground back the train — a metaphor for acting on into town, symbolises his alienation your fantasies, fulfi lling your potential, from his “background”. In the poem, he crossing the threshold — the northern tries to erase the drunken fan’s graffi ti, anti-hero becomes estranged from his to scrub away the obscenities. But he family, class, community and city. couldn’t make them, nor indeed his own alienation, go away. And as V and other fi ctional and non- fi ctional works of the period reveal the In another poem, The Queen’s English rebuilt northern city of the sixties, “the (1985), Harrison recounts the last time he Motorway City of the Seventies”, the saw his father — at Leeds Station: new world of shopping centres and high-rise fl ats, had turned out to be crass “Last meal together, Leeds, the Queen’s and materialistic. Post-war northern Hotel regeneration had been a mirage — as that grandish pile of swank in City Square had the fanciful notion that a tired, Too posh for me, he said (even though post-imperial society might reinvent he dressed well) itself as a white-hot technological if you wern’t wi’ me ah’d nivver dare! powerhouse. As the corpses of its dead

105 That Grandish Pile of Swank

of victimhood. The city, like its football Riding metamorphosed into a land club, battened down the hatches and of endless night, a nightmarish world adopted a bunker mentality. It became, of foul-mouthed machismo, racism once again, identifi ed in the public mind and misogyny. One of his critics has with the darker, more primitive side of countered that Leeds was, in reality, life. Property experts advised businesses more like Stodge City than Dodge City. to move out. The town centre became That may be so — measured by national a night-time haunt of disorderly youths, standards, it was not that badly off — but tramps and alcoholics. The threat of there was a tangible sinking feeling, a violence was never far away. perception that, like the country as a whole, it was going to hell in a handcart. As the centrifugal force of seventies Britain quickened the spiral of talent, And so to 2013, 50 years after Billy power and infl uence down to London, Liar fi rst penetrated the national the capital reasserted its authority and consciousness. “It’s easy”, Liz/Julie Leeds turned in on itself. Manufacturing, Christie tells the working-class 19 year the basis of its wealth, collapsed old living with his parents. “You get on and unemployment soared; in 1976 a train and, four hours later, there you it reached 5.5% — 15 years later, it are in London.” Leeds, Waterhouse’s had almost doubled. This was an era introverted, rather prickly home city when many northern towns and cities has, in a half a century, reinvented itself experienced decline. Between 1979 several times. It has concreted over and 1990, as jobs in the new hi-tech its dirty past, burst its boundaries to industries were generated in the south, become a metropolitan super-region. It manufacturing employment fell on has attempted to become a centre for average 2.8% a year in the region. Leeds, the global fi nancial services industries, in particular, became a byword for inner- the British city outside London. But its city chaos, violent crime and bigotry. It ambition has collapsed in the wake of the seemed to be slipping into poverty and worst economic crisis since the war. It isolation and out of the mainstream of has become a two-nation city, polarised British society. The 1984 miners’ strike between affl uence and squalor. reinforced the view that the Tories were fi ghting a civil war against the north — Its football club has spent another and that the police had become a brutal decade in the wilderness. Just like in arm of a heartless government. In Leeds, the eighties. It has sold its best players the police’s reputation sank to an all- — , Aaron Lennon, time low. The seventies began with them James Milner — to bigger, richer sides. In in the dock, accused of murdering David the last two seasons, no fewer than four Oluwale, a homeless black man; it ended of its number have sped south to, of all with their ham-fi sted attempt to catch teams, Norwich City: Johnson, Howson, the Yorkshire Ripper. Snodgrass and, in January 2013, the man who has scored 19 goals to give the club According to Peace’s bleak Red a sniff of a return to the Promised Land, Riding novels, it was during this low, Luciano Becchio. In fact, the majority dishonest decade that the West of clubs in Yorkshire have lurched, like

106 Anthony Clavane

Leeds United, from well-publicised out of the top fl ight for 10 years but at fi nancial disaster to despair in recent least they haven’t been tainted by the years, tumbling down the divisions and, in fl ashy, glitzy, superfi cial glamour of the several cases, out of the Football League globalised, Fancy Dan Premier League. altogether. Only a decade ago, the region Back in the day, when pitches were boasted thirteen league clubs, seven of muddy, stadiums were crumbling and which were in the top two divisions. That foul play was routine, Revie’s team earned number has since eroded to 10, with none the right to play by being the toughest in the top fl ight and only four playing as club in the land. The Dirty Leeds label high as the Championship. did some of the hard work, putting the fear of god into their opponents. The And here we have the latest move to only time ever wore shin revive the north, reinvent Leeds and pads was at Elland Road. “I hated playing bridge the north-south divide. A new against them,” said Best. “They had a hell £32bn rail network which will stop at of a lot of skill, but they were a bloody a new city centre station on the south nightmare.” Given their lack of footballing bank of the River Aire. Speeds of up to history and culture, they needed an edge. 250mph will cut journey times to London A keep-fi ghting-till-the-end, don’t-let- from two hours and 12 minutes to 82 the-bastards-grind-you-down kind of minutes. We’ve had the Motorway City of edge which came from being a bunch of the Seventies, the Barcelona of the North rough-and-ready, provincial outsiders. and now HS2. All part of the dream of a genuinely fl uid, open society. When we look back at, say, the Manchester United of Best, Law and This already feels like a doomed Charlton, the Chelsea team of Osgood project. Not just because it will take at and Cooke, or the Derby and Nottingham least 20 years to open. Like the social Forest teams of , it is clear divisions that torment Harrison, and that they represent a diff erent mindset. the protagonists of his fellow northern Possibly, a diff erent culture. And Matt writers — from the early-sixties fantasists, Busby, as much as Revie or Clough back through the middle-aged prodigal sons then — or, indeed, Alex Ferguson today to Peace’s Yorkshire Noir anti-heroes — — was an “auteur-manager”, helping to the contradictory mindset of Leeds, or mould, sculpt, create a mindset, a way more generally West Yorkshire, appears of playing the game, an attitude not just to undermine the city’s self-belief that it to football, but to life itself. Interestingly, can, truly, fulfi l its potential by crossing Peace’s latest project — on how Bill the threshold. Why would you want to get Shankly transformed a second division to That London in less than an hour and team with a crumbling stadium into a a half anyway? Wouldn’t our distinctive British footballing institution — appears Yorkshire identity, our Leedsness, be to reinforce the myth of the “auteur- compromised by becoming, simply, a manager”, with Shankly, in the author’s northern suburb of the Big Smoke? words, celebrated as a “Red saint”.

This mindset has also infected the football This positive image of Liverpool and, club. Leeds United might have been even more so, of Manchester, provides

107 That Grandish Pile of Swank

an interesting contrast to the image of city that is home to two of England’s best Leeds and Leedsness. These infl uential football clubs, the BBC’s MediaCity, the north-west cities off er diff erent, more Lowry and Imperial War Museum North.” appealing and successful, versions of the north. Versions expressed as much And no surprise to the inhabitants of through their great football teams as Leeds either. From the War of the Roses, through their great cultural icons — the through the Industrial Revolution to the Beatles, Z-Cars, Coronation Street, the transfer, the Yorkshire- Madchester Sound, the Bleasdale-Russell rivarly has been played out plays, the Hacienda. between Loiners and Mancs. And yet anyone who has any knowledge of the A great deal was made of the Y-shaped self-appointed capital of Yorkshire will route envisaged by the HS2 project, with know that the former have made as separate railway branches to Manchester great a contribution to British culture as and Leeds after Birmingham. It seems to the latter. me that the “Y” has replaced the “V” as an apt metaphor for northern realism. The dominant view, however, remains Not long after phase two of the project that, on reaching Birmingham, and was announced, the New York Times presented with a choice of continuing included Manchester in its top 50 places westwards or eastwards, a journey to the to visit in the world. “No surprise to self-confi dent, swaggering, Manchester Mancunians,” commented the Guardian, would be far more rewarding than a “who have never been short of pride in a trip to Dickens’s beastly city.

108 109 Lev Yashin

“He drank neither wine nor beer — vodka only. Doctors told him to do that because of the ulcer.” The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

The Jersey That Wasn’t Black Lev Yashin’s widow and Eusébio remember the great Soviet goalkeeper

By Igor Rabiner

Valentina Yashina the Luzhniki and met [Nikita] Simonyan there. For whatever reason there were Several times during our chat of around no passes and so these two great former four hours, Valentina Timofeevna players had to wait at the ordinary ticket Yashina asked, “Have I tired you?” or offi ce. People were surprised and some “Maybe you’re in a hurry?” My God, of them were outraged: how could how could I have been in a hurry to Yashin and Simonyan wait for tickets! leave the legendary apartment at Chapaevsky Pereulok, between Sokol Everybody who remembers Yashin and Polezhaevskaya Metro stations, speaks of him as of world champion in where the Yashins settled in 1964. Just kindness. Is it true? to think that at that kitchen table, Lev Yashin had a meal every day. Franz Yes. His father’s second wife told me, Beckenbauer, Michel Platini, Gavriil that during World War II little Lyova [a Kachalin, Mikhail Yakushin, all of them diminutive of Lev] kept bringing to their ate dinner here. All I wanted to do was home a boy named Izya, who lived with ask and ask and ask. a large family somewhere nearby, in barracks. Lev told her, “They have nothing [Yashina indicates an old refrigerator in to eat,” and his father and stepmother the corner and starts talking] The fridge always fed Izya. Once he took off sweater has been here since 1971. Lev wasn’t and gave it to him, telling his parents, able to ask anything for anything for “There are many children in their family himself. If it was a matter of asking for an and they have nothing to wear.” His apartment or something for somebody stepmother was a little bit off ended: the else, he did it with great pleasure. But sweater was new and Lyova had a younger not for himself. He was at a loss: “How brother and could have given it to him. will I go about it, what will I say?” These fridges at that time were given for special So, this kindness was in him from licences, so he also asked one of his childhood. On the pitch he would shout friends to bring him this licence. He was loudly at his teammates, but when I too shy to go and ask for it by himself. asked him about it, Lev replied: “I’m not swearing. I’m giving advice about what Everywhere we would stand in the to do.” And he even gave instructions queues, as everybody did. Once, after gently: “Vitek! Tolik!” [which are he’d retired, we went to some game at diminutives of Viktor and Anatoly].

110 Igor Rabiner

He hated gossips, never blamed anyone months! And their friendship lasted all or said spiteful things, and he was their lives. reticent in general. Sometimes I would say, “Why does this player keep passing In all countries, kids would instinctively to the opponent?” and he would make approach him and that shows his a helpless gesture. “He’s just not able kindness. They would even put him right. to! He doesn’t see the pitch!” It was his In Sweden at the 1958 World Cup, he favourite saying in general — “He doesn’t went across a park, smoked a cigarette see the pitch!”— and he transferred it and threw the butt to the ground. There from football to regular life. was a boy running near him and he ran up, dug a hole and put the butt in. We The rivalry between diff erent teams have dozens of photos of Yashin at his never aff ected off -pitch relations. In the favourite pastime, fi shing. There were USSR national team he became good always kids around him and he would friends with Spartak Moscow players. give them interviews. For example, he would call Simonyan and would say things in Armenian Is it true that one of your sons-in-law [Simonyan’s native language] and laugh. is a Spartak fan? He was close friends with him, Isaev, Ilyin and Paramonov and I was with Yes. And I don’t see anything terrible in friends their wives. We watched all the that. When our friends gathered at our national team games together. We still home, there were just a few footballers talk on the phone and I’m friends with — Shabrov and Tsarev [both teammates Khusainova, Paramonova, Ivanova, of Yashin from Dinamo]. The others were Ludmila Simonyan... mainly those who had worked with Lev at the aircraft works in Tushino when he was Once I saw a game between Dinamo young. One of them became an engineer, and Spartak in which Tolik Isaev ran into another even a director... All them were Lev with his chest, preventing him from supporters of diff erent teams and one was kicking the ball. I asked him after the a die-hard Spartak fan. They were always game at home, “Why did Isaev behave so chaffi ng at each other. But even in the strangely?” He told me that he had also national team he almost always played in been surprised and had asked him. Isaev his club jersey with the letter ‘Д’ [D]. We quietly replied, “Sorry, Lev, the coach have a photo: all the players walking on ordered me to make you anxious.” He the pitch with the USSR crest and Lev in a hung his head, went back to the centre Dinamo shirt. It was allowed at that time. of the pitch and never did it again. I’ve heard no stories that he had any These people had clear consciences; rivalry with other goalkeepers… they appreciated each other. They didn’t have any choice other than to become No! There were none. For many years friends because they spent all their time at Dinamo the reserve goalkeeper was together. Imagine: we married just before Volodya Belyaev, who maybe surpassed New Year 1955 and already on January Lev in terms of pure talent. They were 6 they went to a training camp for two even taken to the national team together

111 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

— although Belyaev played very rarely. orbit the earth] was at our home. When And they were very close in life: we Lev was studying at the Supreme Party even travelled to his native town of School, a replacement for Titov studied Nalchik [in the Caucasus mountains]. My with him. He got them together and they husband worried about Volodya a lot met in a restaurant. That’s how relations and blamed himself that Belyaev ended were formed. up never leaving Dinamo and never had a chance to be a fi rst-choice keeper at Why did he go to the Supreme Party any other team. Lev told him, “Volodya, School? I’m not eternal. I’ve played already for many years and I could get hurt at any There was a big Dinamo fan teaching moment. And then who will go in nets?” political economy there. He asked, “What will Lev Ivanovich do after fi nishing at But he ended up playing through three the Supreme Coaching School?” Yashin generations of national team players. never wanted to be a coach; he didn’t This way of dealing with his colleagues think that he had the character for he adopted from Khomich [Alexei that work. Finally Lev graduated from Petrovich Khomich, ‘the Tiger’, his coaching school but went to the Party predecessor in the national team], whose school as well. He learned a lot there reserve he was at Dinamo. Even when and even became a good public speaker Alexei Petrovich became a photographer, towards the end of his life — which he he spent a lot of time behind Yashin’s wasn’t before. I remember how he came goal taking pictures. There are several home from the school and started to photos taken by Khomich of Yashin. use some unexpected philosophical words. Once he came home out of I read that at the beginning of his breath. “There was an exam of political career Lev Ivanovich would not only economy,” he said. “After 70 years they carry Khomich’s goalkeeper’s bag but don’t know how to adjust the economy, also stayed behind his goal and copied yet they want me to explain in one hour!” his movements… We all laughed.

I can confi rm that he stayed behind his Once I talked with and net. At that time at all Soviet stadiums he told me that he had admired Yashin’s there were special benches behind goals black strip. He thought opposing strikers and the reserve goalkeeper would sit not were demoralised by it… on the general bench but on this one. Actually it was not black but a very dark Was he friends with other great blue, a woollen jersey with a number Soviets, the cosmonaut Yury Gargarin, 1 sewn on it. I suppose at his time all or the poets who wrote about him, keepers played in a dark strip. When, Vladimir Vysotsky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 2000, I accepted the prize for the or Robert Rozhdestvensky? best goalkeeper of the century on Lev’s behalf, said, “Formerly all No. Lev wasn’t a Party man. Only keepers were in black so you couldn’t German Titov [the second cosmonaut to have mixed them up with anyone else.

112 Igor Rabiner

And now they are red, yellow, blue — world saw. Nobody wanted to wear 13, like parrots!” but Lev said, “OK, give it to me. I don’t care.” After that great game he regarded So it wasn’t you who told him to play 13 as a lucky number for him. in dark colours? Why did goalkeepers of that generation No, he always played in them. For 20 play in dark colours? Because pitches, years, he changed jerseys maybe two or especially in the spring and autumn, were three times, when the sleeves on them muddy and on a black kit this dirt was not became worn with holes. But then he so noticeable. When he brought home took new ones that looked the same. his kit, the whole bath became black and fi lled with sawdust: goalkeepers’ boxes You said they were woollen. But in were powdered with it, so goalkeepers summer, isn’t it too hot to play in wool? didn’t sink in the slush.

But on the other hand, it’s not painful. One other indispensable accessory of Also, Lev always wore quilted trunks goalkeepers at that time was a cap. Is it underneath. He would get angry at true that sometimes, coming for a high colleagues who didn’t do that. He said, cross, Yashin could take off his cap, head “I’m telling everybody: you cannot play the ball clear, and put the cap back on? without them! You could easily hurt your thigh, bruises are guaranteed, your Yes, it happened several times, but muscles will tear. And you’ll start to be only when there were no other players afraid of falling down. And how can you around. At that time penalty boxes were play in goal if you are afraid?” not so crowded as they are now. The fi rst time he headed the ball clear, he came to Have you kept his jerseys? the dressing-room at half-time and hung his head, thinking that [Dinamo’s coach No, because you had to return all the kit Mikhail] Yakushin would criticise him. The at that time. Even after Lev had played in coach could be sly and biting. But he was his farewell game in 1971, Dinamo sent silent. Lev asked, “Is something wrong?” him an order to return the kit and even “No, everything is all right. But you have the gloves which he personally had sewn to take off your cap!” That time he had up when they were torn. We laughed but headed the ball with his cap on. Fans liked he really had to collect everything up and it a lot and reacted with a storm of cheers. return it. He didn’t keep a single Dinamo A few more times he headed it without a jersey. It was the same story every year: cap but later he stopped doing that: the at the end of the season I washed all his game became faster and tougher. kit to return it looking good. Is it true that his cap was stolen when He kept only one jersey, but it was yellow the USSR won the European Nations not dark and had the number 13 on it. It Cup in 1960? was the jersey in which he kept a clean sheet in London for the Rest of the World Yes. The newspapers later wrote that team in the famous game that the whole French police found the cap after the

113 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

game and gave it back to Lev, but it’s a suppose he must have been hurt. He lie. It disappeared forever. At that time, said during pre-game training that he felt security was not well organised. After the stomach pain and he couldn’t dive, but I USSR team won the fi nal, thousands of urged him to do it once. He stood back people ran onto the pitch at the Parc des up with diffi culty and plodded to the Princes. It was real chaos. Some fan in all dressing-room at a snail’s pace. Naturally, this mess took the cap from Lev’s head the next day in the game he jumped and and ran away. The crowd was so huge dived as usual...” that it was impossible to fi nd him. Lev said that he looked around but couldn’t He had stomach aches permanently and see anybody with the cap. fi nally he died from stomach cancer. Because of the very high levels of acidity Is it true that Lev Ivanovich suff ered he always had in his pocket some from a gastric ulcer all his life? household soda in a small paper bag as well as some water when possible. The Yes. He had it from childhood as a result heartburn was so bad that if he didn’t have of poor food during the war, which water with him, he couldn’t wait until he started when he was 11. When he was was able to dissolve a teaspoon of soda in just 16 or 17, he was sent to the south a cup of water. Sometimes he poured soda — to have treatment in a health resort. from the paper bag into his palm, put it into Also hard training sessions made it his mouth and then desperately searched worse, especially as Lev worked like the around for something to take it with. damned. Throughout his long career he wasn’t late for a single session; he was Once I saw a TV documentary about Lev. punctual and demanded the same from Lesha Paramonov said a lot of nice things others. If I kept him before he left, he about Yashin. But I was puzzled about would drive me mad. one thing. Talking about his stomach ache and the soda, Paramonov made After every training session, he always up the fact that in his other pocket Lev remained in the goal and asked other always had a bead of cognac. He said players to take a number of shots at that Lev took soda with cognac and then him. Once I saw that, I said that I would went to training. never watch it again. He took 30 or 40 of the hardest shots to the stomach — I Are you sure it’s a fi ction? couldn’t watch it. It seemed to me that all his abdominal cavity was punched out. Absolutely. Not only because it’s Lev, though, told me that his abdominal impossible to take soda with cognac but muscles were very strong and also that he also because Lev didn’t like cognac. He caught the ball with his hands so it didn’t drank it only when there wasn’t anything touch his stomach. But I saw that it did. else. Also he drank neither wine nor beer — vodka only. Doctors told him to do After some win I met Yakushin at the that because of the ulcer. Savoy restaurant. Mikhail Iosifovich called me over and asked, “Did Lev complain Sometimes you hear such fantastic about me?” “No. What happened?” “I stories... Once I was travelling on the

114 Igor Rabiner

train from a holiday in the south of Russia never ate anything better than carrots and there were two important ladies in at home, but abroad you are starting to the same compartment. One of them show off .” Actually, he ate everything. He was high up, almost on the Central liked porridge which is not too common Committee of the Communist Party, and among men. And he himself cooked the other was from a trade union. For pretty well. whatever reason they started to talk about football and the fi rst one said, “I was at a Was he a reckless driver of his Volga reception at the Kremlin and I saw that [a Soviet manufactured car introduced in all these footballers are alcoholics. Yashin 1956 that tended to indicate high status]? had a big glass of vodka in one hand and a big glass of champagne in the other. He No. He was a very good driver. I felt drank the fi rst one and washed it down absolutely safe with him. As a European, with the second!” he always made way for everybody — both other cars and pedestrians. He They didn’t know who I was and I kept stopped at zebra crossings. I never silent, although I wanted very much to learned if he liked driving fast. speak. Lev never drank champagne. And he never drank full glasses, just small Yashin was well-known for his portions. Yes, he could have been drunk, friendships with great footballers. How was anything can happen. But he was never an that possible when he spoke only Russian? alcoholic or he could have never played 20 years at the top level. But when he was I was amazed as well. Even abroad he drunk, his conduct was always normal. could stop a pedestrian and fi nd out And he had to take vodka with water, with a few words and gestures how otherwise he started coughing. Even while to go somewhere. Footballers have he was fi shing, when he would have to their own words, terms, gestures, take water from the pond, he had to take facial expressions... Also, Lev’s smile water with his vodka. attracted everybody. I remember how in 1971, after his farewell match in What did Lev Ivanovich like to eat? Moscow, the Italians also decided to In the interview in the fi rst ever issue organise a game in Milan. So, he was of Football [a weekly magazine] in standing and talking with one group of 1960, he replied to a question about his players, then with another. They were favourite meal saying he liked lobster laughing, waving hands — and perfectly with mayonnaise, which is best cooked understood each other. in France… Lev, along with some of the other It was a joke. Not long before the players, was sorry that he didn’t learn interview the team travelled to Sweden languages, though. I talked many times and one of the guys was unhappy about to Kachalin and Yakushin, telling them the quality of the restaurant food. He they could organise lessons, given how said, “You should give us lobsters with much time they spent hanging around mayonnaise.” Lev was furious with the training grounds. In the fi rst year of him. After coming home, he said, “You our marriage, I counted how many days

115 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

Lev spent at home: just 144 out of 365. somewhere in the foreign department: But nobody listened to my idea. they’d forgotten to tell me about it. But the most important thing was that our Sir said that Yashin comrades bought a return ticket for the helped to establish good relations following day so I couldn’t watch the between people of diff erent countries opening ceremony of Euro 1992. So, and political systems. what did I travel for — just to pick up the prize and go back? Once he arrived somewhere in South America after a military coup. The During this ceremony I met the famous situation was rather tense; nobody was German sportswriter Karl-Heinz Heimann leaving their houses or hotels. But it was who spoke fl uent Russian. He knew impossible not to have some sort of Yashin very well. I explained the situation reception because of Yashin’s visit. So, to him and Beckenbauer was walking people from both camps came there, past us right at that moment. Heimann because all of them wanted to see Lev told me, “Wait just a moment.” And Franz and talk to him. in a few seconds settled the problem, and I fl ew back two days later. I was very I read that the West German defender grateful to him, because the opening Karl-Heinz Schnellinger gave Yashin 15 ceremony was beautiful. stylish ties for his Dinamo teammates, which Lev himself wouldn’t have been I talked to Beckenbauer and he told able to aff ord… me with great warmness how he had dinner with Yashin at your home. With Yes, it’s true. There were a lot of decent vodka, of course. people among the foreign stars. For example, came to Yes. But Franz himself was drinking Moscow after Lev’s death and visited Bavarian beer which we’d found in the his grave. And when we were fl ying to Moscow International Trade Centre. Barcelona and I didn’t know where to go Gennady Logofet [a former USSR to change fl ights in airport, he defender] translated for us. Beckenbauer took me right to the gate. had a great idea for a book and made it happen. He visited everybody with whom There was a situation in 1992 when I was he had played in the Rest of the World invited to a ceremony of announcing the team; he went to the home of Pelé, world team of the past half-century and Eusébio, Charlton, Yashin and others, and Lev was included in it. Vitechka Gusev then he described everything that he saw [a popular Russian sports broadcaster] and sent us the copy of his book. called me and said, “Valentina Timofeevna, they are waiting for you Lev Ivanovich introduced you to Pelé here. Please, call the Russian Football in 1958, right? Union; the invitation and air tickets were sent there.” I called Vladimir Radionov Yes, it was in the hotel where they were [the general secretary of the RFU at the all staying. This black boy was running time], he asked somebody and it was by the stairway and Lev grabbed him by

116 Igor Rabiner

the neck. He told me, “Look at this boy. It happens not only in football. We are He’ll become the greatest footballer in the same with everything… If something the world soon.” Actually, I doubt that bad happens, somebody must be Pelé understood what was going on: blamed. The big bosses wanted to there was no translator nearby. Later Lev evade punishment and so shifted the always regarded Pelé as the best ever. blame onto Yashin. For some time he even didn’t train. The [Dinamo] coach Was Pelé ever arrogant? Alexander Ponomarev supported Lev and told him everything would be fi ne. No, he always behaved properly. Look He realised what was going on and let us at this photo: we are celebrating Oleg leave Moscow for a while to go fi shing. Salenko winning the golden boot at Much later my husband started to train the 1994 World Cup with Salenko, with the reserve team. His fi rst game Pelé and [the senior Russian football back with the fi rst team wasn’t until close bureaucrat Vyachelsav] Koloskov. The to the middle of the following season. King of Football was there in a bow tie and everything felt at least as good as English journalists wrote that at the Academy Awards. When Pelé visited the height of the criticism fans left Moscow, I presented him with a big threatening messages on his car and coloured samovar. even broke windows in the apartment. Is it true? Is it true that in 1962 Yashin wanted to quit football, when he was blamed for the Yes, our windows were broken twice — USSR’s early exit from the World Cup? but I don’t know if there is a connection. There was a street lamp under our Yes, he wanted to quit. When he went window. Maybe hooligans threw stones onto the pitch in Moscow for fi rst time at it and hit the windows. Regarding after , the crowd whistled and writing in the dusty on our car — yes, it shouted many bad things... It happened happened. Unspeakable words about for two or three games. There was no TV him. I think, though, that media infl amed in Russia at that time and everyone only it and that infl uenced people. knew about the game against Chile only from a report by the only correspondent The former Dinamo player Vladimir of APN [the state news agency], who Kesarev said that Yashin disappeared from knew much more about politics than Dinamo and you let slip where he was about football. Because of his reports, fi shing and that it was only then the club everybody decided that Yashin lost the sent a delegation to bring him back… World Cup. No, no, we went there together with But how can you explain this kind of the children and Ponomarev gave him reaction from fans in Moscow to one permission. Lev had a good relationship failure of a great footballer and person, with all his managers. We had great somebody who achieved so much for family relations with the Yakushins, his country? Where did this aggression Kachalins, and even went to Karlovy Vary come from? [in the Czech Republic] with Ponomarev

117 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

and visited [the goalkeeper] František In 1963, after his comeback, Lev let in Plánička’s home... only six goals for Dinamo in 27 games. Urushadze was nonetheless ready to Lev didn’t come back to the fi rst team play in the away leg of the European in Moscow. It happened in Tbilisi. The Championship game against Italy, but atmosphere was more sympathetic at that moment Yashin was invited there. Somebody shouted with a to London and played great there... I Georgian accent, “Yashin is in the hole!” watched that game at the radio committee and everybody laughed. But it was meant where I worked. I had to pick up our so kindly that even he enjoyed it. You daughters, one from the school, one from couldn’t compare it with what was going kindergarten. I was in a hurry and when on in Moscow. the game ended I caught a taxi. The driver said, “Did you hear? We won in London.” Yashin’s comeback to the national “We didn’t win; we lost 2-1!” “Yashin was in team was also pretty tough. Right nets in the fi rst half when score was 0-0 up to his brilliance in the Rest of the and I don’t care about anything else!” I World team at Wembley, [the manager] wanted so much to tell him that he was my Konstantin Beskov didn’t pick him… husband... But I was too shy for that.

Beskov always called him into the squad What did Yashin think of the fact you when they trained at the base at Ozerki. worked all your life as a radio journalist? But every time, not only before the games but also before training sessions, We were both from working-class families. the manager told him, “Lev, you rest, In our society it was necessary to work. rest!” It went on a pretty long time. Even There wasn’t even a question about that. his teammates lowered their eyes; they felt uncomfortable. He was lonely. Did Beskov change his mind after London? Once I came to their training camp by the suburban train. He told me, “I’ll probably No, he still wanted to play Urushadze. go back with you now.” “Why?” “Beskov Nikolay Ozerov [a famous TV journalist] won’t let me train. I want to work but he later told us that there were phone calls keeps saying, ‘Rest, rest.’ He doesn’t say from ‘upstairs’. Beskov was told, “Nobody anything off ensive, doesn’t drop me from will understand it if you don’t play Yashin the team, but it’s obvious he doesn’t trust after such a performance in London.” That me.” He picked [the Georgian goalkeeper persuaded him and Lev saved a penalty Ramaz] Urushadze that time. kick from [Sandro] Mazzola to earn a draw that qualifi ed us for Euro 64. Yashin got I responded, “He said, ‘Rest,’ so you the Ballon d’Or for that year [1963]. should do it. You’ll train with your club. But you don’t have to leave, because if Where is the Ballon d’Or? you do that you’ll be quitting both the national team and football.” At fi rst he It’s in the Museum of Sport at the refused and said he’d leave with me. I Luzhniki. I’ve been wanting to go there only just put him off . and pick it up for a long time.

118 Igor Rabiner

Yashin was one of the great symbols Yes. His father was a turner or a of Soviet sports, but he communicated a metalworker. His mother worked at the lot with foreigners. The KGB didn’t have Krasny Bogatyr rubber factory but died a problem with him doing that? from tuberculosis very young — Lyova was about six years old. His sister was It wasn’t allowed to walk alone when a baby and, when his mother was lying abroad — to prevent provocations. But in the hospital, she also fell ill and died. I can’t remember it being prohibited to Within a year Lev’s father married again communicate in the hotels. But there — a telegraphist from Central Telegraph. were some other situations. Once They soon had a son, Boris, who is still Yashin was invited to Brazil for Santos’s alive. When the Great Patriotic War anniversary celebration. He was going started in 1941, their family moved from to perform a kick-off with Pelé. But the Moscow to Ulyanovsk [a city on the functionary who received our invitations Volga river]. An aircraft plant was built was afraid of going to his bosses with there and little Lyova worked as well. them. It was impossible for him to After the war, this plant was moved to imagine that Yashin should go abroad the Moscow district of Tushino and my with his wife but without a ‘translator’. husband worked there as a teenager.

You mean a KGB offi cer who would I can’t imagine that Yashin had many control you? enemies.

Yes, without ‘a teacher from the He had a personality such that you had physical training school’, as they called to do something terrible to become them. Lev had already retired by that his enemy. Even when he didn’t like time and I took time off at my own somebody, he just didn’t get close to him expense. But then we found out that but still greeted him warmly. we were not allowed to go. Next day I went in to my work and one spiteful He had some unpleasant moments after employee laughed at me. But a couple the end of his playing career. One of of days later, Lev met one of federation them was with an important offi cial called bosses by chance. That offi cial was Nikolay Rusak, who became chairman surprised by the story and helped to of the Soviet Sports Committee. Every issue all the documents rapidly. The spring, Soviet football clubs went to the problem was that we arrived in Brazil south of the USSR to prepare for the after all the celebrations were over. The season. Also there was a conference in local papers wrote, “The Russians were which all managers, coaches and referees late as usual.” participated. Lev was a team director of Dinamo. One day the head coach Did Lev Ivanovich believe in God? Kachalin and his assistant Tsaryov had some urgent business and they asked Lev No. Neither did his parents. to take the training session.

They were simple working people, Later he told me that the players had right? been working and he was sitting on

119 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

the bench and sometimes telling them Kozhemyakin. Lev even said once that something. Every spring he had a he could become better than Pelé. Once worsening of his stomach ulcer, so he Tolya was in the elevator with his friend sat, holding his body to diminish the and it got stuck between fl oors. There pain. At that moment this Rusak came was a hole to climb out, and his friend over, sat down near Lev and asked why did. But as soon as Tolya started to do there were no coaches and how the the same, the elevator started moving players could prepare by themselves. My and the guy was killed. Lev cried... husband replied, “I suppose, I understand something about football. Maybe you But after this episode he as well as want me to explain something to you?” Kachalin and Tsaryov were dismissed As he was speaking, he held himself even from working with the Dinamo fi rst more tightly because of the pain. team for the bad educational work! For what? What was the connection The next day that conference happened between Yashin and the accident in an and Rusak spoke. He said that he visited elevator? He was moved to the Central Dinamo. He said there was no head Soviet of Dinamo, to do meaningless coach, no assistant, only Yashin sitting paperwork. He was thrown away from drunk on the bench and managing the team, from doing live work. Lev felt the training session. Oh, how furious pretty comfortable as a team director. It Lev was! He stood up, went to the was his business — to help players away microphone and, in spite of all his from the pitch, to make them live better. gentleness said a lot, how some people Also he worked with goalkeepers, even who didn’t understand anything about though there was no specifi c profession football were coming to the sport and of goalkeeping coach that time. And he wanting to govern it. “What did you say enjoyed all that. now that was useful?” he asked. “What exactly was wrong with the training? You Paperwork was something very alien can’t say anything!” to him and he had problems with the chairman Bogdanov. Once Bogdanov said The allegation he was drunk was to him, “Your work is bad, you are always especially insulting for him. Lev wasn’t travelling.” “Where do I travel?” “There an ascetic but he never drank in the are tons of invitations from abroad for mornings. And he never drank alone. you on my desk.” Lev was at a loss: “You A bottle of vodka at home could have are keeping them. I don’t know anything stayed in the fridge for very long time — about them and I’m not travelling.” until some of his friends came over. And Bogdanov even blamed him for the bad nobody saw him drunk in public... performances of the team, even though Lev was no longer team director. Also Lev was very off ended by and said a lot of bad things about General Lev was very upset about it. At 48, right Bogdanov, the chairman of the Central after that confl ict, he had his fi rst heart Soviet of Dinamo sports society. In attack. Not a long time ago I learned the seventies there was an extremely from another general that Bogdanov talented young striker, Anatoly recently told him, “I cannot forgive

120 Igor Rabiner

myself for one thing: that I pressured the fact that he was turned away from Yashin and treated him this way. I didn’t the team and that he didn’t deserve sort out the real problems. I listened to the attitude towards him. The second some functionaries...” reason was that he stopped playing very suddenly. He didn’t play for a veterans One of the popular theories was that team so he didn’t have a proper physical smoking damaged his health a lot. load. When he was a team director, he was moving at least, training with the Doctors said that his heart attack goalkeepers. But when he was pushed was because of smoking and the leg to offi ce work, he immediately gained amputation later was also partly caused about 10kg. And he had a heart attack. by smoking. But I don’t think so. I heard A doctor explained later that Lev as a from some specialists that if a person professional athlete had a very large is smoking for many years, it’s very heart and that’s why he had to move dangerous to stop at an advanced age. He a lot to keep blood running. But when was smoking even when he was a player he stopped moving and started gaining and coaches allowed him. Of course, weight, a lot of cholesterol built up in his he didn’t smoke in the dressing-room in vessels. The consequence was not only everyone’s presence, but Yakushin and the heart attack but also the amputation Kachalin allowed him to go to some back of his right leg later. room and smoke a cigarette. He smoked a pack per day, I suppose. A few days before his death, Yashin became the fi rst Soviet sportsman to be Once there was a Party meeting in the awarded the star order of the Hero of club. Lev was a member of Communist Socialist Labour medal. Party and he was criticised by the Party: everybody discussed Yashin’s smoking It happened on 15 March 1990, when Lev and even made a resolution to prohibit was still holding out, although he looked him from doing that! I think only [the awful. He became extremely ill on the writer] Leonid Soloviev stood up and said, 16th and died on the 20th. The order “What are we doing? Yashin doesn’t have was given thanks to Nikolay Ozerov. to run; he is a keeper. We know how well He ran from one offi ce to another to he does it so what are the complaints? persuade functionaries to give Yashin Not everybody can stop smoking.” the star of Hero. Ozerov achieved his Finally, the resolution was rejected. goal — it’s a pity that it came so late. Lev said, “What is it for? I’ll not have time to Did he try to stop? be proud of it.” Ozerov wanted Mikhail Gorbachev to deliver it personally to He didn’t smoke for about two months Yashin but Mikhail Sergeevich didn’t have after the heart attack. But later he tried enough time... again and felt OK. So he went on. Also for the last couple months of his life, Was Yashin happy? when he felt very bad, he didn’t smoke. Coming back to the heart attack, it was He was happy. I saw that. But he never caused, most of all, by bad feeling, from said this aloud.

121 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

What did you think when Zenit fans at mistake, I get upset as if it had happened a Zenit v Dinamo game erected a banner to my husband. saying “Yashin went to hell, Dinamo will do the same”? I visit Lev’s grave at Vagankovo [the famous cemetery where dozens of I think it wasn’t necessary to make footballers are buried] often. At fi rst I was so much noise about that because there almost every day, trying to stop that’s exactly what these people want. some crazy ideas. They wanted to turn I cannot understand why one paper the cemetery into a museum — they [Sovetsky Sport] makes a contest out of kept talking such rubbish. In 2010 I was banners, provoking such things. There touched when two Dinamo keepers, was nothing shown on TV from the [Vladimir] Gabulov and [Anton] Shunin game but next day in this paper it was on a matchday that coincided with Lev’s displayed in full. birthday, brought a very nice wreath. Every year there are a lot of people at his Soon afterwards, before one home grave, although I don’t especially invite game, there was a meeting at which anyone. Not only Dinamo veterans come, some offi cials near Yashin’s monument all the rest as well. Right by the graveside, at Dinamo stadium expressed their we take a funeral repast, drinking a little indignity about the incident. I asked [the for the peace of Lev’s soul. sports minister Vitaly] Mutko, “Why did the press make all this noise? If nothing I personally support [the Zenit had been published, nobody would know goalkeeper] Vyacheslav Malafeev since I anything about it.” At fi rst he agreed but went to St Petersburg to give him a prize after the meeting he said, “Maybe it was as the best goalkeeper in the Russian not wrong to make it public. Did you see championship that season. I was one of how the people reacted? They’re going the fi rst people who sent him a telegram to the game and bringing fl owers, a with condolences [in March 2011 when mountain of them!” Maybe he is right. Malafeev’s wife Marina was killed in a car accident]. I’d like to ask journalists: Do you follow today’s football? please, support goalkeepers! I felt terrible for [Alexander] Filimonov when Of course. I support Dinamo as well as he suff ered the same harsh criticism as people from other clubs who had great Lev in 1962 [after a terrible mistake in relations with Lev. I hardly could have the fi nal minutes of a decisive qualifying imagined that one day I would pray for game with in autumn 1999, Spartak success — but when Volodya which meant Russia failed to qualify for Fedotov [the former CSKA striker and Euro 2000]. Yes, he let in that goal. But Beskov’s son-in-law] was in charge of why didn’t they score more? Spartak, it happened. The same with Yury Semin when he worked at Lokomotiv. My husband told me about his second game for the Dinamo fi rst team. It was Also I support all goalkeepers, even when against Dinamo Tbilisi, and a 4-1 lead they play against Dinamo. Because I put turned into 4-4 just before half-time. them in Lyova’s place. When they make a He went in at the break sure he’d be

122 Igor Rabiner

kicked out of the team. But Kostya days later, in the game for third place, Beskov approached him, clapped on the Eusébio scored a penalty kick against shoulder and said, “Lev, don’t worry. I’ll him, then approached Lev and said score now.” He scored and Dinamo won something. Later I asked my husband, 5-4. When keepers make mistakes, it’s “What did he say?” He answered, necessary to rescue them, because on a “Eusébio clapped me on the shoulder lot of other occasions they rescue you. and said, ‘Sorry, Lev. I had to do that.’”

A goalkeeper’s work is very hard. I worry about Igor Akinfeev: he’s great guy, he’s playing well, but he started very early. Eusébio When goalkeepers get into the starting XI very young, there is a danger that they I met Eusébio in Lisbon and at fi rst we fi nish before the right time. chatted about recent events: Russia had played against Portugal not long before I don’t like the brutality towards and Spartak Moscow were playing away goalkeepers in today’s football. Lev broke to Benfi ca the following evening. But his fi nger, twice he had concussion, he suddenly Eusébio changed topic and got a big scar on his chin but overall his voice became much louder and players tried to protect each other. Look more passionate. at this photo: in the World Cup semi-fi nal of 1966 is jumping over Lev! “I feel a lot of sympathy for [Russian] When in 2000 there was a ceremony football,” he said, “and this feeling has a presenting prizes to the best footballers of specifi c cause. the century, Seeler approached me with a translator. “I want to be friends with you. I When you write a story about me, wanted so much to score against Yashin please don’t forget to mention the but I wasn’t able to do it even a single level of warmth I feel when I remember time. I hoped to do that at least in the my friendship with Lev Yashin. I think farewell game but no way!” I replied that about him pretty often, more and more it was an honour for me to be friends with coming to the conclusion that I as a Seeler. We still send each other cards at footballer was formed thanks to him. Christmas, New Year and other holidays. When you’re able to score against the greatest goalkeeper in the history of English players and journalists world football, you remember it for your admired Yashin’s fair play when in the whole life. You realise that you can score World Cup semi-fi nal, in the tensest against anyone. Every time when I come atmosphere, he ran out of his penalty to Russia, I meet Valentina, Lev’s widow. area to help Seeler who had gone Every time when I come to Russia, I make down — even though the game hadn’t sure I go to his grave. It’s a great honour stopped. The whole stadium stood up for me that I knew him in person and was and started shouting: “Yashin! Yashin!” his friend.”

I was at that game but I don’t remember I asked how Yashin was able to make the shouting. But I remember how a few friends with so many players when he

123 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

spoke no language other than Russian. goal. Lev, I had to do that. I had to.’ And I “We spoke the same language,” Eusébio saw that he understood everything. said, “the language of football. Here is a ball. [He embraces an imaginary football.] “I’ve had a lot of diff erent presents from Thanks to it we understood each other Russia. But the most valuable of all was a to such an extent that we didn’t need fur jacket Lev Yashin used to wear which anything else. I remember how the Soviet his widow once gave me. I still keep it. and Portuguese national teams played I’ve never had a better gift. This jacket for third place at the World Cup in 1966. touched me in the heart.” We had a penalty kick in our favour. So, Lev asked me with a gesture, ‘Where are I’d read that in 2004, when Portugal you going to kick the ball?’ And I showed beat England on penalties in the him: in this corner to your right. European Championship quarter- fi nal, Eusébio had quoted some words “I did that because he was my friend. And of Yashin to the goalkeeper Ricardo, it’s a double honour to score a penalty telling him to stay in position to the fi nal having shown the keeper where you will second and to stare into the eyes of his put the ball. It’s not cheating. Mário Coluna opponent. “I really said that to Ricardo,” was the captain of our team that time, and Eusébio confi rmed, “and told him that he approached me, ‘What are you doing? was how Yashin did it. He followed This is Yashin, he’ll save the ball!’ I replied, the recommendation and that’s how ‘No, he’ll not get it, although I’ll shoot into Portugal won. the corner that I told him.’ So, I hit the ball with such power that the ball only touched “Yashin was not only a goalkeeper, he his gloves. was a master in the goal. And he was also a great gentleman. It was because “I scored and was happy, of course. But he was so respectful towards opponents my friend was upset, and immediately that he had so many friends. His name after the goal I approached him and told is written with a golden letters in the him in Portuguese, ‘We are friends, but history of Fifa, Uefa and football in you are a keeper and I am a striker. My general, and Yashin will always be the job is to score, your job is defend the number one goalkeeper in the world.”

124 Igor Rabiner

Yashin in action for Dinamo Moscow

125 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

Yashin and (right) return to Moscow after winning the 1960 European Championship

Yashin relaxes on the river

126 Igor Rabiner

Pictures from the Yashin family archive

Yashin and Pele Yashin passing on tips to Dmitry Kharin

127 The Jersey That Wasn’t Black

Pictures from the Yashin family archive

128

130 Polemics

“Football is like strong beer. Some people just can’t take it.” Partisans and Purists

Partisans and Purists Do fans experience football diff erently to those who watch without a vested interest?

By Charlie Robinson

After watching a derby between and struggle and sweat, are driven into Nottingham Forest and Notts County despair, and raised to triumph; and there in 1934, the novelist and playwright is thrust into their lives of monotonous JB Priestley observed, among other tasks and grey streets an epic hour of things and with no little distain, “the colour and strife that is no more a mere monstrous partisanship of the crowds, matter of other men’s boots and a leather with their idiotic cries of ‘Play the game, ball, than a violin concerto is a mere ref!’ when any decision against their matter of some other man’s cat gut and side has been given.” To an outside rosin.” To enjoy the festival of the crowd, observer, the supposed tribalism of almost a conscious organism in its own football crowds appears irrational right, is part of the aesthetic enjoyment and base. The word tribalism itself of any sporting event — to lose oneself carries strong pejorative connotations, in the heaving, swaying, singing, braying a primitive bestiality and a blind mass. The psychological benefi ts of obedience to the group. Such partisans partisanship extend even further, to are the very antithesis of the purist, feelings of identifi cation with the local an altogether rarer breed. The purist area, civic pride, and comradeship. is the embodiment of the rational and unbiased football supporter, a The apparent and supposed superiority fan of football itself, able to enjoy of the partisan is emphasised by the a heightened aesthetic experience philosopher Nicholas Dixon. In a paper because untainted by the irrational entitled “The Ethics of Supporting Sports biases of tribal support. Teams”1 he argues that the partisan not only enjoys the psychological benefi ts But then that’s the average football associated with off ering unconditional spectator for you — blind, irrational, support to the local team, but also partisan. However, despite his has an ethical advantage, in that her disparaging initial remarks, Priestley commitment and passion is more goes on to say that partisans are “not virtuous. He says, for example, that she mere spectators in the sense of being exhibits “the great virtue of steadfast idle and indiff erent lookers on; though allegiance to her team even if its only vicariously, yet they run and leap fortunes decline.” Most ‘genuine’ football

1 Journal of Applied Philosophy, Volume 18 (2001), Issue 2, pages 149–158

131 Partisans and Purists

supporters will, of course, display this support is based purely on their love virtue: if you cut me, I’ll bleed black and of the game and is prepared to follow white; we’ll support you ever more. whichever team best exemplifi es the virtues and admirable qualities most Dixon thinks the same thing happens prized: fairness, excitement, skill and when one is in love. At the beginning style. In a sense, as Dixon points out, the of a romantic relationship, we come purist has the moral high ground here, to love our partner’s good qualities, as her choice is based on purely sporting but over time we develop something excellence, rather than the arbitrariness deeper, namely a love of their “unique of place of birth. If we want to teach our instantiation of those qualities”, their children the value of fairness, at least special identity. Furthermore, when partly through the games that they play some new potential partner comes with each other, why should we also into our lives, as they often do, we are give them the strong impression that reluctant simply to ‘trade up’, even if the they should stick with their team even new prospective mate scores higher when they cheat and connive, privileging on, or better instantiates, those valuable a win-at-all-costs mentality? “Rather qualities. Love can also endure change. than being a genuine fan, the purist A partner may lose the qualities to which approaches each game as a neutral, we were initially attracted, but we stay hoping that his team will continue its in love regardless. Despite the changes, excellent play, so that he will be able to there is a constant nucleus that remains continue supporting it.” the object of our love. In much the same way, I don’t change my team with Of course, the loyal support of the each new defeat — if I did, I’d literally partisan can itself be dangerous, or just be supporting a new club almost every plain stupid. Why would I continue to other week. love a partner who continues to abuse and betray me? Asking for me to give Dixon goes even further, suggesting them fi fty quid every week? Travelling that the partisan displays a side to their hundreds of miles every other week character lacking in the purist — the just to see them for a couple of hours? tendency to form bonds with others, That really is the limit. Unconditionally especially those with whom we are to give our love and support to another familiar. Drawing an analogy with the becomes masochistic if the signifi cant ability to form friendships and lasting other is genuinely not worthy of it. romantic attachments, the purist Perhaps the partisan could do with “displays a character fl aw that would be learning a little from the purist, as condemned from a standpoint of virtue some Liverpool and Chelsea fans, ethics.” Quite a claim! But what of the in the face of recent controversial purist? Why is she normally regarded, as incidents, have been unable to do. Dixon suggests, as lacking commitment, Therefore, something that could be as barely qualifying as a fan at all? called ‘moderate partisanship’ would be the best option: I’ll give my whole The purist, we might say, is prepared to and undivided support to my team, but trade up at any given opportunity. Her there’s a limit.

132 Charlie Robinson

A more robust defence of the purist can unwilling or unable to end our own lives be made, however. Stephen Mumford, can consider the second option, that of like Dixon, a philosopher, actively pursuing an ascetic lifestyle, the denial of privileges and praises the virtues of the will-to-live, by which we renounce the true purist, arguing that the issue our desires. Sadly, packages turns to a large extent on the respective are not widely available to the residents aesthetic experiences enjoyed by our of caves half-way up isolated mountains, two diff erent types of supporter. But how so the third of Schopenhauer’s and why do diff erent types of supporter options might be more viable: we can have diff erent aesthetic experiences? temporarily remove ourselves from the Obviously, a partisan may enjoy the constant striving and misery of everyday game less if her team loses, trudging life through art and through the aesthetic home disconsolately and awaiting the experiences that attend our genuine barbs of colleagues on Monday morning, appreciation of it. while the purist enjoys the spectacle even if their adopted team loses, shrugs Some types of art, however, are superior their shoulders and fl icks the channel to others, or at least lend themselves to to see if Barcelona are playing. But the a superior aesthetic experience. Starting diff erences, according to Mumford, go at the bottom of the art form league even deeper than that, as we’ll see after a table, but not yet cut adrift from those brief journey through Schopenhauer. above them, is architecture, followed by landscape gardening, sculpture and Arthur Schopenhauer, the German painting, and poetry. But running away philosopher, placed an extreme amount with it at the top of the table is music. of importance on the enjoyment of The reason for the hierarchical ordering aesthetic experiences. In The World as is that Schopenhauer believes that the Will and Representation, he argues that diff erent types of art allow us better the world is indiff erent to human suff ering access to the Platonic Forms, or Ideas, — and suff er we do. Human existence, the ‘in-itself’ of the world. The problem Schopenhauer says, has no intrinsic with art, excepting music, is that it is still meaning or value, and is characterised by connected to the will and to the striving suff ering, pain, and misery. This is because of everyday life. We cannot experience humans are animals that have will and art (again, excepting music) without desire: we have desires (and needs) that understanding it through the prism of we seek to satisfy, and our will drives us our needs and interests, thus distorting on to do so. Unfortunately, as soon as one it and lending it a subjective bias. But desire or need is satisfi ed, another arises, music is diff erent: music releases us from making our lives a continual succession the endless striving and suff ering and of new desires in need of satisfaction desiring of life. that ends only in death. In fact, happiness may be defi ned in purely negative terms, Schopenhauer describes it as follows: as the temporary absence of pain. “When an external cause or inward disposition suddenly raises us out of the Fortunately, we have three choices endless stream of willing, and snatches open to us. Firstly, suicide. Those of us knowledge from the thralldom of the

133 Partisans and Purists

will, the attention is now no longer The purist, Mumford argues, perceives directed to the motives of willing, but the game diff erently to the partisan, comprehends things free from their the latter having what he refers to as a relation to the will. Thus it considers ‘competitive perception’. Reporting on things without interest, without a match he saw between Hearts and subjectivity, purely objectively... Then all Celtic in 1996, Mumford recognises at once the peace, always sought but that our desire to see our team win at always escaping us on that fi rst path of all costs distorts our perception of the willing, comes to us of its own accord, game. Sitting with the Hearts fans, he and all is well with us... For that moment observes them calling vociferously for we are delivered from the miserable corners, free-kicks, and even throw-ins pressure of the will.” for their team when it was clear that the ball was Celtic’s: “In their perception, the In this sense, the having of a genuine ball really did seem to have come off a aesthetic experience demands a kind of Celtic player before leaving the fi eld… disinterestedness, a denial of the will and Were they being disingenuous? Could all it strives for. Usually, we see the world this really be two diff erent and honest around us in the self-interested context perceptions? I decided it could be.” of how specifi c aspects of it might be utilised or manipulated to help us satisfy This leads Mumford to suggest that purists our desires. But through the aesthetic and partisans simply perceive the game experience of music, we become diff erently to each other. Drawing on detached from ourselves and from the the thesis of the theory-dependence of pressures placed on us by our desires observation, he says that “one’s beliefs and and needs, and can enjoy it objectively, desires can determine what one sees.” for its own sake. Again, this reminds us of Schopenhauer’s idea that it’s possible to avoid the distorting This is beginning to sound rather eff ects of the will in our aesthetic like our purist, the rational and experience of art. (This is a good reason to unprejudiced football fan who supports demand that referees are neutral.) her team, or teams, for the virtuous qualities it embodies, and Mumford But if the purist and the partisan just reinforces this impression through see the game diff erently, then on what his defence of the purist. Just as the basis are we allowed to suppose that quality of our aesthetic experience of one interpretation is better than the art depends on our ability to become other? The implication must be that the detached from our desires, so too does purist sees the game more objectively, our aesthetic experience of sport. So for the simple reason that they lack the whereas Dixon sees the purist’s fl exible unconditional loyalty and passion that and conditional support as a drawback, might otherwise distort their perception, to the extent that he suggests purists blinding them to the objective reality of are not genuine supporters, Mumford what’s in front of them. sees it as a positive benefi t, allowing her to enjoy a heightened and authentic This point can be taken even further, aesthetic experience. for if Dixon supposes that the purist is

134 Charlie Robinson

someone who supports a team for the game in a deeper and more satisfying qualities they embody, then Mumford way. They can, for instance, focus more supposes that the more genuine purist on “the style of play, the tactics, the is one who supports no team at all. For movement of the ball, rapidity, grace, the most authentic aesthetic experience, economy, incisiveness, and so on.” To be to see the game “for all its beauty and concerned with the identity of the winner drama”, the purist must not have any or the fi nal score is “a crude measure of investment in any one particular team. the worth of a game”. Thus, they have no interest in where the beauty and the drama come from, only A number of objections could be raised that they can experience it, and without at this point. Firstly, why the sharp experiencing it through the distorting distinction between partisans and prism of partisanship. In this way, the true purists? Isn’t the dividing line drawn by purist doesn’t switch allegiance from one both Dixon and Mumford artifi cial and game to the next, depending on which arbitrary? I think so, for the reason that team is the fairest or who plays the most the distinction fails to capture the actual attractive and exciting football, for she has lived experience of many football fans. no allegiance in the fi rst place (although My evidence here might be considered it might be said that some teams display anecdotal and personal, but I think valid certain virtues on a more continual basis, generalisations can be made. allowing Mumford’s purist to develop some degree of allegiance). Now, I would count myself as a partisan — I am elated and relieved when my If this is indeed the case (and I do not team wins and sometimes depressed think that it is), then the analogy drawn when they lose; a grey cloud of misery earlier, between supporting a football often hangs over me until the painful team and one’s love for a partner, memory has faded somewhat. But that is misplaced, or at least the wrong does not automatically exclude my inference is drawn. Mumford agrees, and having purist, and often sheer puritanical, develops the following analogy: “The feelings towards the game itself and even purist is more in the position of a parent towards my own team. I don’t exactly with a number of children… The parent expect my team’s players to endorse and wants to see all their children do well in then follow a strict moral code derived life and realise their full potential. They in the Kantian manner, but I would be do not choose a favourite among their ashamed if any of them scored or won children and hope for them to do better a game by cheating. I like to think that I than their siblings.” can appreciate the good performances of teams other than my own, even when In that case, it would be a mistake to think they beat us. Despite being a partisan, I that the partisan is more passionate about can also enjoy the fi ner side of the game, the game — it’s simply more likely that the taking an interest in tactics, watching passion of the purist is less conspicuous. matches from a range of European Invoking John Stuart Mill’s distinction leagues, and reading the Swiss Ramble between higher and lower pleasures, blog. And through it all, I remain more Mumford says that the purist enjoys the than partial to my team, and can’t

135 Partisans and Purists

envision a time that I don’t support them for violent conduct towards the end of unconditionally, even though they often the match). depress me and occasionally disgust me. Linguistically speaking, at the pragmatic If this is the case for other football fans, everyday level of language-use, we and I think that it is, then the distinction naturally attribute aesthetic qualities between the purist and the partisan to sport — “that was a beautiful goal”, begins to break down. As ever, the truth “Xavi’s pass was a work of art”, etc. lies somewhere in between. Making Certainly many football players and analytical distinctions is a favourite managers have been obsessed by the pastime of philosophers, parcelling and supposed superiority of the aesthetic packaging the world into discrete and approach, privileging ‘attractive’ football distinct entities that may or may not over the win-at-all-costs mentality, a refl ect the lived experiences of those feature of football brought out nicely by to whom they’re relevant. Experience the famous and oft-mentioned enmity shows us that these distinctions can be between César Luis Menotti and Carlos broken down, deconstructed, multiplied Bilardo, the aesthete and philosopher and subverted and are therefore at best versus the arch-pragmatist. meaningless, and at worst dangerous. Intuitively, most football supporters Furthermore, and here’s the second understand this, even if they don’t objection, the main part of Mumford’s necessarily go along with it. We may, argument is based on the theory that the for instance, disagree on the exact purist actually has a superior or more source of aesthetic enjoyment. After all, genuine aesthetic experience, which we might get just as much enjoyment obviously raises the question: can we from watching a valiant backs-against- enjoy meaningful aesthetic experiences the-wall 0-0 game, especially if one of from watching sport at all? Can sport the teams is demonstrably inferior to be said to be an art? We can obviously the other, as we do from a 4-3 thriller say that sport can be the subject of characterised by awful and comical art, as Lowry’s wonderful “Going to defending. The increase in the number the Match” demonstrates on its own. of Premier League goals per game over Douglas Gordon and Phillipe Parreno’s the last few years might be cause for fi lm/art installation, Zidane: A 21st celebration for some, but bad news for Century Portrait, is also, ostensibly, a fans of sophisticated defenders and work of art, and yet it blurs the line: can defending. It depends where we fi nd the Zidane’s performance against Villarreal, beauty of football and that might be at upon which the fi lm remorselessly least partly subjective. focuses, itself be considered art? My temptation is to say yes, as it embodies But is the aesthetic dimension of football the grace, elegance, poise, and balance an essential aspect of the game? Again, it that Mumford thinks are key aesthetic depends where you stand. Peter Arnold, sporting qualities. It also embodies the among others, makes a distinction striving, determination, and occasional between purposive and aesthetic sports. brutality of football (Zidane is sent off Arnold defi nes purposive sports, such

136 Charlie Robinson

as football, in the following way: “The however, cannot provide such drama — aesthetic is not intrinsic to their purpose, quantitative sports, such as long jump which is to win by scoring the most and running, rely on measurements (of goals, tries, baskets, points or runs.” time and distance) to determine the Therefore, there’s no requirement, legally winner, while qualitative sports, such as or morally, to bring aesthetic qualities to fi gure skating, rely on the application of the performance. Aesthetic sports, on aesthetic criteria. According to Mumford, the other hand, are obviously based, to the drama of such sports “tends to be a large degree, on the aesthetic aspects less regular and is not what the nature of of the performance: there is a “concern these sports is all about.” Sports in which for the way or manner in which they are teams are in head-to-head competition, performed.” The awarding of points in on the other hand, optimise the potential sports such as gymnastics and diving (I’m for sporting drama. going to avoid the obvious Luis Suárez/ joke here) qualitatively Nonetheless, the main point is that, focuses on relevant aesthetic qualities. despite the enjoyment of observing the unfolding drama of a football match, Here’s an excerpt from an expert’s aesthetic qualities are not necessarily summary of Ludmilla Tourischeva’s gold inherent to football, even though they medal-winning fl oor exercise at the 1972 may be highly desirable. Footballers Munich Olympics, quoted by Arnold in an can succeed if they are slow, weak, article entitled “Sport: The Aesthetic and fat, graceless, and so on, although Art”: “Of qualities of form, she displayed they’re clearly more likely to be more poise, controlled balance, cleanness successful if they possess none of of line, and each in turn — an arched, those qualities. We can, it seems, say curled, twisted and extended torso; her that some players are better than long supple limbs described sinuous and others, depending on the criteria we circular movements and her shapely choose to apply, suggesting that the fl exible fi ngers made fl orid gestures in principle of aesthetic pluralism holds space. Her footwork had a precision at within football as well as without. The times forceful and fi rm and yet again question is whether any specifi c criteria dainty with impeccably shaped and are objectively more signifi cant than patterned placings.” others, in this case because they add to the aesthetic experience of spectators On this theme, Mumford acknowledges — technique, fl air, vision, and so on. the “aesthetic pluralism” of sport, In other words, and drawing on the meaning that diff erent aesthetic insights of lazy football analysts, the categories apply to diff erent sports: kinds of qualities attributable to, say, speed, strength, grace and so on. Barcelona’s tiki-taka merchants, but Furthermore, most sports, and football not to, say, the Stoke City bruisers. Of is a perfect example, provide spectators course, Barcelona are superior to Stoke with a further aesthetic dimension — because they’re simply more successful, the unfolding of a drama as the teams but is it possible, or even appropriate, to battle for a limited resource, namely say that they’re superior because they’re victory or fi rst place. Some sports, more aesthetically pleasing?

137 Partisans and Purists

The extent to which the appreciation of go beyond subjective preferences. We such qualities is objective, or whether fi nd our enjoyment where we can, they can be applied only subjectively, is and if that means celebrating the ugly moot. Many of the defi ning philosophers goal that wins our team the cup, then of the Enlightenment, and especially so be it. If my team avoids relegation David Hume, argue that there is by playing defensive and aggressive something more at play than a purely football, then what’s to be done? subjective choice when deciding which There’s no point in going down in a aesthetic criteria are more signifi cant. blaze of glory after a season chock full of high-scoring defeats. After all, Despite the fact that we all have a feeling winning friends is easy, winning points or a sentiment towards an object off ered less so. up for our aesthetic judgement, there are, Hume argues, “standards of taste”. How far are we prepared to push this The general appreciation of a work of art argument? At some point, aesthetic over a long period of time is one standard, criteria shade into moral criteria: it’s an as evinced by the continued aff ection of obvious example, but was Luis Suárez football fans for the Ajax and Netherlands right deliberately to handle the ball and sides of the 1970s, to give but two prevent a goal in the World Cup quarter- examples. Another standard is given by fi nal against ? Would you praise paying attention to the opinions of those or blame your player for taking a dive with refi ned and delicate sensibilities, such to win a last-minute penalty? Perhaps as critics and experts. Of the current crop ambivalence is the most appropriate of the best football teams in the world, response to both situations, as it which ones will be remembered, and would be if through some unfortunate which will be fondly remembered? That’s sequence of events we suddenly found a question perhaps best left open. our team gaining promotion under the management of John Beck. I guess I’ll just Many will resist Hume’s conclusion have to put up with the stiff neck, like it that there are standards of taste that or lump it, if that’s the price of success.

138 The Lager of Life

The Lager of Life Football is haunted by violence, but can it be blamed for it?

By Tim Vickery

I remain extremely happy to have been him. Every ball could have done him born on the same day that Muhammad serious harm. How on earth did we ever Ali fought for the fi rst time under the consider this to be a healthy activity? name he chose (the rematch against More than a Test Match, with today’s Sonny Liston which he won with a fi rst- eyes it looks like a test of sanity, which round knockout, if you’re interested). we all were failing. But I can’t feel the same way about boxing as I once did. And yet I watched at the time with barely a qualm. But it was boxing that took me True, the sport has a beautiful purity. In past the tipping point. Little more than the words of a friend who can still fi nd 20 years ago I was at White Hart Lane for it in his heart to love the noble art, it is the second fi ght between the sport to which all other sports refer. and Michael Watson, the one which I accept this, but still I shudder. With age ended Watson’s career and came very comes a greater realisation of human close to ending his life. frailty. Those punches dished out by men trained to a peak of destructive It was a slow burner. Of much of the perfection — they have consequences. fi ght, I can recall little. Eubank had won a controversial points decision in their fi rst Of course, we all struggle these days meeting. Watson claimed that he had with the basic objective of boxing — to been robbed, but his change of approach incapacitate the opponent. And we also in the rematch made it clear that deep live in a far softer age than just a few down he felt diff erently. This time he decades ago. This applies to other sports. went to work with an added intensity, From a contemporary perspective it is giving Eubank no breathing space and hard to watch the bombardment that building up a big lead. Michael Holding gave a 40-plus Brian Close when the West Indies played The end is ingrained in my mind, as if it England in a 1976 Test Match. With took place in slow motion. Eubank, in the precious little protection, Close ended penultimate round, seemed on the verge up covered in bruises as he doggedly got of defeat when he caught Watson with a behind the line of the ball — more like devastating uppercut. Watson was out on a missile in the hands of Holding — and his feet when the bell rung — he was still attempted to show, with ever decreasing out when it sounded again to announce success, that the impact had not hurt the start of the fi nal round.

139 The Lager of Life

From my seat, admittedly some way the judgement of some of those paid to back, it seemed clear that he should keep a cool head in such circumstances. never have been allowed to carry on the I remember one fi gure, an ex-boxer of fi ght. His corner, though, were caught some renown, slipping away into the night up in the emotion of the occasion. Their soon after the fi ght. He had seen enough man was three minutes away from a to know what was at stake up there in famous victory. They sent him out. But the ring. His quiet dignity contrasted Watson was already so incapacitated with the vein-bulging, adrenalin that he appeared unable to carry out fi lled pandemonium that was hissing, the last round ritual of touching gloves squawking and screaming all around — with his opponent. The referee, anxious that we have all seen, and maybe been to give him every chance, helped out, part of, in some football stadium. grabbing Watson’s arm and pulling it towards Eubank’s. “Why is this still going “Football,” says the Liverpool-based on?” I asked myself as Eubank steeled academic Rogan Taylor, “is like strong himself for the assault that would cause beer. Some people just can’t take it.” It the referee, surely belatedly, to call a is one of the wisest quotes on the game halt. The last image I have in my mind that I know. Our sport, of course, does from the ring is that of one of Watson’s not have the physical incapacitation of cornermen, pathetically and absurdly, the opponent as an objective — though yelling at the referee in protest at the I have to confess that head injuries are decision to stop the fi ght. making me increasingly squeamish. But in comparison with boxing it has a Later that night, as I left the ground greater power of representation — in part and wandered up the High Road, I felt because it is a team game, but also as a confused by my own emotions. There result of an intense internal contradiction was elation in the mix — I had attended between its simplicity and its complexity. a big sports event, followed all over the The former means that, with low barriers nation, which had undoubtedly been to entry, almost anyone can join in. The dramatic and exciting. But it was already latter means that how you join in says so apparent that something was seriously much about who you are; a player on the wrong with Michael Watson, and I could ball has so many options available to him not help feeling guilty that his suff ering had that it follows that the choices he makes served as my entertainment. It is a feeling I are in some way culturally formed. Get have never completely shaken off . the ball forward quickly using pace and power, or take the scenic route before What had really disturbed me, though, suddenly striking, using surprise and was the behaviour of the crowd. I am deception as a weapon. No other game unlikely to forget the piercing noise contains such a variety of movements. and the frenetic, excited movement that accompanied the last couple As you live, think and dream, so you of minutes of Michael Watson’s able express yourself on the football fi eld. bodied existence. Ugly, feature-twisting And so those who watch feel themselves emotion had taken over the collective being expressed, as individuals, and in mind of White Hart Lane, even warping those moments when a surge of emotion

140 Tim Vickery

makes a crowd react as one, collectively the inevitable Tottenham terrace song. as well. Hunter Davies and an elderly fan nearby stayed in their seats. “I’m too old to hate,” Here lies the problem with Rogan Taylor’s said Davies. “I’m too old to stand,” replied observation. When a mass of people are his acquaintance. overdoing the strong beer all at the same time, their collective intoxication is more Am I too feckless to walk away? I like a poisoning of the mind, the hysteria watched the 1985 European Cup Final, that fascism seeks to generate and feed stayed with it all the way to the end, off . And it can take eff ect with alarming perturbed, of course, by the scenes speed. Some of those at Heysel in 1985 from the stadium, but still curious to see talk of a friendly atmosphere on a lovely whether Liverpool or Juventus would spring evening suddenly descending come out on top. It didn’t feel quite into an inferno. I recall being at a derby right at the time, and it feels worse in in Cali, Colombia, which seemed to be hindsight. But I was not the only one. a relatively good-natured aff air until I’m haunted by an image in my mind, a one police action turned the stands into tale recounted on a TV documentary by a riot zone, with the game halted and someone who was on duty at the Heysel disorder reigning for hours afterwards stadium that night. He recalls seeing an in the streets around the stadium. Or, Italian fan, who had lost his shoes in the more than a decade ago, going to the deadly crush and whose clothes were Maracanã by bus to see a Vasco da covered in dust. But now the match had Gama-Flamengo game, Rio’s most started this fan was cheering on his side, potent local rivalry. As we approached totally caught up in the emotion of the the stadium a gun battle was raging — it game. Football is powerful stuff . may have been between rival groups of fans, it might have been the police fi ring For years I carried all of these thoughts into the air in a bid to control the crowd. in my head, but they were locked away No one was keen to put their head up in a guilty little corner, seldom visited. long enough to fi nd out. Everyone was Therapy came from an unlikely source. on the fl oor of the bus, children wailing and old people shaking with fear. Towards the end of last year I had the opportunity to interview , Ah, local derbies. So often the ’s star left-back and atmosphere they generate is referred midfi elder from the 1970s and 80s. His to with a blithe smile. To my mind reaction to my opening question did they can often be the most over-rated not bode well — I recalled that he had games in football, almost guaranteed to been known for taking political positions generate more heat than light, fuelled as a player, and asked whether he by demented anger. Being in a big thought this type of stance was missing derby crowd can sometimes be like in today’s players. I made no reference experiencing a 90-minute version of to Chairman Mao, but even so he was Orwell’s Three-Minute Hate. Am I the exasperated at having to fend off an only one troubled by this? Apparently enquiry that touched on the folly of his not. “Stand up if you hate Arsenal,” goes youthful idealism. Once that was out of

141 The Lager of Life

the way, though, he was an excellent Turning against football on these interviewee, forthright and intelligent. grounds would be like hating democracy There was one point he was very keen to because people voted for Thatcher. Give make: whether it was racism in stadiums the human being the chance to express or young players unwilling to accept himself and the outcome will not always responsibility, his piercing blue eyes be pleasant. Far better that the ugly side fl ashed and he pointed out that these of humanity get an airing at a football were not problems of football — they match than at a public hanging, or even a were problems of society that were boxing bout. manifesting themselves in football. Because football carries within it so It is a simple observation but a brilliant much that is positive. One of the one. Football matters, and so we tend driving forces behind boxing success is to load more on the game than it can narcissistic individualism. In football the realistically carry. It had been foolish glory always has to be shared. The far of me to blame football, even in a little right can make a fetish of competition, corner of my mind, for the dangerous but human progress has almost invariably passions it can unleash. The fault lies not been the result of co-operation. Football with football. Perhaps, in this case, the teaches us the dynamic between these idea that society is to blame does not go two forces. The best way to compete is far enough. It is more fundamental than to co-operate — a lesson well worth that. It is a problem of the human being. learning, even if it comes at a price.

142 143 Past Glories

“Perhaps that’s why the myths endure, be- cause the story of the upstart challenging the grandees and crushed for its temerity has a universal romantic appeal.” The Nearly Men

The Nearly Men ’s nostalgia for the Dream Team of Bruce Grobbelaar and the Ndlovu brothers

By Ian Hawkey

In Zimbabwe, a traveller usually knows acquired when he moved to England clearly where she or he is. The pentagon at the beginning of the 1990. It stuck of highways that vein the country with him through a 13-year career in is meticulously pegged, kilometre the Premier League and Championship. by kilometre. Across Zimbabwe’s At home in Zimbabwe, he was seldom sparsely populated rural space, a driver called ‘Nuddy’; rather, he was known to appreciates the landmarks. team-mates as ‘Zonga’.

In the very early hours of 16 December The other man in the car, Peter’s older 2012 a BMW X5 was approaching brother Adam ‘Adamski’ Ndlovu, died the 471km peg on the to later that Sunday in hospital, aged 42. The Victoria Falls road when its driver lost Ndlovus had been on their way to Victoria control of the vehicle at a curve. A tyre Falls to play in a friendly match for the had burst. The vehicle veered off the Highlanders Legends — a gathering of tarmac, crashed through trees, and retired players from the principal club of shuddered to a standstill leaning on its Matabeleland, the region they both come right side, a mangled wreck. The noise from — against a local XI. It was to have of the collision woke people from the been a day of nostalgia. settlement of Lupinyu and drew them to the scene. They found one passenger, In the obituaries for Adam Ndlovu, there Nomqele Tshili, a 24-year-old woman, would be far more. It is 20 years since already dead. The two men in the car Zimbabwe’s most famous sporting were rushed to Victoria Falls hospital brothers — a step ahead of the cricketing in a critical condition. In the dark, and Flowers, or the tennis-playing Blacks — bloodied from head injuries, they had not were spearheading what is now looked been recognised as two of Zimbabwe’s on as the nation’s fi nest era in its most most celebrated citizens. popular sport. Mention the ‘Dream Team’ in Zimbabwe and you shorthand The number plate, NUDDY23 GP, told the young Ndlovus up front, a rugged them only that the vehicle was South back four and one of football’s most African. In Coventry or Birmingham or charismatic goalkeepers. The Dream Huddersfi eld, the personalised ‘Nuddy’ Team have an almost folkloric status, on the plate might have prompted although they would fall just short of readier recognition. It is the nickname realising the aspirations they sustained that Peter Ndlovu, who had been driving, over 15 months, of reaching a World Cup.

144 Ian Hawkey

The tag Dream Team would fi rst be — Grobbelaar was told his Anfi eld status hung on them during the southern was threatened. Liverpool had just hemisphere winter of 1992, a sobriquet expensively recruited David James. And borrowed from the US basketball team on the very weekend the new Premier at the Barcelona Olympics, an assembly League was to kick off , he was off ered of NBA superstars plunged into a Games an alternative to sitting on the bench that had just discarded the pretence of understudying James. Prem or Zim? amateurism. Zimbabwe’s football had For the fi rst time after several years of a sense that it too might draw on an absence from international football, unprecedented expertise from one of the maverick Grobbelaar answered a the sport’s most glamorous professional call-up from his national team with an structures: the English league. From enthusiastic “Yes.” the vantage point of today’s Premier League, in which almost every team has Grobbelaar fl ew out of Merseyside on at least one African in its line-up, it seems the Thursday night, three days ahead of remarkable that in 1992, when the Premier the opening match of the 1994 Africa League began, the two established African Cup of Nations qualifi ers. He passed stars of the top-fl ight of English football through customs at airport using were both Zimbabwean. the British passport he had obtained in the early 1980s, by virtue, in common Peter Ndlovu, quick, surprisingly sturdy with many of the small but signifi cant in possession and an awkwardly nimble minority of white Zimbabweans, of opponent for many English centre- some British ancestry somewhere halves, had been spotted by Coventry in the boughs of his family tree. But City when they toured Zimbabwe as here was the rub. Grobbelaar had not part of pre-season training. Bruce played for his country for a decade— Grobbelaar’s route to the dominant partly because of a law passed by the English club of that era, Liverpool, from government of Robert Mugabe which his beginnings at the same Highlanders forbade its citizens from holding both a club as Ndlovu later joined, had been Zimbabwean passport and a British one. more circuitous, via South Africa and Mugabe’s transformation of what had Canada in the late 1970s. His relationship been Rhodesia until the country’s fi rst with his national team was complicated, democratic elections of 1980 put his and resolving it would provide an ZANU-PF party in power, is pegged with element of suspense in the prelude to post-colonial markers like that. the Dream Team’s adventure. But within ZANU-PF, they were alive to In the summer of 1992, Grobbelaar the feelgood power of success on the was at a club career crossroads. After sports fi eld. “Mugabe was quite clever a decade of mostly unchallenged with the Bruce Grobbelaar situation ownership of the number one jersey at back then,” remembers Pernell McKop, what had been England’s number one an assistant coach to the Zimbabwe club — a period of six league titles, a national team in the early 1990s. European Cup and half a dozen winners Grobbelaar wanted in. Zimbabwe’s new medals from the major domestic Cups head coach, a German named Reinhard

145 The Nearly Men

Fabisch, made it clear he wanted his McKop remembers Joshua Nkomo, the best goalkeeper in the team. The people leader of the ZAPU party whose core wanted Bruce. The fi xture in which constituency was in Matabeleland, giving he might make his comeback was go-get-’em speeches to Highlanders especially resonant. Zimbabwe were players. “The composition of the national to begin their qualifying campaign for team,” he added, “in terms of numbers the 1994 Cup of Nations against their of players in it from each part of the neighbours South Africa, who would be country was an issue for the politicians competing for the fi rst time ever in Africa and some in the media.” Fabisch, as an as a Fifa-authorised national team after outsider, exercised a certain licence to decades of anti-apartheid sanctions. It disregard that while some fans from was a South Africa team endorsed by the Matabeleland congratulated themselves president-in-waiting Nelson Mandela, an on the unusually high number of their XI of black, white and mixed-race South men in the national team. Africans, emblematic of their Rainbow Nation. For Zimbabwe, the inclusion of Once the Dream Team had momentum, Grobbelaar — a man who once fought it became harder to interfere in such as a Rhodesian army conscript in the matters. And on a on a sunny winter day civil war against Mugabe’s freedom at Harare’s National Stadium, the Dream fi ghters — made its own statement Team gained its traction. Grobbelaar about their diversity. had a sense this might be a watershed match for his country. “When I got the “Even two days ahead of the game, call to come back, to play against South the government were saying Bruce’s Africa, I was thrilled,” he recalls. “I knew Zimbabwean passport and his eligibility they’d be really up for it and it would be were down to the Home Offi ce,” a helluva game.” remembers McKop, “so they used it, to hype up the suspense, kept saying ‘it’s The visitors thought they were the big touch and go’ whether he could play.” storyline. Fabisch played up the cowing, Naturally, he did. underdog status of Zimbabwe — “they are much stronger than us” — though Grobbelaar would also boost the not all his players did. Willard Khumalo, number of Bulawayians in the national the Zimbabwe midfi elder, gave a gem team, which was noted. “In some of a quote to those of us covering ways Zimbabwean football was quite the game. Asked his opinion of South politicised,” says McKop. “The rivalry Africa’s insatiably showy trickster of domestically between Highlanders, from a winger, ‘Doctor’ Khumalo of Kaizer Bulawayo in Matabeleland, and Dynamos Chiefs, the Khumalo of Zimbabwe from Harare, in Mashonaland, could suggested the Khumalo of South Africa become very tribalistic.” Matabeleland risked having to “change his name from had in the early post-democracy years ‘Doctor’ to ‘Nurse’.” been subject to brutal oppression by sections of the armed forces. In front of a crowd of more than 40,000, Highlanders versus Dynamos matches Zimbabwe demolished South Africa. bore some of that emotional weight. They went 2-0 up thanks to goals from

146 Ian Hawkey

Vitalis ‘Digital’ Takawira and Rahman governing body’s record on righting Gumbo in the opening 20 minutes, and perceived wrongs caused by lax security, were 4-1 winners. Peter Ndlovu, still a particularly in Africa, is a little haphazard. teenager, got the other two goals. Yet the Dream Team were awarded a replay of the match, to be played in , The Dream Team had lift-off . David France. Grobbelaar had one of fi nest had whipped one self-styled Goliath nights of his international career in a 0-0 of the continent. Over the months that draw that was vividly celebrated 5,000 followed they would aim their slingshots miles away. at genuine giants of African football as they picked their way through the Back home, bad drought was hurting the cluttered calendar. Besides the Cup of population and wearing at the country’s Nations qualifi ers, there was the qualifying economy. “Morale was low at that time,” marathon for the USA World Cup, with says McKop, “and people clung to the its two tiers of group phases, with only idea of the Dream Team and the road to the top team going through at each the USA, and to what we felt might be stage. In the course of those, Zimbabwe our fi rst time at an Africa Cup of Nations. would be required keep their poise on When we played those qualifi ers, started some demanding away trips — notably to put together an unbeaten run, those to , in the fi rst World Cup mini- days brought back some of the joy of league, on a baking January day during independence, the feeling of all having a the Angolan civil war. “Coming into single objective. I think that’s partly why Luanda, we had to circle all the way down the Dream Team label stuck.” into the airport because someone was shooting at planes,” recalls Grobbelaar. Zimbabwe’s Cup of Nations qualifying “In the stadium, they must have had campaign would by the middle of 1993 80,000. It was only supposed to hold be overshadowed by a bigger story. about 50,000.” A 1-1 draw felt plucky. When came to Harare for the fi nal group match, needing a draw to pip Three weeks earlier, Egypt had been beaten the Dream Team for a place at the fi nals, in Harare, a peg on the Dream Team’s they had the sympathy and support of the highway as signifi cant as the resonant world. Three months earlier the Zambia rout of the South Africans. Peter Ndlovu’s squad travelling to a match in Senegal slalom and left-foot drive for the fi rst goal had been killed in a plane crash. Against in the 2-1 win had been the highlight. Zimbabwe, a hastily patched-together side fell a goal behind. The Dream Team It set up a rousing conclusion to the were on course for their fi rst ever major group, with Zimbabwe needing a point tournament. Eleven minutes remained in Cairo to go through to the next phase when the Zambia captain and eliminate the Pharaohs. By the end directed a header past Grobbelaar. of an intense, rowdy night, Fabisch had a cut to his head and Grobbelaar had also The road to the USA remained open. To been struck by a missile. Egypt had won add to the scalp of Egypt, there would be 2-1. Zimbabwe, armed with television the cutting down to size of Cameroon, footage, appealed to Fifa. The world Africa’s most visible football power

147 The Nearly Men

thanks to Italia 90, beaten 1-0 in Harare. Zimbabwe’s wait for a fi rst appearance But Zimbabwe had dropped points with at a Cup of Nations lasted into the 21st a defeat in Guinea, the also-rans in their century, by which time the country often mini-league. After the penultimate set appeared a ceaseless bad news story: of fi xtures of the second group phase, violent general elections, surreal infl ation Zimbabwe found themselves again one rates, soaring unemployment, desperate win shy of the target. They had to go to emigration. Economic crisis meant Yaoundé and beat the Indomitable Lions Zimbabwe withdrew as designated to be one of the trio of African sides at hosts of the African Cup of Nations in the 1994 World Cup. 2000. When, nearly quarter of a century after independence, Zimbabwe fi nally For a while, the dream fl ickered on. qualifi ed for a Nations Cup, in 2004, When, fi ve minutes into the second the iconic Ndlovu brothers were still up half, Adam Ndlovu scored, a hush came front for the Warriors. The label Dream over the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium. A Team had not accompanied them. Nor brief respite from a noise Grobbelaar were the Zimbabwe who reached the describes as “like a swarm of angry bees, 2006 tournament in Egypt — where ringing in your ears.” But Cameroon Peter Ndlovu won his 100th cap before were already two goals up by then. Once another group stage exit — deemed they added a third, Zimbabwe were worthy of comparison with the sides of broken. On the touchline, Fabisch started the early 1990s. throwing US dollar bills around, implying the referee, who had given a contentious Even that peak now seems distant. early penalty in favour of Cameroon, had African football’s hierarchy, at least been bought. Zim’s Dream Team had at international level, has become been 11 minutes from a fi rst ever Cup of refreshingly fl uid in the 21st century. Nations. They had been one win from Small nations with little footballing reaching the US. They had neither. heritage rise suddenly, Togo and Angola have reached World Cup fi nals, Burkina Just over a year after the loss in Yaoundé, Faso have fi nished second at a Cup of Zimbabwe’s most famous footballer was Nations. Zimbabwe have not caught on the front page of the Sun in Britain. that train. They currently live with the Bruce Grobbelaar would spend the next ongoing fallout from ‘Asiagate’, the three years defending himself against match-fi xing scandal centred on the tour allegations of match-fi xing during his by a sub-standard Zimbabwe team to time at Liverpool. He was cleared of the Far East in 2009, implicating over a corruption charges. He played for his hundred players and offi cials. country for a further four years and later coached the Warriors, but after some In April 2013, Peter Ndlovu was cleared of vigorous disagreements with offi cials culpability in the crash that cost his brother from the Zimbabwe Football Association, his life and he continues to work as assistant his ties with the country weakened. The coach to the national team, but it ranks dual passport issue resurfaced, too. This outside Fifa’s top 100. Little wonder that a time it would not be resolved with a longing, a rose-tinted nostalgia for the presidential fl ourish. so-called Dream Team is easily stirred.

148

The Grand Griguol

The Grand Griguol How El Viejo defi ed accusations of boringness to inspire the golden age of Ferro Carril Oeste

By Dan Colasimone

Although largely unloved by the The Argentinian game has forever Argentinian press at the time, the Ferro swayed between pragmatism and Carril Oeste team that dominated lyricism. During the amateur era and domestic football in the early 1980s in the early days of professionalism, is now regarded as defi ning the era, the overwhelming preference was symbolic of a move back to pragmatic for highly attacking football. After the footballing ideologies and proving Selección’s humiliation at the 1958 that, under the right conditions, a World Cup, however, defensive tactics ‘neighbourhood’ club could compete became the norm. Osvaldo Zubeldía with the giants. and Victorio Luis Spinetto1, both known for producing hard-working, tough- Admired by some for making themselves to-beat, defence-minded teams, were almost impossible to beat, but denigrated the dominant managers of the sixties by most for their style of bloody-minded until the tide turned again at the end possession football, Ferro were a kind of the decade and attacking teams of joyless Barcelona of their time. El enjoyed another heyday. Then, in the Gráfi co magazine described the team as 1980s, the Estudiantes of the Zubeldía “a well-oiled machine that reached the disciple and the Ferro of summit with simplicity as its emblem... the spinettista A resounding demonstration of how ushered in a new era of guarded, conviction and total unity can take a tactical football, which culminated in group to the very top.” the Bilardo-led Selección’s consecutive World Cup fi nal appearances in 1986 and Ferro won championships in 1982 and 1990. Estudiantes already had quite a 1984, and missed out on several more pedigree but the evolution of Ferro from in the early eighties by narrow margins. modest suburban team to major player In terms of consistently challenging for took many by surprise. honours, the only side close to them in the fi rst half of the decade was Estudiantes Ferro Carril Oeste, founded by rail de La Plata. The two teams had a similar workers in 1904 (the English translation outlook, one which contrasted markedly of the name is ‘Western Railway’) and with what had come before. based in the leafy Buenos Aires suburb of

1 See Jonathan Wilson’s piece “The First Bilardista” in Issue One for more on Spinetto.

150 Dan Colasimone

Caballito, had, for most of its existence, So how did a modest team from a enjoyed a cosy mediocrity. A mid- laid-back inner-city neighbourhood ranking side from a very middle-class help change the course of Argentinian neighbourhood, it had remained fairly football thinking? Two factors stand consistently in the top division since fi rst out: the decline of the traditional gaining promotion in 1912 without ever powerhouses and the ingeniously simple threatening to challenge the dominance coaching philosophies of Griguol. of the giants. As if to emphasise how middling the club is, its Estadio Arquitecto The political and economic deterioration Ricardo Etcheverri ground is located in of Argentina in the late seventies almost the exact geographical centre of and early eighties under the military Buenos Aires. Supporters of the team, dictatorship hit the country’s biggest whose dark green shirts echo the verdant football clubs hard. The nation was in surroundings, are stoically devoted to the a state of emergency. Turmoil caused institution, though few are foaming-at- by high infl ation and the Falklands War the-mouth fanatics. The sporting club, as led to an increase in violence at football is often the case in Argentina, is the focal stadiums. General unrest spread to the point of the surrounding community. terraces and as the danger increased, Caballito residents will stop by the club crowd numbers dwindled. house for a friendly tennis match or a Sunday dinner, and Ferro’s basketball, The standard of the league was further hockey and volleyball teams are long- reduced when the national coach César established powers in their respective Luis Menotti called up his squad for the national leagues. 1982 World Cup early, in order to give the team an extended preparation for the Football remains the club’s raison d’être, tournament. Most of the players came however, and the current plight of the from the fi ve Grandes (, team is a cause of great anguish, not River Plate, Independiente, Racing and only for Ferro fans, but for many neutral San Lorenzo), so not only were they observers who lament the disappearance stripped of technical ability on the pitch, of such a traditional name from the top the general public lost further interest division. Ferro nowadays compete in in watching them play, which was Argentina’s second division, Nacional B, another blow for attendance fi gures. The occasionally fl irting with the possibility majority of clubs, already hobbled by of a return to the top fl ight, but more poor management, were plunged into often than not its supporters are gazing fi nancial crisis. anxiously at the relegation averages. Since a fi nancial meltdown in 2002, Both Boca and River had overstretched blamed on nefarious offi cials, the club themselves fi nancially by purchasing has been in administration; struggling for big-name players they could not aff ord. survival both economically and on the In 1982, River had to return the forward pitch. Such a depressing present reality to Valencia when they makes wistfully remembering the glory were unable to complete payments days of the early eighties the pastime of for his transfer. So large had the debt choice for elderly Ferro fans. grown that they had to offl oad the

151 The Grand Griguol

defender Daniel Passarella to Fiorentina remained a force throughout the mid-to- as well. Boca were similarly crippled by late-eighties but did not win another title. the purchase of Diego Maradona from For a side that had never come close to in 1981. He was a championship before, two titles and sold on to Barcelona after only a year at three second-place fi nishes over four the Bombonera. Of the Grandes, only years was an outstanding return. Independiente benefi ted from sensible management, based on a strong social Argentina’s big clubs may have been function in the community, and they thus suff ering through a diffi cult period, remained comparatively stable fi nancially. but to attribute Ferro’s success solely to the misfortune of others would be None of the Grandes made it to the grossly unfair. quarter-fi nals of the 1982 Nacional tournament, a stage reached by fi nishing The great Ferro team began to take in the top two of one of four groups of shape in 1979 under Carmelo Faraone, eight teams. It was a time for clubs of who brought through many of the more modest means to make an impact. players who would reap such success Several provincial sides emerged as title later on. It was with the arrival of Griguol contenders but it was Griguol’s Ferro, from Kimberley in 1980, however, that with sacrifi ce and order as its hallmarks, the Caballito outfi t really began to which was at the vanguard of a new era emerge as a force. for Argentinian football. ‘El Viejo’ (The Old Man), as he was Two fi rst division championships known, had spent his 13-year playing were played every year in Argentina career at just two clubs, , where until 1985: the Torneo Metropolitano, he played for three years under Spinetto, which was a home and away league, and , where he would take and the Campeonato Nacional, which up coaching after retiring in 1969. Griguol comprised an initial group stage won his fi rst championship with Central in followed by a knock-out tournament. 1973 with a team dubbed ‘Los Picapiedras’ Ferro fi nished runner-up by a single (The Flintstones) because of its rustic point to Maradona’s Boca in 1981’s style, before a stint in Mexico with Metropolitano, then lost the fi nal of the Ámerica. On returning to Argentina he Nacional to Kempes’s River. Combining led Kimberley for only a handful of games the points gained in both tournaments, before being called on to take charge of Ferro would have fi nished seven clear Ferro’s project. The new coach suited of Boca and 11 ahead of River over the club President Santiago Leyden’s austere entire season. In 1982, Griguol’s side outlook perfectly. He was already known won the Nacional without losing a as a conservative manager and was match, while Bilardo’s Estudiantes took famous for his habit of slapping players’ out the Metropolitano. Estudiantes and faces before they ran onto the pitch by Independiente won championships in way of motivation. “When we fi rst started 1983, with Ferro once again claiming the in Ferro, after the games everybody Nacional in 1984 before fi nishing second would ask about the results of the teams to Argentinos in the Metropolitano. Ferro who were relegation candidates,” Griguol

152 Dan Colasimone

would later tell El Gráfi co. “It took a year on to run non-stop. Carlos Arregui on the to change that attitude.” right and Gerónimo Saccardi in the middle had also emerged from the club’s junior Aside from his motivational techniques, ranks. Saccardi’s tenacity and technical Griguol brought with him certain ability made him a key component of the characteristics that would prove side. He, like Rocchia, had played under invaluable at Ferro. Crucially, he placed Griguol’s mentor in great emphasis on youth development Ferro’s 1974 surprise title challenge. The when forming his sides. He would Paraguayan Adolfi no Cañete, who was the staunchly avoid spending money on big creative spark in midfi eld, was usually to names, preferring to promote players from be found on the left. the junior teams. With no superstars in the squad, Griguol demanded hard work on The right-sided forward was Claudio all levels, until it became synonymous with Crocco, a speedy dribbler with an eye both the way the club was run and the for goal. Miguel Ángel Juárez played on players’ attitude on the pitch. the left of the front three. He was initially brought to the club in 1981 as a back-up His team played a fl exible 4-3-3, with an striker but ended up being top scorer in emphasis on the collective rather than the championship winning campaign in the individual. The basis of the starting 1982 with 20 goals. Julio César Jimenez XI in 1982 would remain the same for would alternate with Alberto ‘Beto’ several years. The goalkeeper Carlos Márcico who went on to become a club Barisio off ered a sense of calm security. legend at both Ferro and Boca, in the He still holds the record in Argentina for centre-forward position. Both would the longest period without conceding a habitually drop back into an attacking goal; 1075 minutes in total, beginning in midfi eld role. the 1981 Metropolitano. The centre-backs complemented each other with their The 4-3-3 on paper would adapt easily diff ering styles: Juan Domingo Rocchia to whatever circumstances on the pitch was the dominant leader, the caudillo at required. If, for example, the opposition the back, while Héctor Cúper, who had midfi eld was proving a handful, Ferro’s come through the club’s youth system, central midfi elder Saccardi would drop possessed great technique on the ball and back to join the defence, allowing it to could initiate attacks. Mario fan out wider across the back. Another Gómez, reliable and tactically intelligent, modifi cation was to form a kind of started in the right-back role in 1982, while square formation in the middle of the Oscar Américo Agonil took over as fi rst pitch, with Saccardi and Arregui as its choice in 1984. Oscar Garré was one base and Cañete alongside a withdrawn of the stars of the team on the left side striker, Juárez or Márcico , slightly further of defence. Renowned for his attacking forward. At the same time, the full-backs tendencies down the fl ank, he would win would push forward and convert into the World Cup with Argentina in 1986. dangerous attacking threats.

The midfi eld three were extremely Griguol also worked closely with the disciplined tactically and could be relied legendary Ferro basketball coach León

153 The Grand Griguol

Najnudel. He attended training sessions, Independiente’s brilliant , exchanged ideas and watched videos . of the basketball team with the aim of transferring movements and plays to the The same article showed a large diagram football pitch. Griguol’s system, with its of Ferro passing the ball all the way along quick interchanging of positions, meant it the back four, then back to the keeper, was very rare for the team to be caught out under the headline, “Are Ferro a Boring numerically, especially when players not Team?”. The author concluded that originally designated as defenders would “since football has been football, only suddenly appear in a defensive capacity. teams who play well win.”

When opponents had the ball, Ferro Sure enough, Ferro were experts at pressed vigorously and constantly in all sucking the life out of a game after taking areas of the fi eld. Once such pressing an early lead. “Stingier than Griguol’s resulted in a turnover of possession, Ferro,” was an expression used at the tight passing triangles were initiated time to criticise overly defensive sides. to advance the ball away, regardless The players would famously rotate of which sector of the pitch they were possession at a leisurely rate, changing in. This kind of aggressive defending shape fl uidly, frustratingly, with or was likened to that of a Menotti team, without the ball, content to put the onus supposedly at the opposite end of the on opponents to come up with a way footballing spectrum, and could even of catching them out. Certainly, there draw comparisons to modern-day were no superstars in the team either. Barcelona’s off -the-ball play. Saccardi, Garré and Márcico may have been adored in Caballito, but they were Such movement, both with and without not players to set pulses racing like the ball, required superb physical Maradona, Kempes or Bochini. conditioning. Much credit was given to Ferro’s trainer, Luis María Bonini, It was a solid, hardworking and tactically recently seen assisting at impeccable side. Griguol described it thus: Athletic . Bonini had the players “The group was very strong, respectful working extremely hard in pre-season, and had a great deal of heart. For us it was and ensured they kept up fi tness levels normal to run and keep playing for 90 throughout the year. minutes. For other teams it was a sacrifi ce to play against Ferro. To that you have to In an El Grafi co article in 1984, Natalio add that if the rest of the teams focused Gorin pointed out that in the Griguol era, on one wide area, running up and down no Ferro player had forced an opponent the wing, we would look to the middle. to leave the fi eld injured, despite the If you reinforced the fl anks, I would play tenacious defensive tactics. “It is not through the centre, and vice versa.” a team that aims to hurt opponents,” he said, “they play hard but fair.” Nor In the 1982 Nacional tournament, which did Griguol’s teams ever man mark was secured over a two-legged fi nal with an opponent. They defended zonally, a 2-0 aggregate victory against Quilmes, even against the likes of Maradona and Ferro’s record reads: 22 games, 16 wins,

154 Dan Colasimone

six draws and no losses with 50 goals consistently trump more vaunted scored and only 13 conceded. The 1983 opponents through industry and tactical campaigns were punctuated by the side precision. In recent years, as the Grandes throwing away numerous 1-0 leads in the have once again found themselves fi nal 10 minutes of games while chasing in trouble due to poor directorship, more impressive scorelines — perhaps the ‘neighbourhood’ clubs like Lanús, Banfi eld criticisms of stodgy play had hit home. and Arsenal de Sarandí have followed The 1984 Nacional triumph, however, Ferro’s lead by winning championships on was just as impressive as the undefeated tiny budgets, while other well-run clubs 1982 campaign. Griguol’s side only lost like Vélez and Estudiantes have thrived one game, the away leg to Huracán in the as richer, better-supported teams such fi rst knock-out stage, on their way to the as River, Independiente and San Lorenzo fi nal against the River Plate of Norberto have fl oundered. Alonso and . The fi rst leg was held in River’s Monumental and Many of Griguol’s team went on to saw perhaps Ferro’s fi nest performance, become coaches themselves. Cúper, a 3-0 victory. In the second leg, the Garré, Gomez and Saccardi all became Caballito side took an early lead through managers, as did others who later played Cañete, and River fans were so enraged under El Viejo. All of them remained at the humiliation their team was being faithful to his pragmatic, compact style. subjected to that they attempted to burn down the wooden stands of Ferro’s Most importantly, the success of Ferro in stadium. The match was suspended with the 1980s gave, and continues to give, 20 minutes to go, but the result stood, ammunition to those in Argentina who and Griguol and his team had their argue that cautious, defensive football second title to cap a golden era. remains the most eff ective path to silverware. The overriding philosophy at By this stage, the national sporting press the moment seems once again to favour had grudgingly acknowledged Ferro a demure approach. Boca Juniors pulled as a team worthy of recognition. The themselves out of a three-year lean spell 1982 triumph had been overshadowed by trusting in the grim but eff ective playing in the press by the World Cup in Spain style of Julio Falcioni, winning the apertura and events off the pitch, most notably in 2011-12 while the Argentina national the tumultuous economic situation and team is being led towards the next World the Falklands War. Consistently strong Cup fi nals by the highly pragmatic Alejandro showings over following tournaments Sabella, a Bilardo disciple. The sands will led to a level of respect, and even some no doubt shift again and the debate will praise amid the barbs about dull play. carry on. The lyricists will forever bring up the likes of Menotti in 1978 and River’s La There may have been limited admiration Máquina of the 1940s, while the pragmatists for Griguol’s Ferro while the side was at can always point to Zubeldía’s Estudiantes, its peak, but its place in the history of Bilardo’s Argentina and Timoteo Griguol’s Argentinian football is indisputable. humble Ferro side who carved their own Griguol showed that a side with a niche in history by turning dreariness into small budget and little brilliance could a virtue and simplicity into an art form.

155 A Dream Denied

A Dream Denied But for the politics of Greek football, Ferenc Puskás might have ended up in Athens not Madrid

By Antonis Oikonomidis

Holy Thursday morning. Typically a nationalised in 1949 and transformed solemn day for Greeks. This one, in from Kispest, essentially a village club mid-April 1957, was even more solemn — albeit it one featuring the immense than usual. A group of friends left the promise of Ferenc Puskás and Jozsef most fashionable hotel in Athens to Bozsik —into what was eff ectively a travel from the northern suburbs into nursery for the national team: Sándor the centre. They took a taxi, but it broke Kocsis, Zoltán Czibor, László Budai, Gyula down. The two passengers laughed, Lóránt and all played there. one insisting the breakdown was the result of the other’s excessive weight. Athletic won that fi rst leg 3-2, after Neither of them were obese but equally which it was decided, because of the neither was thin, particularly not the disturbances in , to play the shorter one. As they waited by the side second leg in Brussels. Honvéd stayed of the road for another taxi, passers-by in Antwerp, where Puskás gave an began to recognise them, the shorter interview, widely quoted in the Greek one in particular. In a few minutes, press, in which he said arrangements had word spread. Everybody knew who and been made for him to come to Athens to where they were: “Puskás and Kocsis play some friendly matches in the spring. are in the Royal Garden.” Thousands of people fl ocked to see the two of the At around the same time, and given far most famous members of ’s less prominence, the Greek newspapers Aranycsapat [Golden Squad], so many reported that Ethnikos Piraeus had been that even after the second taxi arrived, in touch with both Honvéd and the what should have been a quick drive Hungarian government to try to secure lasted for hours. the registrations of fi ve players who had agreed to move to Athens and play for A few months earlier, in November Ethnikos. The players were not named 1956, Honvéd had been on their way to and the reports stressed that the main Bilbao for a European Cup match against sticking point was securing consent from Athletic when a revolution against their families. Communist rule broke out in Budapest. Honvéd were one of the greatest club The move was typical of the power sides of all time and a product of the and ambition of Ethnikos at the time. Communist state, having been taken Ethnikos had been established in 1923 over by the army when football was and remained always in the shade of the

156 Antonis Oikonomidis

great club of Piraeus, Olympiakos. The known as Free Hungary, while the press key person in their development was at the time dubbed them ‘Puskás & Co’), Dimitris Karellas. Born into a family of wore a kit in the colours of the Hungarian noted businessmen, he was the owner of fl ag and, undaunted, set off for Rio de Aegeon, the biggest textile manufacturer Janerio. Fifa threatened sanctions, both in Europe with infrastructure and for Hungaria and any team who played facilities unique in post-war Greece. them, which led to Santos and Vasco He was powerful and rich and, having da Gama cancelling matches, but they been invited onto Ethnikos’s board nonetheless managed seven exhibition in the early fi fties, aimed to make the games in Brazil, and Mexico, club a competitor to the traditional big raising signifi cant revenue. three of Greek football — Olympiakos, Panathinaikos and AEK. The players returned to Europe in February, where they discovered the His investment soon paid off and, in football federation had taken the 1956, Ethnikos fi nished second, a point decision to dissolve the club. They were behind Olympiakos, their best ever fi nish. warned to return home by March 31 Karellas thrust himself to the forefront, and that if they didn’t, they would face keen to exhibit his power, not merely in serious penalties. Even those who did terms of fi nance, but also in the courts, return found themselves facing bans of the mass media and public opinion. He several months. Puskás, Kocsis, Zoltán was also adept at playing political games Czibor and Gyula Grosics, though, all behind the scenes, something that has issued statements saying they were always been of great importance in unwilling to go home. Greek football. For the Greek football establishment, used to the same Ethnikos, meanwhile, were living up to three teams dominating, he became a expectations. They qualifi ed with some tremendous irritation. diffi culty from their regional division to reach the 10-team fi nal stage of the Honvéd drew the second leg against national championship, but then beat Athletic 3-3 and so were eliminated. The each of the traditional powers in the fi rst Hungarian authorities ordered them to round of games. Karellas, meanwhile, return, but the players had no desire to was throwing his weight around off the return to a war zone and began using pitch as well. Since the war, the big three the contacts they had made in their had played a moneyspinning Easter years as superstars to try to smuggle tournament, inviting an overseas guest their families out. — and, on occasions, more than one. In 1957, the team they invited was Progresul The team manager, Emil Östreicher, from . arranged a tour to Latin America, which drew the wrath of the Hungarian football Karellas decided to shake up the comfy federation. In early January 1957 it arrangement. After months of contact banned the team from using the name with the representatives of Honvéd/ or colours of Honvéd. They adopted the Hungaria, he sent the infamous fi xer name Hungaria (and were sometimes Sotiris Volonakis to Vienna, where the

157 A Dream Denied

majority of the exiled members of the game generated more publicity than the team were staying and reached an match itself. The establishment’s irritation agreement for them to come to Athens grew, and all the more so as rumours to play a friendly — at precisely the time emerged that Ethnikos intended to sign of the Easter tournament. the cream of the Hungarian squad.

Although the Hungarians were still to be That wasn’t apparent at the friendly against declared political refugees, and their ban Hungaria. With 30,000 fans squeezing was still to be ratifi ed by Fifa, Ethnikos in, they thrashed Ethnikos 7-0. But that sought authorisation —which was granted wasn’t the worst thing for Ethnikos and —from the Greek government for the their leader’s ambitions; that was the gravel games. And so, on Holy Wednesday, pitch. Kocsis said it was like playing in thousands of fans descended on the Sudan. Grosics, for the fi rst and only time airport to greet the Honvéd players, in his career, wore knee-pads. Puskás said something unprecedented in Greece at it was “a road made for bicycles and cars”. the time. At around the same time, as the ultimatum for returning home expired, the The next day it was announced that a Hungarian federation issued its penalties: second game against the national team a one-year bans for Puskás and Czibor of the armed forces would be played (who had gone to Italy expecting to sign two days later. It was then that Ethnikos a contract with Roma), six-month bans confi rmed the rumours, announcing for Grosics, Kocsis and István Szolnok, that the team had agreed terms with and four-month bans for Gyula Szabó fi ve Hungarian players: Szabó, Cholnok, and Ágoston Garamvölgyi. Zsámboki, Garamvölgyi and Sági, all of whom had signed the relevant The friendly against Ethnikos was registration forms. All that remained to scheduled for the Monday after Easter fi nalise the deal was to get the consent Sunday. In the four days they were in of their families, with the players available Athens, every public appearance by after their bans from the Hungarian Honvéd’s players prompted a frenzy. federation had expired at the beginning The newspapers charted their every of the following season. step, from that morning out in the centre of Athens to their visit to the Hungaria were defeated 2-1 in their fi nal Acropolis, to their fi rst training session friendly by the Greece national team, at the Karaiskakis Stadium, the shared the last game of the renamed club’s home of Olympiakos and Ethnikos, to brief existence. The squad stayed on the way they celebrated Easter Sunday in Athens for a few more days, Karellas in the traditional Greek style. Karellas — continuing to make the most of their along with Volonakis and the Hungarian presence. He went with Puskás to watch coach of Apollon Athens, János Zsolnay Olympiakos play Panathinaikos in the — followed them, making the most of Easter Tournament. Midway through the opportunity for publicity. He went the fi rst half, Panathinaikos’s players, with Puskás to watch Panathinaikos play aggrieved by the refereeing, walked Progresul on Holy Saturday. The crowd off the pitch. They agreed to carry on was small, and Puskás’s thoughts on the only an hour later, and then only with

158 Antonis Oikonomidis

reserve players. The referee would not renounced its players but it would never consent to that, though, and refused to have declared them professional because continue the game. Puskás left his seat to do so would have meant giving up the and, encouraged by fans, trotted onto gold medal Hungary’s footballers had the pitch, taking the whistle and off ering won at the 1952 Olympic Games. to referee the match himself. In the end a compromise was reached and the original So the Greek federation took further referee carried on the game, but Puskás’s action, accusing Ethnikos of bribery and actions, with Karellas always in the match-fi xing — the second such allegation background, again took all the publicity. made that season, which perhaps says something about the work Karellas did in Ethnikos were the big winners. They the background. This time, though, the won new fans, recognition and publicity. charge didn’t stand up. For one thing it They won in terms of revenue and related to a game Ethnikos had lost against strengthening their squad, and looked Proodeftiki and, for another, the player set to dominate Greek football. A few who lodged the complaint soon withdrew days after Hungaria’s departure Karellas it. The damage, though, was done. The brought Internazonale to Athens for a accusation was enough to remove the friendly. These were big events for Greek suspended nature of the two-month ban football and an unambiguous threat to and the tour of Egypt had to be cancelled. the established order. Karellas pushed harder. He arranged a tour of Egypt and Karellas took on his enemies in the civil sought permission from the Hungarian courts, demanding compensation for federation to use Garamvölgyi and Szabó the cancellation of the tour. Ethnikos as well as three Under-23 internationals, were not allowed to play their fi nal four Tamás Fridwalszky, József Kuzman and games of the season; they had been two István Sztancsik, on that trip. points behind the eventual champions Olympiakos, whom they would have Finally the grandees of the Greek game played in their next game. acted. The Greek federation decided the contracts with the Hungarians breached That same week, in June 1957, Fifa at last its rules on amateurism, refused to acted on the issue of the Hungarian players, acknowledge the licence granted by confi rming the penalties imposed by the the Greek government for Ethnikos to Hungarian federation. The agreements play the friendly against Hungaria and with Ethnikos were terminated and so imposed a huge fi ne and a two-month was the ambition of Karellas to change ban from sporting activity. the established order in Greek football. That summer, the Greek federations, The penalty was transparently unjustifi ed responding to an appeal by Fifa, reduced as there was no evidence the players Ethnikos’s penalty, allowing them to were anything other than amateurs. compete in the championship the following The Hungarian federation might have season1. But it never won anything again.

1 The Brazilian federation similarly reduced a penalty imposed on Botafogo for playing against Hungaria.

159 A Dream Denied

Yet it had come close. It remains one of Emil Östreicher, the general manager the enduring myths of Greek football that of Hungaria, was eventually taken on by Karellas had reached agreement with Real Madrid and ended up taking Puskás Puskás, Grosics and Kocsis to continue there in 1958. He failed in an eff ort to land their careers at Ethnikos. Certainly Koscis, who joined Czibor at Barcelona. Karellas wanted them to and he had the Karellas remained active at Ethnikos and fi nancial capacity to persuade them. If was the team’s only sponsor until the late things had gone diff erently, he may well eighties. So dedicated was he that he sold have achieved it. But the stories that personal property to keep funding the claim Hungaria’s stars played friendly side. He ended up broke and emigrated to games in Ethnikos shirts simply aren’t England, where he died in the early 1990s. true — they simply trained with Ethnikos His beloved team limped on another two a couple of days before the fi rst match. decades before being overwhelmed by debt and shut down in 2011. The penalties imposed on Ethnikos are still considered one of the greatest He did at least see a dream fulfi lled as scandals of Greek football and clearly Puskás came to Athens, being appointed had less to do with Hungaria’s arrival manager of Panathinaikos in , 13 than with the establishment’s desire to years to the day after the fi rst penalty was run down Ethnikos. Perhaps that’s why imposed on Ethnikos. A year later, Karellas the myths endure, because the story of was at Wembley to see Panathinaikos the upstart challenging the grandees and lose to Ajax in the European Cup fi nal, crushed for its temerity has a universal still a fan of the man he had pursued romantic appeal. to the point of destroying his club.

160 161 Fiction

“Off he went, speaking ostensibly of football yet invoking only patterns, shapes, affi nities, compensations, illustrating the rat-a-tat theorems with baroque diagrams” In Search of Punditaria

In Search of Punditaria An anthropologist heads into the jungle to discover a society founded by stranded football journalists

By Scott Oliver

Emerging from a fever that might have that page 14 was missing altogether) lasted several minutes or months, while the boat that would take him Wim Dahlmann blinked intently into a upriver docked in an elegant half-turn of violent tropical light, rubbed his eyes controlled deceleration in the manner he vigorously, then peered through the had seen Bergkamp perform hundreds scintillating air at his doctor’s beatifi c, of times before: receiving the ball back lunar face, before promptly falling into to goal, he would, with eerie Newtonian a more restful sleep. Upon awakening, intuition, bring his overeager marker to a he spent a week convalescing under momentary standstill (like some Regency the benign shade of the jacarandas that grandfather clock pivoted precipitously guarded the old mission hospital of to the top of a fl ight of stairs), then, Itaituba from the chaos of the jungle gravity ceding to celerity, swivel away beyond, eating with ever less obligation and fi re off his unerringly accurate darts and slowly restoring his body to its (unerring as his memory was erratic). former convictions. He then set his mind to the puzzle that had brought That apparition, and the purpose him this far. of his journey, reminded him of the uncomplicated and vast joy that Pacing down the wide, cool corridor football had once provided him, a one fi nal time, only the humming fans joy later asphyxiated by pragmatism perturbing the drab reassurance of its and the iron imperatives of money. viscous air, he poked his head in on (Even winning would eventually lose Carlos, his neighbour. Intoning solemnly out to money.) Dahlmann had been a that all Men of Knowledge would fi nd midfi eld anchorman onto whom were something within, he handed Wim a projected various Calvinist virtues, but book — a Portuguese translation, the whose uncanny positioning was as spine of which had long abandoned its much compelled by his own morbid rectilinear form (“verticality”, the Peruvian fear of shooting as any big-picture called it) and with that the requirement acumen (“less Blind than blind” he of holding things together, its title would joke, many years later). There embossed in black on the rough orange came a time, a few months before his canvas: Os Ensinamentos de Dom João. teenage retirement, when he could do Dahlmann spent his last 10 minutes on nothing in possession save pass square the makeshift pontoon fl icking back and or backwards. De Krab, they called him. forth through the parched leaves (noting But that ordeal belonged to a previous

162 Scott Oliver

life, for he was now an anthropologist gabblers and silk-purse makers following of renown, with tenure at the LSE and a this tournament like pilot fi sh round a string of well-regarded publications to great shark. So, the next morning, with his name. editorial blessing, Dahlmann booked himself on a fl ight to Salvador where, a It was recollecting the impact of day later, England, the game’s senescent Dahlmann’s earliest papers on football dreamers (in the sense of fantasists; hooliganism and the magic of their fantasists in the pathological sense, conversations on the Ajax terraces that rather than footballing fantasistas), would an old postgraduate friend, sympathetic face Côte d’Ivoire in a ticklish must-not- to the vectors of academic eccentricity lose game. and now editor of De Telegraaf, had commissioned him to cover the 2014 No sooner had he crabbed along World Cup, writing colour pieces, to his window seat than he became reportage, following his nose like some involved in one of those conversations old New World creator. His brief was so engaging and pregnant that its early to seek out the sacred in football niceties were leapfrogged for some just as, during two decades’ research future encounter. Dahlmann gave a in ethnobotany, he had sought it in moderate though unambiguous account nature’s primordial bounty. “Where of the angst, the ennui that had recently better than Brazil?” overtaken him, his futile search for an irruption of creativity in the timorous Mindful of the paradox that as scientifi c systematicity, sparking a gunpowder understanding of the world — and he trail to his neighbour’s synapses. Off he included football in that — increases, went, speaking ostensibly of football so, all too often, pleasure diminishes, he yet invoking only patterns, shapes, nonetheless hoped profoundly to see a affi nities, compensations, illustrating carnivalesque tournament unravel and, the rat-a-tat theorems with baroque in unravelling it, that he might rediscover diagrams. The Dutchman moaned that the raptures of his youth. Yet barely four no-one seems to want to beat their days into his assignment — 540 minutes man any more, to take the initiative, to — Wim had wearied of the Machiavellian dance, that it was all speed and counter- football and its insincere, technocratic attack; his companion started to chide exigencies and concluded that there him using Viktor Maslov’s observations was no rainbow to unweave. Sat cross- about planes and streamlining when, legged and despondent on the fl oor 35,000 feet above the Mato Grosso, the of his Cuiabá hotel room — the centre Tu-154 suddenly began to shake and of the continent — like some penalty- tremble in what they assumed was a shanker or scuff er inconsolable in the heavy thunderstorm (all resistance in the centre circle, contemplating football’s electric skies) forcing the fl ight to reroute growing monoculture with resignation, through Brasilia. After an hour or so on it occurred to him (with a little help the tarmac — an hour to contemplate from Caetano Veloso) that the stultifying the rickety old Russian plane allocated football was far less interesting than to this C-route skyway — they soared up the myriad professional watchers and again above Lúcio Costa’s plane-shaped

163 In Search of Punditaria

city, over the shimmering menorah into the bowels of the Amazonian of Lake Paranoá (enough time for a rainforest before the 2014 World Cup spectral Bergkamp to ask his countryman had produced enough goals for even a whether an ‘I’ was missing), then on to mediocre Goal of the Tournament — that Salvador. He separated from his nameless Dahlmann met Oswald de Andrade, a companion, caught a cab to his pastel- man who knew much about the soul hued Pelourinho pousada, then set off of Brazil and, ipso facto, its football. uphill toward the Fonte Nova, shimmying Dahlmann told his new friend about his through the throngs of inky, pink men task and his quest — the search for jogo tipping schooners of cerveja down necks bonito, for brazilliance, for knowledge like blancmange. — while Oswald (whose burnished face was, Wim noted, the precise shape of The game, predictably, was dismal. his name’s initial letter) explained how deployed his team in a the Europeanisation of Brazilian football Scanglonavian 4-4-2 as rigid as English was “both neo-colonialism and sell-out”. sex and Swedish furniture, while Côte They graduated to caipirinhas, following d’Ivoire looked haunted and indeed the England squad inadvertently into played as though their pallid opponent The Cockpit, a bar whose staff wore the were ghosts, succumbing 1-0. (To (decidedly skimpy) cabin crew uniform another ghost in the Sun, Jimmy of some erotic airline, where Oswald Rodnipp frothed: “Côte d’Ivoire — it’s discoursed hither and thither about how, like Spain calling itself Bullfi ghting”.) But though “puritans” traduced Brazilian the truth is that the game itself and the football as individualist circus, its fl icks engorged punditariat milling about it — and feints and swerves and dribbles the tippy-tappy-typists; the pitchside were not cosmetic showboating but a mic paparazzo, arms frozen like some molecular dismantling of the opposition. bronze Stalinist homage to ale-quaff ers; Wim wasn’t sure he knew exactly what the studio opinioneers, legs asplay and his Socratic interlocutor meant (he knees bumping in the budget airline would) but, upon the resumption of overintimacy of the seats — were of his gonzo “metajournalism”, invited his less concern than the accumulating new friend to accompany him along his omens: Maslov, the aerial view of nomadic interary, after which — partly Brasilia, Bergkamp. So, rather than head in the name of research, partly to relive to Manaus for the Group C decider, prodigious coff ee-shop Dahlmann ensconced in Salvador a few summers — he headed out with Oswald days, a decision that would prove to be beyond the hackneyed corruptions of his saviour. the city to spend a week with Carlos, a shaman, imbibing the sacred ayahuasca, He had read somewhere that reality or yagé (the basis of “Tropic and favours symmetries and slight Psychotropic”, the paper he delivered anachronisms, and it was there, listening when he returned to the LSE). to Caetano Veloso in the window seat of an omnibus — around the time He and Oswald maintained a vigorous charter fl ight VAR4231, carrying the bulk correspondence — about Brazil’s of English football punditry, plunged syncretic football, about transcendence

164 Scott Oliver

and Spinoza’s immanent God (Oswald Spurred on by that solitary clue, had never sailed entirely from the anthropological curiosity and a simple harbour of his mother’s Catholicism), all sense of adventure, the two men rode the unholy mixtures that once appalled the steamboat 70km south, disembarking Dahlmann’s taxonomic temperament at Jacareacanga where, under a brilliant — until, some eighteen months after orange sky, they made camp alongside Rio’s absurd fi nal, Oswald mentioned the mercury river, then at sunrise headed in passing that a drawing of a cross had into the oblivious forest, following its been found washed ashore in Itaituba. scent of autochthonous rumour. For The Brazilian had interpreted that fi ve long days they pushed on beneath symbol as a sign of anthropophagy: the unyielding canopy, pursued by a “the indigenous peoples of the Amazon fl otilla of fl esh-nibbling fl ies, by bugs disgorging the cross as they had once eavesdropping on lengthy disquisitions rejected the Roman church and the on Dutch and Brazilian football, the Creoles’ attempts to civilise them.” chafi ng of old dichotomies. Dahlmann’s However, contrary to both poetic and grandfather was a German soldier who reasoned judgement, Dahlmann knew had helped the Dutch Resistance before (or felt) instantly that the English pundits settling beside the shattered frontier of had somehow survived; that the sketch Baarle-Nassau; his grandson had entered was a football formation, a 4-1-1-3- the world in that same town on 30 July 1 not a crucifi x, and that the man he 1966 — while his father (paradoxically) had met on the plane — who spoke of organised a Provo happening — and had “balance”, the need for “an attacking always considered himself profoundly defensive midfi elder” and “a defensive Dutch. Yet now he told Oswald he defensive midfi elder” — was responsible. wished he were more Brazilian; the He asked Oswald what was on the back. Brazilian affi rmed that he wished to “It says ‘Maslow’, alongside a V and A, escape the question itself since “the upper case, with a picture of a triangle nation is an invention, a convention”, and ‘self-actualisation’ written above.” then asked, gnomically, “Do we create Dahlmann fl ew out to Rio the next day, the nation or does the nation create us?” eventually rendezvousing with Oswald, there on the banks of the Tapajós while Wim, in that old habit of his, shadowed skim-reading Os Ensinamentos. his slippery, probing companion and was about to assert that the latter was true, that without system there was chaos, when the malandro told the anthropologist (who was now unsure whether they were talking about football or society): “When you are one-on-one with an assailant, Wim, no knowledge of the law is going to help you. More to the point, the Law won’t help you; not in that moment. You have to think and act there, on the spot. Jeitinho. Brasilia doesn’t run this forest, the insects do…”

165 In Search of Punditaria

“See, system. There must be some order”. the centre circle, the box, penalty spots… They sat in silence — mournful silence — “Order, yes,” he told the anarchist’s son, a few minutes there on the geoglyph of yawning now, “but no boss. Wim, you (they felt sure) a lost civilisation, before must learn from the forest,” prompting noticing technical areas, then a dugout in Dahlmann to ponder the seasonal which two rows of six seats salvaged from expansion and abscission of the foliage, the rent fuselage had been installed. They its balance of photosynthesis and saw a mixed zone, and above, remarkably, respiration, which of course evoked in the “Heath Robinson Press Box” with him the pulsating choreography — the guarana, breadfruit, pineapple and ecology of totaalvoetbal. peanuts laid out alongside a complaints box (“bit exposed”). Out back was a twine At dawn on the sixth day, with supplies ladder which Dahlmann climbed in awed approaching half-time turnaround, they silence up to a high-angled platform — reached a high ridge and surveyed the a TV gantry, perhaps — beyond which ungodly wilderness, impervious even to extended a system of runways providing Google’s godlike gaze. Oswald chose a bird’s-eye-view of the game: the a moment — or perhaps simply ran out interaction of heads not faces. of them — to inform his companion that, being mestiço, he could scarcely Suddenly, there was a rustle in the guarantee his own safety with the leaves, startling the men as might a occasionally fl esh-eating Tupi tribes of crypt opening in a chapel. “Welcome the region, let alone his. The thought to Estadio El Dorado,” boomed a didn’t seem to concern Dahlmann as dishevelled fi gure with the disconcerting much as intruding unwittingly into and unseemly pride of a despot showing some checkpointless animal territory dignitaries around an arena that only there in the heaving acreage, and it yesterday had hosted a public stoning. was while distractedly and unhelpfully Wary, the explorers — the scientists — contemplating ants that could strip a kept their distance. “How many are you?” body in hours, snakes the size of a goal “A somewhat bloated squad of 81,” joked frame, that they stumbled across the Henry Summer, salaciously, “trimmed head of the former Magpies marksman down to 47.” Alain Chirà (despite the Gallic name, as English, as north-eastern, as Hetton-le- Faces appeared, additions to the Hole) impaled on a spear. Whether this already mindboggling biodiversity: TV was the work of Tupi or the pundits was pundits, gnarled reporters of tabloid uncertain, but with the receding shock and broadsheet, columnists, generalists, both agreed it was a sign of life beyond. scoop-hunters, quote-harvesters, angle- fi nders, insight-mongers, tittle-tattlers, They found a stream and followed it to pluck-fi lled platitude merchants and a a clearing where sunlight attained the clutch of Europeans bringing je ne sais penumbral fl oor in exhausted shafts; quoi that trumped the Anglos’ x-factor. there they discovered strange markings They had survived, Dahlmann learned, which, to their astonishment, revealed through rudimentary silviculture, fi shing themselves as a compact football pitch: (Dean Dublin assiduously working the

166 Scott Oliver

channel that fl anked the stadium), consolidation of prestige. “Acephalous and foraging and hunting excursions society,” he underlined, a curious overseen by the Napoleonic Garton tribesman peering over his shoulder. “It Strychnine: “when our lead man stops to means ‘headless’,” he told Bobby Savage, explore, the man behind bombs on, right, scribbling on: “The paradox of Cruyff , the so no mobile food source escapes.” great leader whose power, on the cusp of being instituted and made absolute, It turned out that their fatal confrontation was snuff ed out by an act of regicide/ with the cannibals had been deferred group suicide.” indefi nitely by a simple homeostatic mechanism: Tupi mythology spoke of But this was no anarchist arcadia. Sharing the arrival of “a roaring white bird that what was likely to be the sole plane crash speaks in fl ames”, creating a perhaps of their lives had not been suffi cient undue wariness for the largely harmless to engender conviviality. Displaying hacks (here, the sword was mightier that inexhaustible human capacity for than the pen); conversely, the embryonic division, even from the most seemingly lore of the pundits’ proto-society had homogenous of materials (far easier to not yet codifi ed its Götterdämmerung, love a person who hates football than though news of Chirà’s skewered head one who likes it in the wrong way), this was incontrovertible evidence of their group of globetrotting fi tbaphiles soon encirclement by hostile forces and served fi ssured along lines dictated not by clubs, to cauterise professional rivalries, all nor even their publications’ market or bound by the hope of their deliverance. ideology (not consciously, anyway), but simple taste, positional proclivities Once the basic exigencies of staying — those who regarded the heartbeat alive had been tended, other urges of the team to be the mystical 10, the clamoured. Yet while the insistences enganche, and others favouring deep- of sexual reproduction — the siring of lying (the regististas). Factions punditos — were still a distant throb (“We were formed, idols carved; blood was don’t know how long we’re going to shed over whether the channel should be here,” joked or hoped Libby Grogan. be named Danube or River Plate. “Amazonia might be ravaged before we are.”) the currency of social reproduction, As the alluvium of their early socialisation storytelling, was ubiquitous. Night after — the jockeying and harrying, striving night they gathered to relive great games and suppressing — slowly sedimented, they had played in, seen, read about — a hierarchy — albeit a hierarchy with presenting a whole new anxiety for some latitude for social mobility — began to among these folk paid to talk about form. Decisions needed to be taken — football. Here, a prosaic footballer and on hunting, sacrifi ce, the ever-present his pedestrian yarns turned him into a question of attacking the Tupi — and potential meal. Yet it wasn’t this orality so initiation rites were established. To that convinced Dahlmann the pundits acquire a vote, one had to name the had regressed to a sort of primitivism so England World Cup-winning XI; to enter much as the fact that the spotlight was the Supreme Council, full starting XIs for circulated, as though to ward off the every post-war winner. An intelligentsia

167 In Search of Punditaria

formed: polymaths and polyglots, soft the tropical sun, it was arduous. Savage of skin and hair (despite the loss of clung to civilisation by conducting their lotions and balms, their ointments imaginary radio phone-ins, game hacks and unguents), in whom it had been playing the mad suburban barkers embedded that an environment was stewing in self-evident truths: “He’s to be tamed, dominated. Others, the claimed his stake in the team, naaah!” pinch of acquiescent proletarianism still they shrieked. Chirà — only on VAR4231 recent (and about whom Dahlmann had because he was commandeered to make written, ungenerously, in De Telegraaf: a short feature on Manaus Opera House “condemned by circumstance to bruit before jetting back to the Copacabana the hot air of rumour and outrage, studio — was already struggling with ballasted only by degrees of plausibility in the storytelling demands when, at his the tavern tribunals”), skulked resignedly suff rage hearing, he cracked as someone on the margins. tried prompting him with “wingless wonders” (whether it was the trauma of Little of the teeming jungle and its the plummeting aircraft or the prospect intense psychedelic syncopations had of not getting decent service disappeared managed much to perforate the husk with him). “He just ran blind into the of Englishness that clung to these men, jungle, elbowing and trampling the vines men who knew little except football — out of the way,” shuddered Leigh Nixon. about which they knew little — and felt “We never saw him alive again.” that, if they were to remain themselves (a dubious goal), they would need to keep Memory exhausted, their confabulation Football close at hand. But the saudade shifted to hypothetical games — albeit was implacable, and from this number between real teams: an anachronistic crawled the fi rst to be tipped over the Mundial of Great Losers. Pre- edge by the forest’s mad cackle and tournament predictions were laboured hoot, its nocturnal opera of proximate over (Hungary ’54, Netherlands ’74, death, night air refulgent with predatory Brazil ’82, France or ’86?); each intent. Others bore the agitated, darting game was the subject of minute debate; expressions of men weary of the cynical a troop of tame marmosets obliged the daily blather who realised that defending punctiliousness of the higher primates’ who they were for grim life was a fate reverie by running through attacks while, far worse then accepting some psychic up in the gods, each movement and recalibration in order, perhaps, to slough pass was meticulously mapped. The off what they had, despite themselves, arrow-strewn chalkboards became the become. These were not trivial moments object of velliomancy — divination by in their lives. arrows — for the need had arisen for some belief to keep the circumambient Soon the more or less arbitrary origins terrors of the forest at bay. If the pundits of the initiates’ royal prerogative were hadn’t been superstitious when they forgotten and all settled into the arrived in Brazil then the decision to new castes. It was a simple question show Castaway as VAR4231’s in-fl ight of survival. For the ex-pros, fame movie took on, retroactively, a heavy evaporating as quickly as a puddle in signifi cance — a signifi cance that told

168 Scott Oliver

them that, hereafter, they needed to to it that they soon forgot about any be able to read the signs, the jungle rescue act, happy instead to observe semiology, if ever they were going to the curious social mechanisms the make it out alive. So everything, even pundits had elaborated. Dahlmann the pathways travelled by footballers, involved himself where he could, reading became pregnant with meaning. nightly from Ensinamentos, until, out foraging one afternoon, he discovered, It was in the torrid aftermath of that serendipitously, the active ingredient for tournament that this society of wannabe yagé. “This will sort the men from the gaff ers, these thousand-yard-stare boys,” he chuckled, decocting the sacred merchants — social media reduced to vine that evening while Oswald briefed the crazed gesticulations of the technical the pundits on its oneiric rigours and area prowlings — suff ered fresh upheaval. (assuming that those who had survived Mooching in the plane’s carcass, Nixon this long were in some way adaptable, found a ball — a volleyball. An impromptu supple) asked whether they were ready kickabout started among the plebeian to follow the exhortations of their id, ‘4-4-2 Crew’, yet some thought it to leap into the unknown, to become sacrilege to play. Before any referendum psychonauts charting the uncertain seas could take place, however, Michel in a quest for knowledge. Cockx confi scated the supernatural orb and placed it in a glass case atop A new tournament was convoked — a cairn of Varig crates. They named it true fantasy football. Dahlmann and Wilson, this apotheosis, then returned Oswald were glad Brazil and Holland — imperceptibly changed — to the old couldn’t be separated in the previous concerns. The quest for formal perfection fi nal (over which Tim Hickory and led them to end the recollected matches Simeon Kuiper had to be separated) but and instead run training sessions (while here there would be no nations — only Rodnipp and Nixon cultivated a capoeira- composite teams from all epochs, all like half-dance, half-football), strutting countries, picked for any promiscuous like martinets after the marmosets. After rationale whatever and open to all a while, sloth set in and training was strata, who would then be obliged to jettisoned; instead, they pondered how hallucinate passages of the game before to structure hypothetical sessions, what each decisive moment (almost every drills to do, what video work, team-talks. second second, it transpired) would Discussing imaginary matches was one go to tribunal. There would be pre- thing but conducting imaginary training match disclosure of formations, of the sessions when they had a real ball was too psychological fault lines and breaking much for the taciturn, brooding Ray Cain, points of each player, whose irrationality who followed Chirà into the wilderness, would be vacuum-packed in the inward into that heart of darkness. watertight reason of the pundits so that the games could proceed on a purely And it was from that darkness that logical basis (everyone immediately felt Oswald and Dahlmann emerged, they knew for certain precisely what this although intellectual fascination (and meant, immediately giving rise to several a certain amount of prurience) saw conceptions). Would this be the moment

169 In Search of Punditaria

for a ? Did he try it? Did he words — now perturbed them. Félix succeed? Everything was scrupulously Éclair, still dérangé, then had the gall to fair, yet laborious. counter (quickly, and with no discernible transition), “Mais oui, but tactics are The night of the fi rst game, Dahlmann, about fi nding the perfect balance of limiting his interventions to the strictly attack and defence, non?” Oswald scientifi c (the brew) and experimental parried: “Yes, but there is balance in 0-0, (the Teachings, his quest), told these in 1-1, 2-2, 4-4. Which is optimal?” sedentary psychic nomads that the fi rst enemy of the Man of Knowledge is Fear. Whatever, the obscene and terminal “We cling to what we think is permanent,” equilibrium was shattered when Wilson he whispered (he didn’t want to spook — the man of fl esh and blood, not Roy Welkins, then boarding his vessel). the leathery idol — emerged sprightly “We believe we stand among stable from the foliage, clapping slowly and things: identity, values, credos. ‘I know sardonically. “Goals are overrated, are what I like,’ we gush, not seeing it as they not? These are perfect games. the death of potential, of learning, of Congratulations”. Dahlmann recognised becoming. In fl ight from fl ight. What him as the man from the plane. “You, the if nations are an obstacle to human cross...” Wilson wasn’t listening, however; freedom? Could we forsake our World instead, he clambered up the zealots’ Cup fi x?” ziggurat and snatched the ball from the jar. “Why the fuck you’re not playing The yagé was to be taken ad nauseam, a real match when you’ve got a ball is the games dissected ad infi nitum. No beyond me!” he rasped, garryowening matter, for Time had ceased to mean the totem up into the night and breaking anything: memory was superfl uous, the the spell forever. The disenchantment future impossible to conceive as distinct was palpable. from the present. After a couple of months of this — each step anticipated, “Goals change games,” murmured each stroke of genius matched, all chaos some heretic, the air thick with tension. excised under the unanimous sky — they Yet Wilson was already addressing the had conjured fi ve consecutive 0-0 draws. motley punditariat: “You see only tactics, They had wrestled with and cast off the the brute presence of what unfolds before carapace of Fear, bested a formidable, your eyes. But the eyes deceive.” He treacherous foe, but in so doing clicked thumb and middle fi nger and the stumbled on the second enemy of the vulture was transfi gured into a Tupi chief. Man of Knowledge: Clarity. Dahlmann “The game is an infi nity of absences. At again glossed from Ensinamemtos: every moment a great midfi eld general “Fear may be banished, yet this new abandons hundreds of paths of the self-assurance, this special awareness, game’s potential unfolding. You have becomes monomania, righteousness, yagé. Now open the doors of perception!” vehemence, everyone judge and jury.” A vulture circled overhead, observing Belatedly, Dahlmann was acknowledged: keenly. Where there had been consensus, “You wanted the soul of Brazil. Here.” Dahlmann’s words — Don Juan’s Wilson swept out a hand; the bird-

170 Scott Oliver

chief juggled a ball awhile as his master neither better nor worse football, simply related how, having staggered from the diff erent, more exuberant. “History is wreckage and lacking even basic means not linear development,” Dahlmann to record his thoughts, he went “until the reassured them, a butterfl y landing on equinox” carving passages from his next his shoulder. “It’s played between the four books into the sympathetic bark of lines.” (“Yeah, they play between the some qinchona trees “before cramp set lines in South America, alright,” Nixon in.” After this frenzy of recollection, he wisecracked. “Have a line, play, then have ventured upriver with Gábor Markúrtzki another line…”). Snorting with auspicious and happened upon a tribe with a ball laughter, they daubed a prefi x and accent but no structure, so trained them; quid on the fl ag to express the liberated pro quo, the tribe fast-tracked him in imagination, the conditions for chance sorcerery and he became a shapeshifter. encounters: DES-ORDEM É PROGRESSO. Then they coloured over fi ve stars — the “Football is not entertainment, penta — so that on the two inverted blue gentlemen,” he trumpeted. “So let’s play triangles remained 22 stars, symbolising a match. With the ball… The prize? Life or equality, solidarity, collaboration: death: nothing too important!” Laughing Corinthian values. dementedly, he fi xed his gaze on Oswald: “Tupi or not Tupi, that is indeed Discussions of the Tupi were just as the question”. animated. If they epitomised Brazilian- ness, then Dahlmann was sure they’d For fi ve days, under oppressive, adopt a fl uid, freestyle approach; Oswald heat-trapping clouds, the initiated reminded him that they pre-dated ‘Brazil’ pundits gathered around the stilt (joking that the Jesuit bandeirantes roots of the walking palm (Socratea pushing west — breaking in numbers, exhorriza) and debated furiously over perhaps overcommitting — past the tactics, style and formation. The two Tordesillas longitude, the Pope’s high line, anthropologists persuaded them that were off side) and assured them that Wilson Brazil was the country of imagination would have them organised. He recalled and improvisation, a football of the the great anthropologist Nietzsche’s unconscious, and it was here, outside description of the founders of the state: time, that such an extemporaneous, “They come like fate, without reason, eternal football would be rediscovered. consideration, or pretext; they appear as They may have arrived as Europeans — lightning, too terrible, too convincing, Dahlmann’s De Telegraaf despatch had too sudden… their work is an instinctive pinpointed “the fundamental diff erence creation and imposition of forms.” Would between the English and Brazilians: the the Tupi attain this higher integration? latter celebrate the start of Lent with a Answers would have to wait until kick-off , fl amboyant week-long carnival while in for the imperious Wilson failed to attend England they scoff fried batter” — but the mandatory presser. Meanwhile, his they would leave as South Americans. former mentor, now long-suff ering The de facto Republic of Punditaria thus deputy, Markúrtzki, had died of a broken played under the Brazilian fl ag, albeit heart having seen what his errant protégé modifi ed. Order and Progress? This was was doing to the Tupi. His last words

171 In Search of Punditaria

— “The horror! The horror!” a cry that On the other hand, Wilson knew that was no more than a breath — conveyed the rough forest fl oor disbarred the the scorched-earth cultural violence short game. The pundits needed to of 4-1-1-3-1, the crucifi x schema, new change things, and as each took a manacles from the old continent. ladle of half-time yagé, Dahlmann, assailed and caressed by the sumptuous The day of the game and the din of phantasmagoria, was tapped on the howler monkeys, brachiating in from shoulder by a svelte fi gure in orange. It far and wide, rumbled across the heavy was Cruyff . “Voetballen is heel simpel, forest air, transfi guring El Dorado into a maar het moeilijkste wat er is, is simpel bombinating Bombonera of barracked voetballen,” he said, telling the team bravado. Dahlmann, a substitute, gave that the fourth enemy of the Man of a pep-talk informing the gaff erless Knowledge is Death, the élan vital pundits that the third enemy of the Man congealed into a thirst for abolition — of of Knowledge is Power: “Fear and Clarity oneself and others. “Like Netherlands have been conquered, large problems against Spain in… in . Van dissolved, the subtle becomes visible, Bommel and De Jong, side by side?! but one doesn’t know how to use this Fascist football! Against art — art that power and the two combine in a fi gure the Dutch gave them! No,” he trailed off , of capriciousness, whim, cruelty…” smiling wanly, “better to have glorious defeat like us in 1974, 1978…” Sure enough the Tupi were fi endishly well-drilled — the attacking defensive The pundits — starstruck, tired, midfi elder covering diligently, the full- hallucinating and unable to get ‘their’ backs’ metamorphosis into pumas and passing game going — thought jaguars rendering wide areas diffi cult to awhile about noble defeat, about their attack, the tapir a threat up front — but, tournament of great losers, forgetting, even with their diabolic coach’s sorcery, momentarily, the Russian roulette of they lacked technique. The midfi eld a game they were playing. Strychnine duo became, variously, a black caiman, turned to Dahlmann and queried, an anaconda, then, briefl y, mistakenly, “My Portuguese isn’t up to much, but a headless chicken (corpsing Savage your book — is it The Teachings of Mr on radio commentary). Amazonal Johan…?” But Dahlmann was fi ring Marking, scribbled Barry Slab, grinning a blowdart at his philosopher-king with atavistic glee while his compatriots (narrowly missing). “He wasn’t there in in the press box (those lucky enough 1978. That’s Wilson.” (He realised the not to be playing), reverting to type butterfl y was, too.) amidst the lethal pressure, fulminated over Tupi simulation (in a true clash of The second half was another lengthy taboos, the Pundits’ brute physicality stalemate — a purgatory in which also vexed the Tupi). But the continual death could not be vanquished nor transmogrifi cation of your players is life resumed — and at full-time it was exhausting and the English sensed space resolved to play until a . would open up later on, in the last four “Sudden death?” mewled Rodnipp. hours of the game. “Literally,” Wilson shot back.

172 Scott Oliver

By now sceptical of the evidence of though Brazil itself had resolved that their kaleidoscope eyes, the pundits’ he should decipher the tactical puzzle. tenacious empiricism had them scan “We need to get it in the mixer. They the Copta charts for a way to break the won’t fancy it. I’ll go up top.” Hedging, deadlock, yet they saw only a tactical Slab scrawled an alternative headline: labyrinth, a garden of forking paths. Cannibals versus Headhunters. Bewildered, they turned to Dahlmann on the bench, still hurriedly thumbing If footballing limitations saw to it that through Ensimamentos, trying to get to Dahlmann entered the fi eld without real the end before The End. “Which way shall hope, he was also without fear. While we run, Wim? What does Don Juan say?” Wilson twitched in his technical area, He considered the regista’s thousand the ball was swept out wide, a pass that abandoned paths, his own forsaken seemingly defi ed the laws of physics. career, and read: “Does this path have The Dutchman attacked the space and, a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it just before the cross came in, two things doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead occurred to him: fi rst, that Wilson’s tirade nowhere; but one has a heart, the other on the plane had been about crosses doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; (cruzamentos not cruzes); second, that as long as you follow it, you are one with nobody — none of these men marinated it. The other will make you curse your in football — had asked who won the life. One makes you strong; the other 2014 World Cup. None. He understood weakens you. Does this path have a that transformation is only possible in heart? If the answer is no, you will know the wilderness and had the conviction it, and then you must choose another that the pundits were fi nally escaping the path. The trouble is nobody asks the heavy burden of their contexts, fi nally on question; and when a man fi nally realises the verge of a breakthrough… that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him.” All this happened in an instant, in the time the truly greats foresee the game. In the silence of that momentous He heard (or imagined) someone bellow, epiphany Dahlmann thought about yet softly, as though an echo, “goals football’s history and about evolution, don’t change games, they change about the deepest truths of survival, societies,” at which point, challenging the about the seedlings straining up, up Tupi keeper (now some giant poisonous toward the forest canopy, up toward the spider, coming to punch everything), he light, and deep in the pit of his stomach, met — fearlessly, judiciously, powerfully as though put there by someone else, — the timeless parabola of that ball fi red came knowledge, insight. Oswald — in across no man’s land and, as it arrived, whom he saw a summary and cipher of the moon on a sixpence, headed it Brazil (his Brazil) — nodded numinously toward El Dorado’s frameless goal — at him, then mouthed the word. never moving, dimensions unaltered — “Mixer,” Dahlmann ventriloquised, as then fell backwards into the everafter.

173

175 Greatest Games

“None, though, burned quite so brightly, so briefl y, as ” Bari 4 Internazionale 1

Bari 4 Internazionale 1 Serie A, Stadio San Nicola, Bari, 6 January 1996

By Rory Smith

Mangone Zanetti Pedone Berti

Andersson Carlos Manighetti Gérson Ganz Bergomi

Fontana Pagliuca

Ingesson Protti Sala Branca Fresi Festa

Ricci Gautieri Pistone Paganin

“It’s better to live one hour as a tiger than either central defender. He glances up. a whole lifetime as a worm.” Space. The movement starts. (The Cat, Red Dwarf) The ball is brought to heel with his left In the mind’s eye, every goal is the foot and his body opens up, right arm same. A fi gure, slightly hunched, hair swinging out, as if holding open a door. jet black, shirt untucked, socks rolled He fl icks the ball with his right foot and around the ankle, standing maybe starts to sprint. It is not elegant, like a 30 yards from goal, in the inside-left gazelle, or a horse, but hurried, shuffl ing, channel. The ball zips to his feet. He has like an adulterer scampering through drifted, almost unconsciously, into that a garden, clothes clasped in one hand, corridor of uncertainty, a little too far covering his exposed crotch. One bound. from the full-back, out of the orbit of Two. The ball sitting there, invitingly now.

176 Rory Smith

It all happens like that, in the blink of that its existence hints at life’s limitless an eye, in a breath. He looks up. The possibility, that it gives us hope not just goalkeeper is starting to crouch, poised. that the good-for-nothing makeweights He cocks his right leg, a trigger. Now for in our team might one day, for one the poetry. In one motion, he sweeps moment, touch the stars, but that we through the ball, his torso contorting might, too. It is the same sentiment that with the force, right arm lifting up, left infuses the narrative of the superhero arm swinging down, a highwayman on — the mild-mannered journalist or the bowling lanes. The ball fl ies, no spin photographer or whatever who can fl y at all, not into the far corner — as most or shoot webs or construct a tool-belt goalkeepers would expect — but low, which can contain myriad heavy kit but fl at, inside the near post. He races away, still, somehow, defy gravity to such an that black hair — slightly mulleted, if extent that your trousers do not fall we’re completely honest with ourselves down — and that plays into rom-coms, — fl apping against the nape of his neck, too, those stories of Average Joe getting mouth gaping in a scream, a roar. In Katherine Heigl because of the one the mind’s eye, every single one of the special trait that he suddenly discovers 24 goals he scored in that one golden he possesses. It tells us that our own season is the same. ordinariness need not be permanent, that it should not hold us back. The one There is a curiosity to the one-season season wonder gives everyone chance wonder that exerts a strange sorcery to dream. over the imagination. The player who emerges from anonymity, from At fi rst, though, only at fi rst. The mediocrity, and then, over the course inevitable denouement to the story — of nine months, explodes into our and it is inevitable, because otherwise consciousness, a fl ash of light and sound they would not be one-season wonders and promise. Anything seems possible. — plays to a diff erent psychological The game’s very pantheon shakes at trope. It reminds us that even those this intruder, this Everyman who might who seem to reach to the sky can fall to yet rewrite history, who seems suddenly earth. The one-season wonder is Icarus. destined to take his seat among the It teaches us that perhaps it is OK being greats. And then? Nothing. He fades into a worm, forever, because it means you obscurity, ordinarily after moving on to do not know the pain of what it was to greener, more fertile pastures, and fi nds be a tiger. It is hope and it is despair, himself exiled in Nowheresville once stirring Wagnerian bombast and muted more, forever remembering, wondering, Radiohead despair. It is life. The one- despairing at what might have been, season wonder is an encapsulation of the taunted and mocked and jeered and human condition. condemned as a waste of talent, of life. He has had his hour as a tiger. He must Everyone will have their favourite. return to being a worm. Michael Ricketts, once of Bolton, is probably the purest example. One year Maybe that is why the one-season of cloudburst, and then an endless wonder appeals so much. It is not just desert, a perennial drought. There are

177 Bari 4 Internazionale 1

more. Marcus Stewart, Francis Jeff ers, And in the mind’s eye, every goal was the Chris Armstrong, Matt Jansen, Danny same: the cut in, the look up, the searing, Cadamarteri, Michael Johnson: there fi zzing shot and the ecstatic, almost are countless domestic examples, Korybantic, celebration. They were not, increasingly shrouded in the mists of of course: he scored headers and tap-ins memory. And abroad? Daniel Güiza, and free-kicks and chips and, against maybe, who so cleverly timed his one Atalanta, a brilliant , but season in the sun so that he might suffi cient followed the blueprint that it is win the European Championship with those that endure most powerfully in the Spain. , too, could memory. It is those goals that gave him be included, for all the rich promise he his hour as a tiger. once boasted and for all that football’s most handsome striker has suff ered And in that hour, this was his most more than his fair share of injuries. You tigrine, most predatory moment. The could even make a case for Fernando ugly, sprawling monstrosity of the Stadio Torres, if the category were expanded to San Nicola, far from full, but about as include those whose excellence endured full as it ever gets, for the visit in January for two years. 1996 of Roy Hodgson’s Internazionale, another side with aspirations None, though, burned quite so brightly, considerably higher than mere survival. so briefl y, as Igor Protti. In one year, one glorious year, Protti illuminated Serie Looking at the line-ups now, it really A. In the 1995-96 season, that was no was Hodgson’s Inter; looking at the mean feat. This was a league that was line-ups, it becomes clear why Inter did by some distance the fi nest in the world; not go on to win the league. He named it was home to the very best defenders fi ve full-backs in his two banks of four, in the world, to the very best teams. Its one of them, Roberto Carlos, in central strike-forces were comprised of Gabriel midfi eld. He also named Gianluca Festa Batistuta, , , in central defence, which rather suggests , , the that the idea of mid-90s Serie A as home great and the good, and yet they were all of the most impregnable practitioners of left in Protti’s wake. might have been somewhat exaggerated. Only , of Lazio, could keep pace with him. Both fi nished on And Bari? Well, this was not the Bari of 24 goals, sharing the prestigious title — that came later — of , but it is a simple or the Bari, more recent still, that could measure of Protti’s excellence that call upon a teenage . season that, while Signori was part of a This was ’s Bari, with the crack Lazio side designed and built at ponderous Klas Ingesson in midfi eld, with considerable cost to challenge for the energetic but limited wingers like Carmine title, Bari were relegated. They possessed Gautieri and with , the the league’s deadliest striker, but they Swedish Ian Ormondroyd, upfront. This went down. Protti was not far off a one- was not a Bari for the ages. But it was a man band. Bari for Protti. It was the perfect Bari for

178 Rory Smith

Protti, and that year, and that night, Protti The turning point, though, came when was perfect, too. one of those players was forcibly removed, the legendary Giuseppe He would have to be. Even with Bergomi — baffl ingly allowed to play Hodgson’s revolutionary fi ve full-back while wearing the sort of gold chain formation, Inter’s class was evident. you’d expect to see on off er at Elizabeth Roberto Carlos put them ahead just Duke — dismissed with 20 minutes to 16 minutes in, a moment worthy of play. It was no surprise that his second recording, simply because the Brazilian yellow card came for a foul on Protti. — deployed in midfi eld —scored with his This was Protti’s evening. Before then, he right foot, crashing in ’s had seen two passionate penalty appeals cut-back from just outside the box. turned down and been denied by Pagliuca once more. He was, in a fi gurative sense, So far, so regulation. Inter would omnipresent. This was his apotheosis. have been expected to win this game comfortably, in normal circumstances. It was the moment that he seared that Bari’s approach was unsubtle, image, contorted limbs and smooth, predictable: work the ball wide, to feline movement, into memory, too. 73 Gautieri and Pedone, and try to use minutes in. Wide left; a touch further Andersson’s aerial prowess to expose out and a touch further across than he Festa and Bergomi. Inter, even in such would ordinarily like. No matter. Control comparatively straitened times, had more the ball, drop the shoulder, duck inside than suffi cient wit and wisdom to repel ’s limp, fl accid challenge. their advances. Into his stride now, building speed. One touch, two. One pace, two. Open the ball Not so. had not been out from his body. Glance up. Shoot. drawn into a save of note when Bari equalised; in retrospect, perhaps they His entire bodyweight went through that were profi ting from the goalkeeper’s ball, the eff ort expended lifting him from boredom. He rushed to meet an the ground. He was 30 yards from goal. inswinging corner, but found himself It was typical Protti. With one exception: blocked by , his own team- the ball did not fl y, low and fl at, to the mate, and beaten fairly simply to the ball near post. It gained altitude, cutting by the leaping Luigi Sala, Bari’s rangy through the air, and seemed somehow 21-year-old central defender. All square. to burn not past Pagliuca but through him. It swerved a little, just as he tried to Suddenly, Bari swarmed all over Inter. punch it clear, and then it dipped into Pagliuca redeemed himself, partially, the net. It was the sort of goal Hotshot for his mistake just two minutes later, Hamish scored. It landed dead centre of brilliantly tipping over a volley from the goal. Pagliuca landed on the fl oor. Protti, then denying Gérson, Bari’s A wisp of smoke fl oated from his hair, pedestrian Brazilian midfi eld player, singed by the speed of the ball. from close range. Inter were shaking, crumbling. Who knows: perhaps they did That was it. Inter faded, melted, slumped. not have enough full-backs on the pitch. Klas Ingesson scored the third with 10

179 Bari 4 Internazionale 1

minutes to go, Gérson nipping to the scored 46 goals for the club. 24 of them right touch-line, cutting the ball back, came in that one year. and the Swede, with surprising delicacy of touch, curling round and past the That was enough to earn him a move to helpless Pagliuca. Lazio, and it is here that the narrative of the one-season reasserts its authority. The fi nal word, though, was Protti’s. He spent three years in Rome, but was Suddenly, grace was fl owering in the loaned out to Napoli for one of them and most unlikely places. Andersson chipped Reggiana for much of another. He did not Pagliuca from 35 yards; the ball struck settle. He certainly never looked like he the bar. Protti was there, shirt untucked, would be able to reproduce the form that socks around his ankles, captain’s had brought him to national attention. He armband trailing from his bicep, to was released from his contract. head the rebound into the corner and wheel away, to receive the ovation of his And that, really, should have been the adoring public. Their night, his night. The end of Protti. He should have faded from night it all worked. view. Maybe, though, he was not quite a one-season wonder. That respectable Bari would beat Inter again, three season on loan at Reggiana attracted the years later, the game in which Antonio attentions of , where he had spent Cassano announced himself to the three years at the start of his career. world, controlling ’s with his studs, fl icking the ball He would end it there, too, helping the over his shoulder and scoring the sort standard-bearers of Italy’s left — how of goal most players wait a lifetime to apt — from Serie C1 to and then, witness, let alone actually perform. That in 2005, to ninth place in Serie A. They was the start of things for Cassano. He remember him in Livorno, of course. He went on to Roma and Real Madrid and has been granted the freedom of the Internazionale and AC Milan and he slept city, and he — bizarrely — appeared on with a lot of women and ate a lot of stage there in a version of the opera La pastries and lived the dream, his dream. Bohème in 2012. The club even retired his number 10 shirt, for a time, until he For Protti, though, this season was asked them not to. the end. Before his time at Bari, Protti had toiled away from Italian football’s But it is in Bari where memories burn the spotlight, at Rimini, Livorno, and brightest. It is to that one glorious year the like. He spent four years at Bari, but that the mind’s eye is drawn, where Protti none of the three that preceded 1995- was perfect, and where all the goals 96 even hinted at what was to come. He were the same.

180 181 Eight Bells

“It felt like the carnival had come to town.” Goalless Draws

Goalless Draws A selection of the best 0-0s in history

By Jonathan Wilson

1 Scotland 0 England 0, London-based quasi-internationals. He friendly international, West of would have captained the England team Scotland Ground, Partick, but for injury and so made do with being 30 November 1872 their nominated umpire.

There are those who look on goalless More than 2,000 fans turned out in draws as a negation of what football Partick, generating gate receipts of should be about but stalemates have £109, to see Scotland fl ummox England always been with us and take a proud by adopting the devilish technique of place in the history of the game, right passing. The Scots were just over a stone from the days when sides would line up a man lighter than the English and they with seven or eight forward players. The had been worried in the build-up to the fi rst game played under the rules codifi ed game that they would be overwhelmed if by in 1863, a they indulged in the head-down charging friendly between Barnes and Richmond and that tended to comprise the in Battersea Park, fi nished goalless. So game then. So they decided they would too did the fi rst full international fi xture. set out to frustrate England by keeping the ball from them, by passing it, to which A match had been played at the Oval end they pulled a forward back to play on 5 March 1870 between an England in midfi eld, countering England’s 1-2-7 representative side and a team made up with a 2-2-6. They were emphatically of Scots living in the London area, and successful and changed the nature of the such a success was it that the experiment game as a result. “The strong point with was repeated four more times in the the home club,” the report in the Glasgow following two years, England winning Herald noted, “was that they played three times and drawing twice. It was excellently well together.” For a nation new not, though, a full Scotland team and to the game and with far fewer players to when the Scottish FA, looking to help draw on than England, a 0-0 draw was popularise the game north of the border, regarded as a remarkable triumph. suggested a proper international fi xture, the FA were quick to accept. 2 Bury 0 Newcastle United 0, Their secretary, CW Alcock, who had Football League Division One, been born in Sunderland but educated Gigg Lane, 11 February 1925 at Harrow, was one of the great early pioneers of the game, establishing the FA The fi rst game and the fi rst international Cup and being a prime mover in the fi ve may have fi nished 0-0, but it was a

182 Jonathan Wilson

scoreline that always sat uneasily with it, but their full-back pairing of Frank the authorities. The fi rst big problem Hudspeth and Bill McCracken were arose in 1898 with the fi nal game in probably the most adept. The goalless a series of test matches played out draw at Bury, Newcastle’s sixth of a between the bottom two in the First season that produced what at the time Division, Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers was an unthinkably low average of 2.58 and the top two in the Second, Burnley goals per game, came as the fi nal straw and Newcastle United, to determine as the authorities sought to combat . Going into falling attendances. their fi nal game at the Victoria Ground, Stoke and Burnley were joint top of At the time, for a forward to be onside, the table, and knew that a draw would three defending players had to be ensure both First Division status; they between him and his opponent’s goal, played out a shameless 0-0 that didn’t which meant it was relatively simple for feature a single shot on goal. one full-back to step up and try to catch a forward off side, knowing the other A crowd of 4,000 turned out despite could still act as cover if he mistimed heavy rain and strong winds and the trap. The FA came up with two seemed to have been disgusted by the proposed changes: a) require only two way Stoke went about retaining their players to be in advance of the forward; top-fl ight status. They booed and jeered b) add a line in each half 40 yards from and then, in the second half, the crowd goal behind which a forward could not on the Boothen Road side of the ground be off side. A series of exhibition games began to amuse themselves by holding were arranged to test the two variants, onto the ball every time it went into with the fi rst half being played under the stand. One ball was punted into one proposal, and the second under the River Trent, another kicked onto the other. the roof of the stand and two simply vanished. At one point a linesman and At a meeting in London on 15 June a policeman, both sprinting to try to 1925, the FA decided they preferred prevent another ball ending up on the the ‘two players’ version. The Scottish terrace, smacked into each other and FA soon adopted the amendment as ended up in a heap on the ground. well, and it was they who presented The Football League was so appalled it the proposed rule-change to the immediately abandoned test matches International Board, the new variant and introduced automatic promotion being adopted ahead of the 1925-26 and relegation. season. The change was an immediate success, with the average goals per Goals, the League and the FA believed, game shooting up to 3.69 the following were the lifeblood of the game, and they season. It was adapting to the new rule regarded the increasing professionalism that led to pioneer and pragmatism that followed the First the development from 2-3-5 to W-M at World War with suspicion – in particular Arsenal in the latter half of the decade, the prevalence of the off side trap. setting in motion the whole evolution of Newcastle weren’t alone in applying modern tactics.

183 Goalless Draws

Boca Juniors 0 Olimpia 0, “It wasn’t just a massive moment for 3 fi nal Olimpia fans, it was a massive moment second leg, , Buenos for all supporters of Paraguayan football,” Aires, 27 July 1979 Gabriel Cazenave, the sports editor of ABC Color, said. “The event was unique Not until 1988 did the Copa Libertadores in our history. Everybody can remember use aggregate score in the fi nal. Until where they were that day. I celebrated then, if one team won the fi rst leg and the victory out on the streets. It felt like the other won the second, the fi nal the carnival had come to town.” went to a play-off , no matter what the respective margins of victory. So although goals from Osvaldo Aquino and 4 Werder 0 Bayern Miguel Ángel Piazza at the Defensores Munich 0, , del Chaco had given Olimpia a 2-0 win Weserstadion, Bremen, 22 April 1986 in Asunción, that was not quite such a convincing advantage as it may appear Even now the former Werder Bremen to modern eyes. To become the fi rst forward Michael Kutzop changes his Paraguayan team to win the Libertadores, phone number every few weeks. The they had to go to la Bombonera and mocking calls have slowed down but avoid defeat against a Boca side seeking they haven’t entirely stopped; he remains a third successive title. Olimpia, despite the man who cost Werder the Bundesliga winning the Paraguayan championship title in 1986. What made it was worse 23 times to earn the nickname ‘the that it seemed part of an inevitable King of Cups’, had in 12 previous eff orts sequence: Otto Rehhagel’s Werder advanced beyond the fi rst phase only always fi nished second, they were always once — and that as long ago as 1960. pipped by Bayern. When Rehhagel fi rst acquired the nickname King Otto, he was Any nerves Olimpia may have felt must Otto II, always taking silver. have been intensifi ed in the fi rst minutes as their goalkeeper Ever Almeida was The two sides met in the penultimate forced into a sprawling save to push game of the season with Werder two away a ferocious shot from Miguel points clear of Bayern at the top of Ángel Bordón. As the siege continued, the table (the Bundesliga didn’t award Almeida made save after save and two points for a win until 1994). Udo Bordón thudded a shot against the Lattek, the Bayern coach, and Rehhagel crossbar. Boca kept creating chances had been sparring for weeks and extra and they kept on being repulsed, largely edge was added by the horrendous by the heroics of Almeida. As Boca foul committed by Bayern’s Klaus grew increasingly desperate, the game Augenthaler on Rudi Völler in the sides’ became increasingly violent, with the fi rst meeting of the season. result that each side ended the game with two red cards. More importantly for Völler had not played since, but was Olimpia, though, neither fi nished it with named as a substitute and came off the any goals and with a win and a draw they bench with 12 minutes remaining. 10 were champions. minutes later, he was involved in the

184 Jonathan Wilson

moment for which the game will always No eastern European side had ever won be remembered, as his cross smacked the trophy and they themselves had into Søren Lerby’s face and bounced never got beyond the fi rst round. When down onto his arm. The referee gave a their president, Valentin Ceausescu, the harsh penalty. Bayern protested and a son of the dictator, insisted early in the melee broke out. Even after order was season they were good enough to do so, restored, several minutes passed before he was ridiculed. A magnifi cent semi-fi nal Kutzop could take the penalty, as offi cials win over Anderlecht, though, off ered struggled to retrieve the ball from the compelling evidence of their quality. stands, where it had been kicked by Egon In the fi nal they faced ’s Coordes, the Bayern assistant coach. Barcelona, another team who had never won the trophy, but one whose sense of Kutzop was a specialist. He had once its own destiny had been heightened in scored 22 consecutive penalties for the semi-fi nal, when they had overcome Off enbach and had converted eight a 3-0 fi rst-leg defi cit to win on penalties. times from the spot already that season. Worse, the game was played in , His secret, it was said, was to wait until which meant at least 95% of the stadium he saw the keeper move, and put the would be supporting Barça. ball the other way. Jean-Marie Pfaff , the Bayern goalkeeper, stood still and Kutzop Barça ripped into Steaua from the off , thumped his penalty against the post. It presumably reasoning that an early was the only one he missed in six years goal against anxious opponents would at the club. “I’ll never forget the sound settle the game. But with Miodrag the ball made as it hit the post,” he said. Belodedici outstanding, Steaua survived Even now, to Germans, a player who hits a fraught opening 30 minutes, and as the post with a penalty is said to have the breakthrough remained elusive, so “done a Kutzop”. Barça’s doubts began to grow. “After the fi rst half hour,” said the Steaua midfi elder Shattered, the Werder players trudged Lucian Bălan, “the Barcelona players off the pitch, past bottles of champagne began to lose their confi dence and also bought for their title celebrations that their nerve.” would remain forever unopened. The following week they lost to Stuttgart, while Central to their concerns was the form Bayern, who had not been top all season, of , who had only just hammered Borussia Mönchengladbach recovered from a hamstring injury 6-0 to take the title on goal diff erence. to be controversially selected ahead of Pichi Alonso and clearly lacked sharpness. “He ran a lot,” said the Steaua Steaua 0 Barcelona defender . “He was 5 0, European Cup fi nal, Estadio very dangerous, but he wasn’t so brave Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, Seville, 7 in our physical battles.” Archibald was May 1986 eventually substituted in extra-time, but before that Venables had taken off For Steaua Bucharest, the European Cup the brilliant but temperamental Bernd was an impossible, magnifi cent dream. Schuster. Furious, the German stormed

185 Goalless Draws

not merely off the pitch, but out of the for six months before the fi nal,” he said. stadium — a clear indication of Barça’s “I got drugs from the doctors to control shattered morale. them, but the medicine wasn’t strong enough. One day that summer I was As Barça grew increasing desperate, the with my friends in my home town and I Steaua coach remained fell over. I put my hand down to protect in control, shaping events rather than myself and the aneurysm went to the reacting to them, and, after 73 minutes, artery and blocked the circulation for the he made one of the greatest substitutions whole arm. I had surgery, some kind of ever made in a fi nal. Steaua’s assistant bypass. In 1988 I had another operation coach Anghel Iordănescu had not played and [in 2010] I had another operation in a competitive game all season but he with modern technology.” had retained his registration. He came on for Bălan, his composure ensuring calm Amid rumours Ducadam had been done as the possibility of seeing the game away with by Ceausescu’s henchmen for through drew closer. Steaua, though, some unspecifi ed aff ront, he essentially remained reluctant to press for a winner disappeared, eventually taking up a job as of their own, and so, after 120 sterile a customs offi cial. “Maybe I was unlucky,” minutes, the match went to penalties. he said, “but maybe I was lucky as well. If it Mihai Majearu, Steaua’s usual penalty had happened just a few weeks earlier…” taker, saw his kick saved by Javier Urruti, but Helmut Ducadam then fi sted away José Alexanco’s eff ort. Urruti saved from Laszló Bölni, but Ducadam also kept out 6 Netherlands 0 Italy 0, Ángel Pedraza’s shot. European Championship semi-fi nal, Amsterdam Arena, 29 Having seen four kicks missed, Marius June 2000 Lăcătuş dispensed with subtleties and belted his kick in off the crossbar. The late nineties saw a surge of Ducadam, diving to his right for the third wonderful attacking football that time, saved from Pichi Alonso. Gavrila culminated at Euro 2000. That was the Balint made it 2-0, meaning that Marcos tournament at which 4-2-3-1 fi rst began had to score. “Watching it again on to enter the mainstream, when the television after many years,” Ducadam attacking midfi elder, dribblers, wingers said, “I realise that the fourth taker for and schemers found a new role. It was Barcelona didn’t have a clue what he a tournament in which England and should do, because I’d saved all the other Germany were made to look ponderous penalties on the same side. I watched and old-fashioned, their three straight him and had eye-to-eye contact with lines and antiquated anachronism. It him. I played a trick on Marcos. I shaped was the tournament of Zinédine Zidane, to go to the left and then to the right, , Luis Figo, Manuel Rui then I went left.” Costa, Zlatko Zahović, Raúl and Pavel Nedved, when creators, suddenly He saved it, the last save he ever made revelling in new-found freedom, came for Steaua. “I’d had pains in my right arm out to play. It was also a tournament of

186 Jonathan Wilson

one of the greatest goalless draws there Reprieved, Italy seemed to fi nd another has ever been. level as though they sensed fortune was on their side. They could even have The Netherlands had their creators, won it the fi rst half of extra-time, Marco of course, notably Delvecchio twice shooting wide after and , while Italy promising counter-attacks, but it fi nished had , but this was a goalless and went to penalties. Luigi Di game that came to be defi ned by Biagio, who had missed against France national stereotype: as Italy defended in the World Cup quarter-fi nal two years magnifi cently, the Dutch, for all their earlier, thumped home the fi rst. De technical brilliance, imploded. Boer, one miss already on his mind, was again denied by Toldo. In four previous Bergkamp had already struck a post after attempts in major tournaments, Italy had jinking past when, after never won a shoot-out, but as Gianluca 34 minutes, the game seemed to turn Pessotto scored and blazed a decisively favour of Holland. The full- mile over they edged towards the fi nal. back Gianluca Zambrotta, having been booked for a foul on There was a brief wobble as Paolo earlier in the game, was beaten by a sharp Maldini missed the fourth kick after Totti turn from the winger, hacked his legs and Kluivert had both converted but the from under him and was rightly sent off . Dutch were too set on self-destruction to take advantage. Toldo saved from Paul Italy reorganised with Alessandro Del Bosvelt — a fi fth miss out of six in the Piero tucked into the right side of match for the Dutch – and Italy were midfi eld and dug in, presenting the through. Netherlands with two banks of four, neither of which was much inclined to leave its own half. Four minutes after 7 Barcelona 0 Celtic 0, Uefa Cup the red card, the Dutch were presented fourth round second leg, Nou with the perfect opportunity to take Camp, Barcelona, 25 March 2004 the lead as impeded to concede a penalty. Under Martin O’Neill, Celtic enjoyed But ’s spot-kick was hit at some extraordinary results in European a comfortable height for the goalkeeper competitions, but none, surely, was , who pushed it away. so frankly implausible as the rearguard action they mounted in the Camp At the time it seemed unlikely to matter Nou on the last great European night but with Nesta dogging Kluivert’s every of his reign. They led 1-0 from Alan step and outstanding, Thompson’s goal in the fi rst leg, a the expected rush of Dutch chances fractious, enthralling game in which never materialised. And then, after 62 Rab Douglas, and Javier minutes, came another penalty as Edgar Saviola were all sent off , but as Barcelona Davids was caught by Iuliano. This time poured forwards in the early stages in Kluivert took the responsibility, but his the second leg, that advantage looked fi rm low shot bounced back off the post. distinctly fl imsy.

187 Goalless Draws

With Douglas suspended, Celtic were match and was last into the dressing- forced to turn to their 19-year-old room. When he came in it was to reserve goalkeeper David Marshall enormous applause from the rest of his whose very evident nerves were hardly team-mates.” helped when he skewed an awful Jackie McNamara backpass out for a corner It was richly deserved. in the second minute. With Ronaldinho to the fore, Barça, coming off the back of nine straight victories in , 8 Zambia 0 Côte d’Ivoire 0, put together great fl uid passages of Stade d’Angondjé, , passing that at times swept through 12 February, 2012 Celtic’s defence: real humiliation was a possibility, and it seemed unlikely they There are times when a team’s sense could hold out until the ninth minute, of destiny becomes overwhelming. never mind the 90th. After Zambia had beaten Ghana 1-0 in the semi-fi nal in , the president Marshall scrambled away a Gerard of their football federation, Kalusha header, and then defl ected Bwalya, insisted there was no way his a goalbound shot against the keeper’s side could lose the fi nal against Côte extended arm, as somehow Celtic did d’Ivoire. “There won’t just be 11 players hold on. Not merely until the ninth out there,” he said, “but also 11 ghosts.” It minute, but until the 19th, the 29th, was Zambia’s fi rst game in Gabon since half-time. There was no early goal in the a plane carrying their squad from second half, and Barcelona’s exasperation to Dakar for a World Cup qualifi er in 1993 was palpable — and with it a renewed and had crashed shortly after taking off from agonising sense of Celtic hope. Libreville where it had stopped to refuel.

A Xavi chip set Luis García through missed a second half- against Marshall, but, diving backwards, penalty and, with the Ivorians wilting in the 19 year old got enough of a fi ngertip the face of the Zambians’ self-belief, the on his shot to defl ect it over the bar. penalty shoot-out was somehow both Then, diving to his left, Marshall clawed nerve-wracking and yet predictable. away a snap-shot from the substitute Seven players from each side scored, Sergio García, whose energy and drive then Kolo Touré, stepping forward as had briefl y rekindled Barça hopes. refused his bench’s entreaties to take the eighth kick, was denied by The jitters were gone, and Marshall and Kennedy Mweene. Celtic suddenly seemed invincible as could have won it, but fi red over. Then Barça’s early fl uency disappeared to Gervinho did, at last, go forward —and be replaced by a string of frustrated missed. Stoppilla Sunzu, a centre-back and harmless long-range eff orts from from the DR Congo champions TP Ronaldinho. “He has a terrifi c presence Mazembe, lashed home and Zambia — and calmness, he’s not fazed at all,” the and the ghosts — had their triumph. On Celtic manager O’Neill said of his keeper. the running-track that surrounded the “He did an interview for TV after the pitch, Bwalya stood silently. On the pitch,

188 Jonathan Wilson

the Zambian players knelt in prayer. 0-0 with Cameroon in the semi, then Zambia’s coach, Hervé Renard, wearing Gouamene saved three penalties in the the lucky white shirt that gave him the shoot-out, but what happened in the fi nal air of a Mills & Boon hero, picked up against Ghana was even more dramatic. the injured full-back and carried him to join his team-mates At the time Ghana were the most in their celebratory devotions. In the successful side in the Cup of Nations’ press box, journalists openly wept at the history, and against Côte d’Ivoire, who emotion of it all. were looking for their fi rst ever trophy in senior football, they were overwhelming There were tears too from the Ivorians, favourites. As in previous rounds, though, their thwarted for Côte d’Ivoire frustrated their opponents, the second time in six years in a penalty and, after 120 minutes of stalemate, they shoot-out in the fi nal after a goalless faced their second penalty shoot-out in draw. In Cairo in 2006, they had lost to successive games. Isaac Asare missed Egypt, poor Drogba both missing a sitter Ghana’s fourth-kick, but then Joel Tiehi, with eight minutes remaining and then with a chance to win it, also failed. And failing from the spot. so it went on. And on. After 10 penalties each, it was 9-9. Gouamene scored for Their only other appearance in the fi nal, the Ivory Coast, but then Edward Ansah, in Dakar in 1992, had also fi nished 0-0, the Ghana keeper, also fi red home, so but that time they had won, to complete it was back to the start of the list again. a remarkable tournament for their Kouame Aka converted for a second time, goalkeeper Alain Gouamene, who had but Anthony Baff oe saw his eff ort saved gone unbeaten in all fi ve games — a total, by Gouamene, leaving Côte d’Ivoire as given two of the matches went to extra champions and the goalkeeper as an time, of 510 minutes. Côte d’Ivoire drew obvious man of the tournament.

189 Contributors

Contributors The Blizzard, Issue Nine

Nick Ames is a journalist for Arsenal. He Football and Growing Up. It was has also written for World Soccer and shortlisted for football book of the year Champions, among others. in the British Sports Book Awards. He Twitter: @NickAmes82 writes about football for the Guardian. His previous books are The Beautiful Philippe Auclair is the author of The Game? Searching for the Soul of Football Enchanted Kingdom of Tony Blair (in (2004) and The Football Business (1997). French) and Cantona: the Rebel Who Twitter: @david_conn Would Be King, which was named BSBA Football Book of the Year. His biography Davidde Corran is a journalist working of Thierry Henry has just been published. across TV, radio and print. Originally from He writes for France Football and Off side , Australia he is currently based and provides analysis and commentary in England. Twitter: @Davidde Corran for RMC Sport. He also pursues a parallel career in music under the name ‘Louis James Corbett is a sports correspondent Philippe’. Twitter: @PhilippeAuclair and award-winning author who has reported from 20 countries across fi ve Anthony Clavane is the author of continents for outlets including the BBC, Promised Land: A Northern Love Story, the Observer, the Guardian, the Sunday which won Football Book of the Year Times and FourFourTwo. His books and Sports Book of the Year at the 2011 include the Everton Encyclopedia and British Sports Book Awards. His second his collaboration with , book, Does Your Rabbi Know You’re The Binman Chronicles. He is currently Here? was shortlisted for Football Book working on a book about football of the Year at this year’s awards. He governance. Twitter: @james_corbett writes about sport for the Sunday Mirror. Website: www.anthony-clavane.com Noah Davis is a New York-based Twitter: @lufcpromised. freelance writer and deputy editor of AmericanSoccerNow.com Dan Colasimone is the founder and editor Twitter: @noahedavis of the Argentina Football World website. After a seven-year stint in Argentina he is Ian Hawkey is the author of Feet of now back in his native Australia covering a the Chameleon, The Story of African variety of sports for Sportal. He is currently Football, a winner of the National working on a guide to Argentinian football Sporting Club’s Football Book of the Year. folklore which is due out later in 2013. Twitter: @ArgentinaFW Maciej Iwanski is a sports journalist and commentator for Poland’s biggest TV David Conn is the author of Richer station, TVP and has been .com Than God: Manchester City, Modern correspondent in Poland for seven years.

190 Contributors

Simon Kuper is author of Football Charlie Robinson teaches philosophy Against the Enemy, a winner of the at the Metropolitan University in Prague, William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and completed his doctorate at the and Ajax, The Dutch, The War. His latest University of Manchester. He writes book, The Football Men, was published on the ethics of sport and political by Simon & Schuster in May 2011. He is philosophy, and has written for When a columnist with the Financial Times. A Saturday Comes and The Football new expanded edition of Soccernomics Ramble. Email: [email protected] (previously called Why England Lose in the UK) was published last summer. Rory Smith writes about football for The Times, as long as someone with a Antonis Oikonomidis is a Greek foreign-sounding name is in the news. journalist who has worked for France He has previously worked at all three Football, FourFourTwo and World Soccer. Mirror titles, both of the Telegraphs and, briefl y, a pair of Independents. He Scott Oliver is an honorary research ghosted Rafael Benitez’s fi rst memoir, fellow in Nottingham University’s Champions League Dreams, and Department of Latin American Studies, moved some commas around on The where he completed a doctorate on Numbers Game. He was once nearly Peronist Argentina. He has written about on Blockbusters. cricket for the Guardian, cricinfo, Spin and Wisden India and football for BT and Jon Spurling is an assistant headteacher ESPN. Twitter: @reverse_sweeper who contributes to FourFourTwo and When Saturday Comes. He has written Gwendolyn Oxenham is the author of numerous books about Arsenal and Finding the Game: Three Years, Twenty- Death or Glory! The Dark History of the Five Countries, and the Search for Pickup World Cup. Soccer. She’s also the co-director of Pelada, a documentary about informal Tim Vickery writes and broadcasts on games around the world. South American football for the BBC, World Soccer, ESPN, SBS and . Igor Rabiner is the author of How Spartak Has Been Killed (in Russian), winner in the Jonathan Wilson is the author of Sports Investigation category at Knizhnoe Inverting the Pyramid, a winner of the Obozrenie’s Sports Book Awards. His BSBA Football Book of the Year and latest book is Did Russia Buy the 2018 the Antonio Ghirelli Award, Behind the World Cup? He has been Russian Football Curtain, The Anatomy of England and Journalist of the Year four times. Nobody Ever Says Thank You. His latest book is The Outsider: A History of the Joel Richards is a journalist based in Goalkeeper. He writes for the Guardian, Buenos Aires. He writes about Argentinian The National, World Soccer, Foxsoccer, football for World Soccer and is the author Foxasia and Sports Illustrated. of Super Clasico. Twitter: @joel_richards Twitter: @jonawils

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192 About The Blizzard

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