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Author: lostclarity
Timestamp:- 4/7/2012 12:20:55 AM
Subject: The Beautiful Game

Message:
So, what’s a sport-starved Aussie doing in a crowded Paris bar/cafe after two nil-all draws added up to four hours without a goal: two games that were decided by changing to a different game. [I missed Germany and Spain ~ someone told me there were three goals but I don’t believe it]

Soccer is not a good reason to stay alive: A grade dribbling; C grade acting when there’s the smell of a penalty, and D grade scoreboard activity.

The game isn’t enough so I’m taking notes.

The night was a success if you listen to and feel pulsating Paris in and outside the café. This Aussie was a failure. [Maybe this woman I married is really right this time ~ we should be with the opera hooligans again]

Both sports have ensemble moments and no meaning I say to myself, but not out loud.

We are surrounded by soccer fans pumped up on fear over all these names ending in vowels. It’s the Wogs vee the Wogs, a Mediterranean cocktail of too much expectation, too much passion and too much nothing. Buffon is all intensity, and its only the national anthem. [I saw Jezza sing the anthem once and no one kicked the ball to him all afternoon]

The whistle sounds. The Spanish players seem to know what is on the minds of their robotic team mates, a sort of rhythmic group think without goals.

Oops, too soon, 14 minutes in, and out of nowhere one of those I-was-there, boxing-clever moments. If you woke me at 4am to watch a replay of a goal like that, I’d be half a chance. Feet like card-sharps have hands. Then the soaring adrenalin of a wonderful run. That’s 27 minutes later. What do you do in the meantime? Two moments of laser-sharp precision, both in the same half. I was close to becoming a convert, then an obligation to reality: I’ve waited three games for this.

The entertainment is not in the game but in the watching of those watching. The Spanish wogs have gone non-stop-nuts.

Every time Balotelli goes near the ball someone spills a drink. The women hope he kicks a goal so he takes his clothes off. [That’s the Spanish women, I don’t know about the Italians] Like Ronaldo he’s self-infatuated; unlike Ronaldo, the camera hates him. One gets the face one deserves in life, but at 22?

It’s halftime. I need a new thesaurus for the buzz. Being kissed by strangers. Especially that last one.

I need a drink. I get one for Mary too, then drink both.

It’s the second half. Thank God, the singing will stop. But it’s 2-nil, why do they need a second half?

The Italian Wogs turn up again. The Spanish Wogs confiscate the football, so the Italians are looking on like the rest of us. Balotelli continues to play like he bet everything on presence. It’s getting intolerable. He’s turning sour. He is now carrying his head around. I think he’s going through a clenched-teeth breakdown.

The game has reached and past its zenith then suddenly Spain’s Torres, the equivalent of Carlton’s world famous bench-warmer Ted Hopkins, comes on as a reserve and gets a goal, then assists in another. Electricity, four goals on the scoreboard.

Electricity? That’s a goal a quarter back home. Make that gaslight. ‘Four goals senor Australee, Can’t get more than that’. There are no Aussies here, so I nod.

My assessment: The goals are in the play, not in the goals. I saw boring half hours. The Beautiful Game is an irony or a castle in the air or a fairy tale. They are the only choices. Not as good as the Sweet Science, not a patch on the Sport of Kings. Even rugby is out of the cellar. Two late goals made the hiding border-line offensive, an unnecessary cruelty. This game has nothing on filling out a tax form or the weather report. It’s like reading Mr Mogadon except he has the magic of anaesthetising an entire forum in two lines. I saw Espagnas screaming like ten thousand fiends. That’s in Paris. Thank God I wasn’t in Madrid.