| Product: |
Football in General |
| Date: |
30/06/00 (18 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Too many to list
Disadvantages: Too few to bother with
When you think about it, we football fans can ask one hell of a lot of the sport. We ask for individuals blessed with the ability to captivate us with a mere brush by the ball, we ask for sides so fluent and stylish that one would be mistaken into thinking their telegraphic understanding of one another was borne of their kicking a ball about together since their days in the womb. We ask for vibrant attacking football, capped off by goals - lots of them. Oh, and we ask for it all during one tournament, thank you very much.
Alright, we might not demand it at gunpoint, but it would be very nice all the same. We'll grudgingly accept less satisfying alternatives - after all, the game is a drug and we'll be back again next time, good trip or bad - however that won't stop a great many of us harping back to days of yore, days when we did have it all.
Let's face it, the recent vintage of major international tournaments has not been a particularly great one. In fact, since Italia '90 signalled the dawn of the age of pragmatism, there's been little for those other than corporate sponsors or Television stations vying for viewing figures to get incredibly worked up about. However when Luis Figo's exocet missile tore past David Seaman and into the top corner of the English net, heralding his side's resurrection in a game they had all but been killed off in just minutes earlier, Euro 2000 arrived as something else altogether.
Of course, the tournament's official kick off was two nights earlier, but it was when Figo advanced through a gap in the English defence with the kind of purpose that would have forced God into rethinking his choice of Moses as Red Sea delegate, before firing home from 25 yards, that it kicked off in the hearts and minds of those longing for football's rebirth. In a sense, Portugal's clash with England was a prefatory microcosm of what Euro 2000 itself was about explode into.
The
match offered drama, in the form of Portugal's comeback, goals, in the form of all five of them, great goals, in the form of Portugal's three, and incredible individual performances, courtesy of the victors' dangerous attacking axes of Figo, Rui Costa and Nuno Gomes. And it offered refreshingly exhilarating, uninhibited attacking football, courtesy of, well, Portugal.
It also signalled the beginning of the end for North-Western European nations, who almost without exception were to be sent home on the first available flights by their infinitely more organised, studious and skilful counterparts from Latin Europe and the East. Only Holland would remain from this region - France as well perhaps, if one is intent on haggling over geographic discernments - however both are countries who have long since had a dedication to far more pleasing football than their neighbours.
As is the case in this day and age, each trend spread like wildfire. There was further drama to come - every time Yugoslavia stepped on to a pitch a full scale Escape to Victory recreation seemed to greet them, until of course they bumped into the Dutch in the quarter finals, an episode more likened to that of the last stand at Rourke's Drift, with Patrick Kluivert and co playing the Zulus of course. The Spanish, having overcome Yugoslavia in such electrifying fashion just days earlier, didn't have any more predictable a time against the French, who in turn went on leave observers nail-bitten and breathless by displaying a penchant for goals so golden they'll be finding space for extra reserves at Fort Knox in which to house them.
The list of outstanding individuals is almost too long to go through in roll-call manner, never mind taking the time also to acclaim the particular potencies attributed to each performer. However, the images conjured up by names such as Zidane, Totti, Nesta, Raul, Cannavaro, Zahovic, Milosevic, Figo, Kluivert, Henry, Rui Cost
a, Mendieta and so on, should suffice - at least for those of us who when it comes to the beautiful game's most radiant models, are more than willing to poke and prod at the nostalgic refuse in order to create that bit more space in the memory bank.
The finest of all time? Well, in this observer's lifetime certainly. That's the problem with us young folk - we already think we've seen it all. God help anyone trying to convince us otherwise after this summer.
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