JUNE 7 — I’ll confess, if politics in Malaysia sorted itself out I would rather spend my days writing about football.
It’s almost here, the World Cup and as usual the non-football types find themselves drawn to stay abreast — or pretend to — less they desire being called Philistines. It’s rather easy to look foolish in the month where only football rules.
As for politicians, even by Malaysian standards, the divas may have to recuse themselves from the limelight rather than experience being ignored by their own masses.
A World Cup is the reason why — yes, it’s a completely biased view — the other years and months roll on needlessly.
And if the reader has no time to catch up with the competition’s 88 years, they’d only need to YouTube a minute of the 1982 final, when Marco Tardelli scores Italy’s second on their way to the title.
Tardelli runs and screams.
The soul of humanity is laid bare by the innocence of emotions far too much for words or nationalism. His passion shows all that is beautiful about the greatest show on earth.
All sports try to create a mystique around their showcase event, but none come close to the culturally absorbing, politically incendiary and economic-stalling spectacle of the World Cup.
It does not matter if the Fifa acronym is put at the front or if “world cup” is treated as a proper noun, for to commoners it is celestial ecstasy.
To explain the other-worldliness of it, the pope, an Argentinean, would have to pretend neutrality to protect the Vatican’s presumed neutrality. But I don’t think the Bishop of Rome would invite Neymar and co over in case they win. The Holy See would be mourning.
While club teams play all year round, visit exotic locations and build legacies, to be truly football royalty, one’s team has to ascend in The Tournament.
Puskas, Garrincha, Fontaine, Eusébio, Charlton, Hurst, Banks, Jairzinho, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Muller, Kempes, Falcao, Zico, Socrates, Eder, Platini, Maradona, Matthäus, Romario, Bebeto, Zidane, Ronaldo (the original), Rivaldo, Klose, Buffon, Cannavaro, Iniesta, Mueller and the list replenishes with every passing competition.
By the way, Pele is a list by himself.
Which is why, Lionel Messi yearns for the trophy. Him and five hundred five other footballers who’ve been named to show up on pitches across Russia.
One moment in time
While Panama are as certain to win the title as is the fact aliens will land on St Petersburg’s Square on July 15, there is still so much to play for.
Because it is about a moment, and every team or player can earn that moment under the maddening glare of the globe. The Olympics only dreams about the TV viewers-per-match ratio of the World Cup.
1950, a ragtag group of amateurs with migrant backgrounds, or team USA, continue to rake up a line of books about their 1-0 defeat of debutant England. Haitian-born striker Joe Gaetjens consigned the games’ birth-nation an early group exit. This after the Three Lions passed up participation in the previous three competitions on the misguided belief English domestic was a universe better.
The North Koreans knocked out Italy from their group and almost beat Eusébio led-Portugal in the quarterfinals in 1966. Korea had to wait till 2002 for the southern brothers — who also similarly axed Italy en route — to beat Spain to reach a step further, the semi-finals. Asia’s crowning moment.
(Though, when North Korea returned to the World Cup in 2010, they were demolished by Portugal 7-0. There is symmetry in football. Cruel symmetry.)
Or when Cameroun announced themselves by beating Maradona’s defending champions at 1990 Italia’s opening match. The Argentinians must have felt the established order was served notice when Omam-Biyik headed past Nery Pumpido for the match’s only goal.
It was a balmy afternoon in Hulu Langat, past Pekan on the way to Sungai Gabai, on June 22, 2002, where we stood cheering as South Korea raised a continent to euphoria. Yes, it’s the second time mentioning, but Asians never tire of reminding anyone about our run to the World Cup semi-finals. That is until we get a team to the final.
And we will.
This one
(Cristiano) Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, Lewandowski, Salah, Kane, Mbappe, Pogba, Eriksen, Mane, Suarez and several other pretenders head to Russia, knowing in a month whether they’ve entered the pantheon of football royalty, or remain guys with healthy bank accounts and sports cars.
There are so many variables in the competition.
Injuries factor heavily. Pele stood by the side-lines as Brazil completed the double in 1962 and got kicked hard till he and his team departed from England in 1966; at the same tournament, Jimmy Greaves the ultimate scoring legend in England lost his place to Geoff Hurst and watched the West Ham man’s winning hattrick against Germany at Wembley; a half-fit Zico missed most of the 1986 edition only to enter the fray in quarters and miss a penalty against France in regular time; Maradona resorted to self-medicating himself — after a career circled by defenders earning their pay cheques by upending him — for 1994 USA, and found himself unceremoniously sent home as a drug cheat; and Neymar in crutches witnessed the calamity of Maracanã in 2014, as his Brazil lost another home World Cup, but this time in humiliating fashion as the machine-like Germans obliterated the Seleção 7-1.
Steel-willed personalities thrive nevertheless.
Club footballers rely on a system orchestrated by the coach and the academy behind the commercial construct. They prepare for matches systematically and overcome setbacks by analysing errors, and thereafter recuperate points.
All players understand each other and some achieve telepathic understanding through repetition. Players can be bought and sold, and weak parts strengthened.
Familiarity of the league, home and away, and even a knowledge of the Champions League, and rotation of either competition allow for planning over brilliance. Defeats can be covered by victories in the next possible competition not too long away.
The World Cup finals is devastatingly uncaring.
Even the story of getting there.
The 2018 World Cup started on March 12, 2015, less than a year after Germany lifted the cup in Brazil. Bhutan edged Sri Lanka 1-0 away. Neither team was involved in qualifiers shortly after that for they were ousted. My Malaysia exited a year later in March 2016.
For the 31 teams joining Russia, it has been a battle to get to this stage.
Travel and geography provide trepidations.
From crisscrossing Asia, surviving the rarefying heights of Quito, boarding multi-stop flights to South America, competing in the ultra-physical demands of African football and dealing with the high-technical game in Europe, the players and their national teams have to be up for it, to scale the qualifiers.
And once at the finals, it’s a different ball game.
Managers and players have to maintain relations or slip into France’s self-destruction mode in 2010. Egos have to be managed as questions arise about letting club form dominate team selections and formations despite qualifiers successful formula, or to build the team around a player and damn club form.
National teams are not as fluid as club teams, and often in the crucial stages of the competition, a player or a set of players have to grab the game by the scruff of the neck.
It is about character and elegance under pressure. Or just ambition and ability coming together.
Perhaps a 17-year-old Pele was too young to realise the immensity of being thrust into a World Cup semi-final, because he scored in that game and the next to win Brazil’s first title. Or Germans four years earlier disrespecting the Hungarians’ global reputation and defeat to the Magyars in the group stages to come from behind to create the Miracle of Berne.
An initially listless Italy in 1982, picked their game for the last four matches, despatching Argentina, Brazil, Poland and Germany in order to notch their third title.
Argentina had one indubitable star in 1986, but that’s fine if his name is Diego Maradona. A double-double against England and Belgium, and then to ice the cake with the through ball for the Burruchaga winner.
Romario was the difference for a limited Brazilian team of the 1994 vintage, but Zidane came short in 2006 after inspiring the Les Bleus match to match only to be undone by his own temper in the final against Italy.
Despite the last three winners being a collection of squads with strong talents alternating in excellence to achieve the highest accolade, I have a feeling this edition is set to see an immortal emerge.
A player to claim the tournament as truly his.
This Cup, the world would be amazed if inscribed on the title a name other than Germany, France, Argentina, Spain or Brazil, but that won’t stop the romantics from dreaming.
A gallant run from a reinvigorated James Rodriguez to steer Colombia forward, Croatia translating its attacking strength to surprise results, Senegal returning to collect their dues after Suarez’s antics as second goalkeeper in 2010, or even — tempting fate indeed — England hit the heights as Harry Kane bamboozles defences in a rapid display of English enthusiasm and energy rather than fanciful continental technical sensibilities. Any one of those scenarios may alter the fixed equation we are ready to accept.
Anyway, it’s coming.
Forget it all, the inane distractions of life, for the World Cup is here.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
