There is much to say about the upcoming European Championships, but on a largely quiet Sunday afternoon, I found myself unable to turn away from the strangest of soccer exhibitions: “the legends match.” I will confess to being totally ignorant of the occasion, but a group Manchester United “legends” (Quinton Fortune, anyone?) visited the Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid to face off against a skeleton of the Galácticos-era Real Madrid—the last Madrid team to scale the pinnacle of European soccer.
The idea of a legends match in a sport as physically demanding as soccer is a bit strange. To be fair, I’m sure none of the 60,000 spectators who packed the stadium expected anything as scintillating as the 2003 Champions League quarterfinal match between Manchester and Madrid, one of the best in history. For reasons I cannot properly articulate, I found it hard to resist the idea of turning back the clock and watching Zidane, Figo, Carlos and Hierro plod along the Bernabéu’s sacred surface.
Even the referee was a legend—the hairless Italian Pierluigi Collina. Collina was my original celebrity referee of whom the contemporary Howard Webb is a poor imitation. Unfortunately, Collina was never given the opportunity to whistle a penalty and shame the offending player with his chilling stare.
Collina blew the whistle to start the match, and there I was, unable to look away from the uncanny spectacle. From a purely technical perspective there were a couple of tricks performed at half speed, and some moments that brought back memories.
Fernando Morientes, with whom I scored countless bicycle kicks in some dusty, primitive version of the FIFA video game opened the scoring with a limp volley. Finally out from under the shadow of Raul, the underrated forward had his moment with the Madrid fans.
Minutes later Luis Figo was given a deferential amount of space by the United backline and duly whipped in a trademark curler. Whether this can make up for his ghoulish appearance in commercials for a men’s hair-color product is difficult to say.
The defining image came in the 43rd minute, as the first half drew to a close. It was a small moment that happened so quickly that it may have failed to register except with true connoisseurs of soccer for the aged.
If there was one player in the match who seemed immune to the effects of aging, it was Zinedine Zidane. Trim and graceful as ever, he showed no evidence of a gut or other signs of the good life of the ex-professional. I counted only one stray pass from the French playmaker in the entire match.
But in the legends match, we see our gods at their most fallible. A heavy, poorly directed pass, rolled toward Zidane. Rushing to receive the ball, Zidane stretched, reaching for the pass. His frame, lacking some minute portion of its former strength and flexibility, was overcome. Zidane slipped and fell.
There is nothing so extraordinary about a soccer player falling to the turf—it happens in every game. But there is something wrong with Zidane falling. The player who can volley home a champions league winner with his weaker foot, the player who beat Brazil in a World Cup final, a legend in a game of legends, should receive even wayward passes.
It was this small moment that characterized the slightly morbid core of the exhibition. Are memories (and the ghostly archive of YouTube compilations) not enough? The legends match reveals the particular finitude of the sporting condition. The tragedy of being an athlete is the inevitable decline of the gifted body, which must be so much more traumatic than the slow deterioration of our own weak, uncoordinated shells. Everyone’s time is limited, but the athlete's much more so. Their immortality, paradoxically, must transcend its bodily cause. Athletic accomplishments may live forever, but only as words and images deprived of their essential physicality.
We shouldn’t be too hard on the legends. There were moments of time-defying grace in the match, like when Fernando Redondo walked through the United defense. For a player whose magnificent talent was tarnished by injury, the exhibition was a small redemption. And if I am able to lace up a pair of soccer shoes late into my fifties I will consider myself lucky. There is camaraderie for the players who fought for each other, and for the great institutions of the two clubs. These are the diminished satisfactions of the legends.
--
Follow Alex Campolo on Twitter: @AlexCampolo
Follow SportsOlogy on Twitter: @OlogySports
Comments (0)
Be the first to comment!