End of the road

Close to a week after the World Cup ended in bizzare circumstances, we have seen more about the controversial departure of Zinedine Zidane from the world of football and the Italian FA scam enquiry, than the World Champions themselves. deservedly so.

As far as the final was concerned, the Year of the Dog curse stayed and the Italians hung on to win on penalties. I believe there is a lot of luck associated with penalty shoot-outs; but it works both ways; what goes around, comes around and all that shit; and the Italians for once came out as winners. Though I feared their overall team strength, it was heartening to see that the French really had the upper hand for the majority of the game - much against expectations. But strangely, in the space of a few minutes, Viera, Henry, Ribery and Zidane were all out of the game - arguably, the best players for the french. It did have an impact as a few of them would have definitely been one of the penalty takers. However, this is speculative shit.

So, as the Thierry Henry of the Arsenal colours did not make an appearance in the finals, I am closer to setting my expectations as far as he is concerned. 50% of me thinks highly of the guy, because of the style and his goal scoring exploits in Arsenal colours. The other 50% does not, because of his ego and the related reluctance to play with the rest of the team and his insistence to play his own type of game, irrespective of the situation. I attribute it to his ego, because I get the feeling that he thinks (and also wants everyone else to think) that he is an All-Time Great already (the title is usually reserved for the top mid-fielders the World has seen - i.e. Pele, Maradona and Zidane). And therefore, he has every right to play the way he wishes to. Its another thing that it works in Arsenal because the team is genuinely built around him. Thats why the truth is: much as Arsenal needs Thierry Henry, Thierry Henry needs Arsenal and Arsene Wenger.

It pissed me off to see Ribery, Malouda do all the hardwork of working across the layered Italian defence, bringing the ball closer to the box, but finding no one there. Mr. Henry was lurking somewhere much behind, waiting for the ball to come to him. What is the point of having a 4-5-1 formation, when your forward refrains from being positionally available for his mid-fielders. I felt similarly in the Champions League final: when in the second half, an impressive Ljundberg and Fabregas combined to take the ball forward through the left and break through to find no fucking Henry to put the ball in - that cost us the trophy. To me, it appears that Henry is obsessed with himself, which is a good thing for a sportsman, but not so good for the team if it does not gel with what the other 10 players are upto. A la Sunil Gavaskar.

As you can see, I am struggling to understand this fellow and more so what I think of him. My previous post shows the hope that I carry everytime that there is an important match coming up. However, after this tournament, I have finally set my expectations in place. He is a good, stylish player, but I would not expect him to inspire a team on his own to a great victory (in a final).

On the contrary, I am quite prepared to think that the world has seen one of the greatest to finish his career in Real style last Sunday. He deserves the red card all right, Mr. ZZ. However, talks of the red card in his final match, that too a WC Final, will taint his career is all balls. It is disappointing, that as a footballer, he could succumb to such provocation. Am certain that every amateur sportsman would have learnt that such drivel is part of life and that such provocation will be used to intimidate opponents. The Guardian has a hilarious piece on the mother of all insults.

But the look on his face as he brought down the Italian took me back to the ZZ interview that I had read a couple of years ago in The Observer (incidentally, one of the all-time best interviews I have ever read). As a kid, he could never complete a game because he used to be red-carded due to a short fuse and violent instincts. The look that he had on his face, is one of the most violent ones I have ever seen on a football pitch. He was smart to have used his head to bring down Materazzi rather than his hands. I think he would have broken his face & snapped his neck in that event and would have been arrested for murder. And imagine this: being led off the pitch in handcuffs. So, in retrospect, alls well that ends well.

I feel that his reaction was a tribute to his honesty and his lack of respect of how the world saw him / how he wanted to see him (critics, media, footballing legends, fans, history - it all) and I totally respect that. He returned to what he was when he started playing in the streets of Marseille. A perfect ending, in my mind.

In his most recent interview explaining his actions, the following comment stood out: "We always talk about the reaction, and inevitably it must be punished. But if there is no provocation, there is no reaction. First of all you have to say there is provocation, and the guilty one is the one who does the provoking. The response is to always punish the reaction, but if I react, something has happened." This has uncanny resemblance to what another french man had to say after the Old Trafford fracas 3 years back (a rare picture of the two gentlemen together).

On hindsight, I enjoyed the World Cup. good games, good sides And inspiring performances. an educating experience.