Let's take it outside

October 1995. 
Robbie Fowler (aka God). Fined 2000 Swiss Francs for wearing a T-shirt that read "Support the Dockers sacked since September 1995"

 January 2009. Frederic Kanute. Fined 4000 Euro for wearing a T-shirt that read "Palestine" in 4 different languages.

October 2011. Fans of Panathinaikos are arrested after lifting up a message reading: "Politicians, crooks, parliament of the nonchalant. You will be drown by the wrath of the uprising"

Time to take it outside!

PMD (Post-Mundial-Depression)

Cuando el Mundial comenzó, en la puerta de mi casa colgué un cartel que decía Cerrado por fútbol. Cuando lo descolgué, un mes después, yo ya había jugado sesenta y cuatro partidos, cerveza en mano, sin moverme de mi sillón preferido. Esa proeza me dejó frito, los músculos dolidos, la garganta rota; pero ya estoy sintiendo nostalgia. Ya empiezo a extrañar la insoportable letanía de las vuvuzelas, la emoción de los goles no aptos para cardíacos, la belleza de las mejores jugadas repetidas en cámara lenta. Y también la fiesta y el luto, porque a veces el fútbol es una alegría que duele, y la música que celebra alguna victoria de ésas que hacen bailar a los muertos, suena muy cerca del clamoroso silencio del estadio vacío, donde ha caído la noche y algún vencido sigue sentado, solo, incapaz de moverse, en medio de las inmensas gradas sin nadie.


Eduardo Galeano
El reino magico

*(Find an English translation here)

in the end it's all about football

Last month was a month of traveling, work, reading and partying but first and foremost it was a month of football. Hard as I tried to explain to my girlfriend that the World Cup -apart from being the WORLD CUP- belongs to that special category of rare events -once every four years- that further adds to their immense importance, she still found my enthusiasm (which of course she could only qualify as obsession) increasingly irritating. Having been in a rather good mood (as it always happens while the World Cup approaches the last-16) the time seemed right for me to confront Demetra with the standard, traditional argumentation for the love of the game and the impact of the World Cup

I therefore tried to slowly introduce her to the history of the teams, the differences in the style of play that for so long -not so much anymore, but still- have been connected to the temperament of the people, the Brazilian "jogo bonito" against the Bristish "kick and rush" etc. But having had recently read Jonathan Wilson's -outstanding- "Inverting the Pyramid" I soon found myself over-excited, talking about formations and tactics, arguing for the rise of the modern 4-2-3-1 and the -apparent- decline of 4-4-2 and preaching about posession football being a pro-active strategy. As I realized the expressions on Demetra's face were rapidly shifting from slightly indifferent to utterly bored, I decided I had gone too far and I let it go. By that time the play-offs had already started and I decidedly announced I was to watch all games left till the end. I stayed in to watch USA play Ghana. She stayed in with me, partly out of support and partly -I assume- for educational reasons. Perhaps she could understand what it is that makes football so important.

As it usually happens, by the time you reach the semifinals, even women get to be -a little- interested in the action. With Uruguay about to face the Netherlands in the first semifinal we decided to watch the game in the company of friends (girlfriends included). Before kick off, having been repeatedly asked on which side I was on, I resolved -time and again- to foolish comments of the type "I don't mind", "I like them both" etc. But as the game went under way I gradually shifted from a mild sympathizer of the Uruguayans to the most loyal of their fans . So, I cheered with joy when Diego Forlan scored the superb goal depicted in this post's photo and I stood up from my chair to watch the last minutes as Uruguay struggled for an equalizer.
A few days later, Demetra decided it was high time she went out a bit. As she was having drinks downtown, I was at home biting my fingernails watching Uruguay's agonizing efforts for a late equalizer once more, this time against Germany in the 3rd place final. When Forlan (again) hit the crossbar from a free-kick on the last minute I exploded in a outcry of curses about the world being unjust, the order of the universe and the such!

It is in moments like these, that one realizes the power of football.

When simply by watching a game you start to get involved even when at the beginning you appear indifferent. It is as if you have been set up by a friend on a blind date only to find yourself strangely attracted to the other person and un-strangely in love before you even realize it. In the same way you find yourself cheering for the goals of a far-away country or feeling compassion for a guy being sent off even if you've only seen his face for the first time one hour ago. No matter what the tactics are, wether 4-4-2 is to be abandoned or if Spain's tiki-taka is a defensive or an attacking strategy, in the end it's all about football.

And one day, perhaps, women may feel it too.

Against the anonymous fan

Imagine something you love and at the same time respect too much to see it ridiculed. Now imagine someone who is pretending to love that same thing but obviously understands nothing of its grace. One that instead of appreciating it, is using it as an opportunity to show off. Someone who, in summary, is nowhere near your perception of what is considered to be your "common" passion. He is only there to make a mock out of it and outrage you with his stupidity!
Now put this guy in the position of the anonymous clown of the photo and there you have my feelings about football on one hand and the random football fan on the other.

I 've been watching the games of the World Cup just like any other civilized person who appreciates football and I cannot but be disturbed with the frequency with which the cameras turn to the crowd in search of pathetic exhibitionists like the one in the photo. I cannot be precise about the origins of this sick habit of television broadcast but I am guessing it must have started at the same time football was for the first time treated as a massive commercial product. That would be sometime between the World Cups of USA and Korea-Japan. It was around then, that broadcasting a football game started to involve close-ups of Victoria Beckham (back then Mel-C or B, I can't quite remember). And it was around that time that the anonymous idiot, realized he could have his 5 seconds of fame simply by putting on the most ridiculous kind of garment, (or in the case of women, remove every trace of it) and getting admitted into a football stadium (if only someone would stop him...).

Be it wherever and whenever, I am not here to argue on the power of the medium (that is TV in HD or any other quality). The point I am trying to make is as simple as this:
Since when have we fans become a part of the spectacle so that we deserve to be ostentatiously treated side by side with the actual protagonists, the football players and their coaches?
Since when do people feel that going to a football stadium is more about showing off their worst taste in costumes than watching the actual game?
Since when have people become so self-centered that instead of watching the game they sit patiently staring at the big screen (nowadays all big stadia have at least one) waiting for their little, insignificant existences to appear so that they can wave mommy or daddy hello?
And since when has the feeling "I saw it. I was there!" been substituted by "You saw me. I was there!" ?

It may be a sign of the times, a simple manifestation of how, in a powerful media-driven society, the passive spectator becomes the spectacle or -for that matter- how easily he can be tricked into believing he is something more than just that. A passive spectator. In a society where our ability to have a real say about things that matter has been substituted by the illusion of deciding on the next "pop idol" it is becoming increasingly important to realize what order of things we HAVE to be involved in and what not. Football -other than a great game for those of us lucky to still practice it- is a spectacle and should remain one. The moment the fans get to have their own "Fan of the match" webpage, (check it out, it exists) something is definitely going wrong.

To all those that will arguably point out that football without TV would be something very different than what it really is, I can simply offer to lend them a couple of my DVDs of old World Cups where the TV was present only without the occasional morons staring at the camera, making the V-sign instead of watching the game they had paid for.

Please, keep this in mind, for the next time you see a clown like this popping up on your TV screen in the middle of the semis.

Absence

One would think of a very solid way to define absence. Someone is missing. There is now a void occupying the physical space that was sometime filled by that someone. There are however innumerable ways for this void to make its existence painfully explicit. Absence, is in this sense, radically different than loss.

No matter how prepared one may be, how incredibly, rationally acquainted with the loss of a beloved person, no matter how bravely he has confronted that loss, or how gracefully he has been avoiding that confrontation, he can never escape being startled by the painful absence that stems from it. And as it usually happens with things related to the beyond, this afflictive awe assumes the most unexpected shapes and sizes.

In my case absence was turning to face an empty chair last night. Ironically at a moment of joy, right after the end of a stressful but rewarding basketball final. It was the moment I would usually stand up from my usual spot on the couch to turn towards the dining table and my father's chair to cheerfully hi-five him and start a series of pointless -but vainly reassuring- congratulations on how good our team has once more proven to be. It was then, facing at an empty chair that the whole reassuring feeling was suddenly gone, the void rutlhessly stood in front of me and I realized how a basketball victory had reduced to so little.

It's times like these when you realize that life is a game you can only hope losing with style. 

on freedom of speech (and other demons)

Let's say tomorrow I wake up and go to work to give my lab meeting seminar, wearing a T-shirt like this one. What will the reaction be? Some may look interested, others might congratulate me for making a statement, there will be the ones who will find it a bit irritating. Will anyone care to fine me with 3000 euros? I guess not.

Nonetheless, this is what happened to Frederic Kanoute, FC Sevilla's striker for showing off his T-shirt after scoring a goal against Deportivo La Coruna in last Wednesday's Spanish Cup game. Even worse, Kanoute just escaped a fine of 30.000 euros since the message on his shirt (reading the word "Palestine" in multiple languages) "bore no direct references to violence"! It seems absurd that such a penalty comes directly from the penal code of the Spanish Football Federation in accord with the one set by UEFA. T-shirts with political messages are strictly forbidden, and of late even players taking off their shirts in celebrations are to be shown a yellow card. Such is the mind of people who run world football nowadays.

It seems that according to them, football players are only to score silent goals, they are to keep their opinions to themselves and they are to be severely punished if they choose to defy the shameful "omerta" that fines a T-shirt reading "Palestine" as much as tens of fans firing flares against the visitor crowd (it happened in Espanyol-Barcelona last October). The reasoning is as simplistic as is false. Football players, they tell us, as all athletes, are role models for young people. Their image comes in every home through TV. They simply cannot be allowed to transmit messages of any sort. What they don't tell us is that it is perfectly normal to transmit a number of messages, ALL strangely related to buying sponsored products, during the same football games, while the players are to perform silently and in accord with carefully spelled out instructions. Neither do they tell us that the TV broadcasting of football games is by far the greatest source of profit of all footballing federations on the planet and that on top of making millions out of the football players' efforts they claim the right of dictating their "politically correct" behaviour.

But should it be this way? Would you keep working for someone who would fine you if you wore a T-shirt with a political message? And what limits are there to freedom of speech? Is "Fight global warming" acceptable and "Kill all hippies" punishable? It just seems unfair to me that football players are free to wear T-shirts that read "Jesus Saves" but a message like "Save the people of Palestine" gets a fine of 30.000 euros!

But UEFA's bright minds should have known better. And as football fans throughout the world are something more than numb morons destined to buy PlayStations and Heineken six-packs, over the last two weeks, messages like "Free Palestine" and "Stop the War" have been appearring more and more often among the crowds in all great European stadia. It looks like we, football-"consumers", have already been contaminated by dissident voices like Kanoute's.

Or perhaps, we have never needed to.

the -almost- greatest moment ever...

There are a number of reasons for which I love football.

Most of the times football is beautiful to watch, like a nice film, only that you witness it taking place right there in front of your eyes. In striking contrast to people considering scientific results as "exciting", football IS exciting. In fact it is more than that. It is fascinating in a sense that it lights up passions and allows reactions that would otherwise be considered inappropriate for adults at my age. (For those who disagree, try about imagining the members of a certain "scientific" community celebrating their latest "exciting paper" in the streets).
Most important of all. Football means bonding, football means roots, in the sense that we all support a team that carries at least a distant connection to our social, national or familiar background. I support the team of my home town, the team of my father and my late uncle. It could not and should not have been otherwise.

The "greatest moment ever" is the title of the chapter that Nick Hornby devotes to his dearest memory as a football fun in his -great- book "Fever Pitch". Last night, in the loneliness of a half-full pub named Palace, somewhere in the Born, I was lucky to live my own greatest moment ever during my days in Barcelona. The "loneliness" stems from the fact that I was the only one passionately watching the game of Inter against Panathinaikos in one of the two screens available. The rest of the people were either boringly glancing at FC Barcelona thrashing Sporting Lisbon or indifferently having a beer while chatting. It was in the midst of this sort of surrealist atmosphere, when at the 68th minute a sudden scream of joy pierced the pub from end to end. "Yeaaaaaaah"! The rest of the people only momentarily turned my way to look at my blushing face, swollen with a slight embarrassment and a great deal of pride. My friend Julien, who "high-fived" me and the nice barwoman, who shouted "Happy hour!" in solidarity, were my two sole companions in that joyful moment. But I did not care. We were about to beat Mourinho's Inter and take a great step forward to qualify for the last-16 of the Champions League.

There is one reason, for which I hate football, though. And that is excess of love.

Which meant that the twenty-five minutes to follow were -as expected- an agony with no end. There is one thing in trying to achieve victory -or in my case, watching your team trying- and a whole different one trying to hold on to it. As the minutes were passing by with the scoreboard still the way you see it in the photo on top, my nerves were becoming more and more fragile. I hated football or I hated myself for loving it and I wished I was one of these indifferent people that only hear about results on the news and say "Really? they won in Italy?"

Now I know that I cannot be one of them. Simply because once you experience the uplifting effect of a great footballing victory, you can never go back to being a bored "couch-fun". Games like yesterday's are to be seen at the tip of your toes. After all, this helps you jump around more freely once the final whistle is blown.

steroids for researchers

Since last Friday, I have been trying to follow the Olympics as much as work and time difference permits me. I do it not so much because I enjoy watching archery or cycling but because the flat is so empty that even TV is a good company and -lets face it- any kind of sport is still better than the usual crap of Spanish TV. Over the last four days, I could not help noticing the ability with which swimmers of any nationality, sex or race have been beating olympic and world records, sometimes by three or more seconds. I cannot but be surprised by these athletes who beat opponents, time and their own selves once or twice a day.

I wonder if I could ever be like them, if I could ever become that good at what I do -or pretend to be doing. I quickly realize that I never will. And right after that, I realize that I would never want to. Competition is not my forte, I never found myself comfortable with struggling to be the best in something and even if sometimes I get merit for stuff I do, I fully realize it is mostly based on considerable luck and some residual talent (which is also part of being lucky). You -and by this I would like to have been talking mostly to my bosses- have to believe me. I honestly don't intend to be the best at what I do. Correction: I don't intend to be good at what I do. And by "intend" I don't mean I would not like to. It's just that I am not the least determined to work for it. I believe in luck and talent. If you have it you should not be needing steroids or effort. I don't have it -as most of the people- and since there are no steroids for researchers any effort to convert me into a high-class scientist would be futile. I therefore have to warn you. Do not count on me. My aspirations were fulfilled upon becoming a mediocre doctor of sciences.

Besides joking now, I would like to be good at many things. I want to be a good friend, perhaps someday a good father, I hope I made it through being a good son and who would not like to be a good lover? (if only!) I would like to be a good laugh on Saturday nights out or a good football fun. Once they asked Borges why he would never take up writing a big novel to which his answer was that the world had enough of good writers but was in dire need of good readers. He therefore preferred to read instead. I would also like to be a good reader. And I think I could be really good at it if only work would let me.

Human nature dictates that we aspire merit, recognition and fame. It is all connected to our honest appreciation of what is really beautiful. I grew up admiring great writers, thinkers, footballers and trumpet players. I grew up a bit more and wrote a couple of stuff that made me feel nice, made thinking a profession that pays the rent, played football for the school team and have fun while blowing a trumpet every now and then. At the side of all that, I did not forget to simply grew up. I simply grew up to accept the fact that Maradona, Wynton Marsalis, Castoriades, Einstein and Borges are to be admired because they are out of reach. Geniouses that lie at the edge of the bell curve that are mediocrities define. And I have grown up to know it's not bad to be mediocre. What is bad is not being at peace with yourself by accepting it.

I was making these thoughts and then Mike Phelps came to break one more world record.

Intuition

Over the last few days, I have been getting fewer sleep, less rest and more stress than usual. The reason has to be attributed rather to a tight schedule of pre-determined activities, than actual work. Which can be quite frustrating especially when you realize it is 7 pm and you are still at the lab without having have done anything useful apart from making a slide look nicer for a presentation everyone will forget ten minutes after they enter the room. On the side of all this, the usual fanfare of meetings, talking to people about your work, more communicating than actually working. Over the years, I have slowly developed my own personal alerts for when this sort of situation becomes increasingly unbearable, the most alerting of which is an increasing frequency of tiny memory failures. I tend to think I -still- have quite a good memory, therefore being unable to recall the director of a film I saw two weeks ago or the name of a street in Barcelona becomes a sort of annoying if not warning that something has been cryptically occupying my precious neurons to an extent greater than what I should have allowed for. And it gets really disturbing when you combine it with a feeling that something does not really fit, that there is something there in front of your nose, the right result, nature winking at you and you simply cannot see it because you lack concentration.

During the past frustrating week, the only thing that kept me going through another attack of this fragmentary universe of demands was the thought that in the end of it all, at the end of this week, I could seek the tranquility I 've been longing for in the beauty of my favourite game. Euro 2008 starts in less than 6 hours and a month full of football sounds as reassuring for my tormented mind as his blanket was for Linus, or a teddy bear for a little child. In the case of the little child inside of me, my favourite toy is a football and my most subconscious urges lead me to connect it with practically everything. Therefore, upon facing a "sea of troubles", I could not help but remembering this beautiful photo, which used to hang from the wall of my student-years bedroom. Maradona controlling the ball with the interior of his supreme left foot, facing half of the Belgian national team in the semifinal of the World Cup in 1986. Against this "sea of defenders" he is calm. On the other hand, it is his aspiring "troubles" who look troubled, if not horrified. Needless to say, a bit after this shot was taken, Diego went through all six of them, or even more, scoring one of the greatest goals in the history of football. That was his way to get out of trouble back then. And even if he didn't manage that well with other sorts of trouble, (sneakier, less apparent and without the "fairytale"-like clarity of a football opponent) he still remains one of my greatest heroes.

I was thinking about that goal against Belgium, slightly under-rated, although in my humble opinion equally magnificent to the famous one against England in the quarter-final of the same tournament. Then, in one of my -frequent- breaks in front of my plots, I decided to look it up in youtube. I came up with this video.

Contrary to the usually sloppy, biased and unworthy goal compilations one may find in youtube, this one is probably the best I can think of. It goes on for 22 minutes with a selection of 50 legendary goals and although some are still missing I cannot but congratulate the compiler for making my Friday a bit more bearable. As the countdown from 50 to 1 was developing, my satisfaction was growing in a rather egocentric way, as I was realizing that simply by looking at the name of the player and before even the goal was broadcast, I could guess which would the goal be. So, I anticipated Dennis Bergkamp's sublime move round Dabizas in a match of Arsenal against Newcastle, I watched Maradona pierce the Belgian defense, Roberto Carlos swerving the ball to an unprecedented angle in "that free-kick" against France, I remembered a beautiful shot by Enter in the World Cup of 82 against the Soviet Union, which I have only seen on video. And then I saw once again what should be the simplest greatest goal of all time. Brazil's 4th in the final of the World Cup of 1970 against Italy.

It doesn't look like a great goal at first, the ball being passed around with the coolness and indifference of a friendly game. The score is 3-1 already and we are well into the final quarter. But as with great works of art, it takes sometime to appreciate the beauty of this one, as the whole team passes the ball around, the opponents retreating in fear of the calmness before the storm. Tostao wins the ball back on the left side line, passes to Piazza, Piazza to Clodoaldo. Clodoaldo makes fun of four Italians who commit the mistake to approach, passes to Rivelino, he stays on the left swerving the ball down the line to Jairzinho. Then a thunderous short run parallel to the box, passes to Pele and there you have it. The goal starts here. By the moment Pele receives the ball everything has been decided already. The Italian defense is out of balance, as the overload of Brazil's attack is forced on the left side. Pele has a space wide open to his right but doesn't make any move. He just stands there facing the goal with the ball at his feet. Carlos Alberto has started his run on the weak side, comes into the TV frame by the time the Italians can only stare at him, as he receives a seemingly meaningless pass by Pele. A perfect shot to the far post. 4-1.

A lot have been said about this goal, mostly having to do with Pele's blind pass. The great Brazilian, when repeatedly asked about it, always gave the same answer. "I did not seem him coming, I heard his footsteps." Arrogant by nature, Pele shares here a part of the truth. It's only natural that he could not have heard Carlos' footsteps in the tumult of 120.000 fans in the Azteka Stadium. However, he cannot but have thought that the natural course of things would be this. That the right back would make the run on the weak side to catch the defense off-guard. His pass is the simple proof that in football as in every human activity, there is a constant need for blending thought with intuition.

I was thinking about all this when I realized that perhaps this blending is what I have been lacking over this last frenetic weak. And that maybe I need to add a bit more of intuition in my thoughts, instead of simply weighing down my poor, limited memory with loads of information.

Or maybe I am doing it again, connecting football to practically everything.

February 8th, 1981

The rain is dampening the freezing air. But nobody's cold.
Embraced in a song that seems never-ending, only to be interrupted by cheers.

One, two-nil.
And the song goes on until half-time. It doesn't stop even then. This festival goes on in the midst of this cold, as the scarves leave the necks naked and start dancing in the air. Their voices keep them warm.

Three, four-nil.
All they are waiting for is the final whistle. The score does not matter anymore. No need to worry or argue. They are already fantasizing the goals on tonight's news, their father stunned while listening to their stories, their friends afraid of their rag, looking for a place to hide. They think about tomorrow's happy Monday at school, at college, at work. This next happy week, full of laughter, until next Sunday comes and then the next, until the league is over and then the last Sunday of May with the title, then the transfer season, the summer break and then the first Sunday of September.

Five, six-nil...
Thoughts dancing around the Sundays to come and the songs that don't stop. They all go down the corridors, out of the stadium, back home, to the bars and cafes where the neighbours are waiting for an account of the triumph.

But the doors are shut.In front of them, the Sundays of the ones ahead are tumbling down the stairs. Behind them, the Sundays of the ones to follow are pushing them forward. Their own Sundays, stuck in the middle, crumble, trip and fall. The eyes fill with fear, that six-nil disappears, tonight's news, the rags and laughters, the league and their father waiting, they 're all pressed against the walls. All their Sundays condensed into this single afternoon, all their memories become one...

That of their mother, a few hours ago, as they were getting ready for the game, when she straightened their scarf around the neck, before telling them...

"Take care my son"...

---

PS. This message goes out for the 20 Olympiacos and one AEK fans who died a day like today, back in 1981. (Thanks to anonymous referee V. for reading, commenting and correcting)

stand up for you rights!

Yesterday I was writing about football, victories and defeats and how all these take their special place in the minds of fans, shape a collective memory, which is to be shared among people, strengthening bonds between them and eventually making their lives more interesting. I forgot to mention the obvious, that is that all of the above apply to sane people only.

I count myself among the sane ones. I 'll bear the grief for yesterday's defeat, share it with my father and friends, long for an opportunity to regain the pride and wipe out the shame of this 4-0. It is now part of our club's history, which as the history of a nation includes both victories, disasters and triumphs. But, these are all having to do with one thing ONLY and that is football. Insane people, on the other hand, are totally missing this point. They feel a football game result, is a projection of their whole lives, which void of any meaning are in desperate need of a cause. And they find this cause in questioning life itself. They do it by killing each other.

Yesterday night, right after the game an Olympiakos' fan was stubbed in the heart by some people I don't even dare to describe as football fans. He died on the spot, simply because he was too unlucky in being at the wrong place in the wrong time, celebrating victory with a drink, with his team's scarf around his neck. He did the most natural thing to do, and if my team had won and I was not living in Barcelona, I could have been in his place.

The question is what WE do about all this. How long can this keep going? It's high time people take action to stop this disgrace. Above all we, football fans, should stand up for our right to enjoy freely the game we love without having to apologise all the time about the brutal insanity, with which some maniac idiots have chosen to surround it. Unless, fans, sports journalists and footballers, everyone that has a say about this game go down the streets to declare that we shall tolerate this no more, we don't deserve anything better than this!

Atonement...

...will have to wait 7 more years....

Atonement

March 21st, 2001 was a Wednesday. Having not found tickets for the game and given there was some kind of TV broadcasting ban, I had no option than to stay at home and listen to it on the radio. My father sat at the other side of the table, smoking unstoppably. Ten minutes after kick-off we were down 0-2 and the hope of securing a soothing victory against Olympiakos was already gone. By that time we had been beaten by them in every possible way. Within a period of five years, we had lost to them four league titles, more than a handful of derbies, including a humiliating Cup Final in which they played with one man down for most of the game. But an astonishing 1-4 defeat in our home ground, with no excuse about a terrifying atmosphere or biased refereeing could only mean one thing. We had reached the bottom.

It's been almost seven years since then. Things between us (Panathinaikos) and them (Olympiakos) have not changed considerably. They still win the league, we still do better in Europe. Over these seven years we have had victories over them, won back a Cup Final in 2004, got the double that same year and have not lost to them in our last 4 encounters. But, in spite of all that, the stain of that distant 1-4 remains.

They say that football is about winning, just like any other sport, that winning is all a matter of consistency and that the best is the one who wins trophies at the end of the season instead of achieving solitary victories in the middle of it. But for a helpless romantic like myself, -even more, one with a painfully good memory-, there are some victories or defeats that somehow are more important than a series of trophies. They mark a before and an after, they set a time-mark in the history of clubs and consequently in the lives of the funs. They become part of a legend, where game results become historical events, wins are now called "triumphs" and losses qualify as "disasters", in the strict footballistic sense. They don't happen very often, therefore the shame can last for years.

Fortunately it's the strict footballistic sense that allows to avenge the shame and regain the pride. There are opportunities in the form of re-matches. Tonight's game is one such. A one-off Cup quarter-final at their ground, with our lads in high moral and the strong belief we can do it. It's no easy task, given that a 0-1 victory will not mean revenge. Most of today's players were not there with me on that Wednesday, some of them were not even aware that tere is a team called Panathinaikos. It's not their job to carry the memory of that game for seven years. They may be unaware of the fact that they have a chance for atonement, a chance to make up for that disgraceful 1-4, seven years ago. And it may be better like this.

All they have to do is play good football tonight. And let me long for the atonement of their predecessors.

You 'll never walk alone

Could not have been otherwise!

The Reds of Merseyside, a club originally founded and run by Liverpool workers whose greatest players have always been proud local lads, Liverpool FC which is -as they say- not a club with funs, but funs with a club, against million-pounds-Chelsea, a team from a rich side of London, whose billioner president and arrogant coach have aspired to transform into a European top club, met in Anfield Road's legendary ground on May 1st.

The outcome was not a surprise and Liverpool FC will not walk alone in what will be the attempt for the 6th Champions Winners' Cup on May 23th in my home town, Athens.

Almost one year ago I was posting that I don't like mixing politics with football and here I am going down the slippery road to connecting footballing victories with working-class triumphs. The sad truth is that, historical connotations aside, it is nothing like it. True that Liverpool is much poorer a club compared to Chelsea and even truer that going down the steps under "This is Anfield" and into the pitch with the echo of "You 'll never walk alone" sang by the Kop-choir can influence every game's outcome, but apart from that, no worker will get anything out of a Liverpool win apart from a temporary consolation from his real problems.

Nevertheless, last night's semifinal comes as another proof of history still counting in football, and shirts being "heavier" than money. And that maybe poor people with a cause, like "poor" clubs with a history may still have a chance in winning the Champions League.

As for the real world and politics...posts are coming up.

How Football saved my life

It sounds plain but it is true. I think us Greeks have something from Ulysses inside us. Maybe it is me more than the average Greeks or then perhaps all people are like this and it makes no sense to recite stereotypes. But it is true that "goodbyes" become harder every time you have to repeat them.

The most recent one in a series that seems too long already, was two nights ago, during dinner at a very nice restaurant in the neighborhood where both me and my father grew up. She was sitting next to me, with so many things to say but still we were talking about a whole load of things that were not important as if small talk would save us from another awful, depressing farewell.

I came back home in sorrow, thinking that there was no song that could make me feel a bit better or at least fill in my blank with music. And then I was saved by the one thing I had deliberately forgotten completely.
I entered my parents house thinking about nothing, having to pack my stuff for the day after, feeling empty just in time for my father to inform me that Manchester United had beaten AS Roma 7-1 in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final. It has been the greatest performance by the "devils" ever since their historical treble back in 1999 and with no doubt one of the greatest games of the Champions League ever and I had missed it. All the same, I felt no guilt for having chosen to put myself through another painful goodbye. Instead I sat myself in front of the TV to watch the extended highlights of the game. Then came eight brilliant goals, the "theatre of dreams" in full swing, a great night for ManU -although I am the exact opposite of a fun of them- then the great last minute win of Chelsea in Valencia which meant they were through to the other semifinal to meet my beloved Liverpool.

Before I knew, a full hour had passed, as had my initial desperation. My impulsive sadness had sedimented, having given its place to more optimistic thoughts. I went on to pack my suitcase and finish my book, having realized that football had saved my life... or at least my humor

...there are no miracles,
for miracle flows in the veins of man...

Giorgos Seferis

Campeones! Campeones!

The combination of football with politics, I have to admit, is something I find very interesting. Mostly because I think that it is difficult to separate the two, even more because I think that you really shouldn't. But being in Barcelona for only three months and a half, I have come to find this over-identification of the city's pride with a football team all a little disturbing. I mean, it could have happened to anybody if he were to watch just a couple of Barca games on the catalan TV! It doesn't take you that much to notice that players with an amazing lack of skill tend to win the admiration of the funs through their catalan origins and their even more catalan statements in the local press. And you would curiously osberve the way you very rarely have a chance to see a replay of a goal scored by the opposing team (unless of course it a totally unimportant last minute consolation).

In general you would soon get the feeling that, when it comes to FC Barcelona, objectivity as a notion becomes a little evanescent!

But honestly, not being a sterilized-romantic fun, I would not have cared a bit about all these things, if only I could share the people's feelings about Barca. I just can't. Because deep inside and although I love this city and its people, I would like to feel that I am living in Spain and not in another country somewhere between Spain and France, whose inhabitants use the words "Iberian Peninsula" with ever decreasing frequency. And although I love to connect football with politics when I like the politics behind it, I hate it when it happens with politics I disagree with.

So, no, for those who are still wondering, I did not enjoy yesterday's triumph, although from the fun's point of view Barca deserved to win this cup more than anyone.

I like the catalan people and I also like their "pride", FC Barcelona with its galaxy of stars and their fascinating football. I also feel I owe something to the country that has welcomed me so warmly since last January and I consider that country to be Spain. So I would really, really love it if the Spanish national team's performances in the upcoming World Cup would make us all, foreigners living here, catalan-spanish and non-catalan-spanish meet at Canaletas and celebrate together, with no hard feelings whatsoever.

How I won the Six Nations' (on my first try!)

The event seemed to be a not-miss! France was playing England in what was inarguably the most decisive matchup of the Six Nations' Cup in rugby, my french colleagues were going to watch the game live somewhere close to the Sagrada Familia and this is how I decided to make my debut in yet another team sport loud-screaming-while-watching-and-drinking extravaganza.

I had only finished reading Nick Horby's "Fever Pitch" which had influenced me significantly in considering my forgotten extreme reactions of fandom an irreparable loss I had to compensate for. So I got on the metro and headed to Sagrada Familia to discover what rugby really is. The environment - an irish pub named "Michael Collins", whose owner did not even let the english national anthem to be heard from the TV- and my company -Arnaud, probably wisely masking his excitement and Sylvain making no such effort whatsoever- left me with no options about which side to support. The English were the favourites anyway, so France was the obvious choice.

[a strange game]
I experienced my first try, while ordering a first couple of pints, had to wait for the second until well in the second half and was pleased to understand the circumstances under which the third, definitive one came, a little before the end of the game. A steal and a short run towards the final line, under the cheers of french-irish-(greek?) enthusiasm.
Rugby, however, is a strange game. You understand there is a perfectly devised strategy behind the coordinated moves of so many players, but you find it somehow difficult to appreciate it in its fullness. On the other hand, my lack of experience could in no case allow me to distinguish between an awful mistake of a defender from a brilliant improvization on behalf of the attacker. In all, I felt a bit lost although we won a record win of all times.

[too late]
However, I think it is too late for me to hook up with a new game. This happens only once in a lifetime, twice maybe to the less loyal ones, and always during childhood. I enjoyed watching the match, loved the atmosphere, tried to share as much of the joy of my colleagues, but in the end, I only discovered I belonged elsewhere. That was when, a short after the game had ended, the pub owner switched channel and an Arsenal-Liverpool match came up. Five minutes of a boring, passing game just before halftime were enough to make me understand that some things are already chosen for you and all you can do is accept them without asking too many questions.