Sometimes we need reminders.
Why I Love Milan (reasons which are only tangentially related to Alessandro Nesta's ankles)
Football is a treacherous thing, it can buoy you up one moment and send you crashing down the next. It is cruel, is football, when it takes hold of your heart, cruel and relentless and unforgiving. It burns us, it beats us, it leaves us broken and battered. Why, then, do we come crawling back to it, begging it for more, weeping when it is taken away? Why do we long for it, live for it? Because football is the closest thing we have to human passion in physical form. It is what we are, what makes us human, all of that compressed down to 22 men and a ball on a pitch. And we are frail creatures, humans, frail and corrupt and prone to evil ways, but gods, are we ever beautiful. And that is what football is, corrupt and beautiful, life and death in ninety minutes.
Why Milan, then? Because Milan means football, as someone who would know quite well once said. It means everything about football. It means football because it has what football needs, only writ large -- do you want stunning beauty? Milan has it, in the brilliance of Kaká out-maneuvering the opposition's defense, or in the effortless grace of Paolo Maldini calmly shutting down a striker, or even (yes, let it be said) in the sublime, elven beauty of Alessandro Nesta's ankles. Do you want unbearable loyalty? Milan has it, in its capitano who can be summed up by merely saying thirty-nine, twenty three, one*. Do you want unreasonable hatred? Milan has it, in a cross-town rivalry as unquenchable as it is illogical. Do you want ownership by Evil Overlords? Milan has the premier of them all, Silvio Berlusconi, the man who only escaped being labeled a dictator because he oversaw what can be considered, in a good light and if you squint hard enough, a democracy. Do you want stunning examples of human mistakes deciding the fate of the footballing world? Milan has them, from a century of dodgy penalty decisions to being abused, slandered, and framed for calciopoli. Do you want unstable relationships with fanatical fans? Milan routinely gets in fights with its own Curva. Do you want the ability to use publicity as a weapon? No one can do it like Milan's PR department, the Mighty Milan Media Machine, the king of image creators. Do you want individual talent? Kaká. Maldini. Nesta. Pirlo. Gattuso. Seedorf. And I'm only mentioning the ones that are currently playing. Do you want team unity? Rossoneri.
Do you want victory? 17 scudettos, 7 Champions League trophies. Do you want defeat? 4 lost Champions League finals. 3 seasons of relegation. Milan has in it everything that makes football, football.
Milan has played some stunningly beautiful football, it is true. But it has also played some truly shockingly awful football. But that just makes it more precious, because it's that discontinuity that is at the heart of the game. We all love it win our teams win, of course, and every hard-core fan wants their team to win everything, even things they're not playing in, but football wouldn't be football if you could predict the outcome of the matches. So I embrace the awful days, the matches where Rino can't run and Pirlo's timing is impeccably horrible and the defense is as porous as Real Madrid's back line and Dida seems to have lost his hands and Pippo is permanently stuck in an offside position and even Kaká can't convert the inevitable Wasted Gila Chance. Because I know what I need to know: this is Milan. This is football.
*That is, for any of you not familiar with the stunning awe that is Paolo Maldini, thirty-nine years old, twenty three years playing professional football, and all of them at one club.
Football is a treacherous thing, it can buoy you up one moment and send you crashing down the next. It is cruel, is football, when it takes hold of your heart, cruel and relentless and unforgiving. It burns us, it beats us, it leaves us broken and battered. Why, then, do we come crawling back to it, begging it for more, weeping when it is taken away? Why do we long for it, live for it? Because football is the closest thing we have to human passion in physical form. It is what we are, what makes us human, all of that compressed down to 22 men and a ball on a pitch. And we are frail creatures, humans, frail and corrupt and prone to evil ways, but gods, are we ever beautiful. And that is what football is, corrupt and beautiful, life and death in ninety minutes.
Why Milan, then? Because Milan means football, as someone who would know quite well once said. It means everything about football. It means football because it has what football needs, only writ large -- do you want stunning beauty? Milan has it, in the brilliance of Kaká out-maneuvering the opposition's defense, or in the effortless grace of Paolo Maldini calmly shutting down a striker, or even (yes, let it be said) in the sublime, elven beauty of Alessandro Nesta's ankles. Do you want unbearable loyalty? Milan has it, in its capitano who can be summed up by merely saying thirty-nine, twenty three, one*. Do you want unreasonable hatred? Milan has it, in a cross-town rivalry as unquenchable as it is illogical. Do you want ownership by Evil Overlords? Milan has the premier of them all, Silvio Berlusconi, the man who only escaped being labeled a dictator because he oversaw what can be considered, in a good light and if you squint hard enough, a democracy. Do you want stunning examples of human mistakes deciding the fate of the footballing world? Milan has them, from a century of dodgy penalty decisions to being abused, slandered, and framed for calciopoli. Do you want unstable relationships with fanatical fans? Milan routinely gets in fights with its own Curva. Do you want the ability to use publicity as a weapon? No one can do it like Milan's PR department, the Mighty Milan Media Machine, the king of image creators. Do you want individual talent? Kaká. Maldini. Nesta. Pirlo. Gattuso. Seedorf. And I'm only mentioning the ones that are currently playing. Do you want team unity? Rossoneri.
Do you want victory? 17 scudettos, 7 Champions League trophies. Do you want defeat? 4 lost Champions League finals. 3 seasons of relegation. Milan has in it everything that makes football, football.
Milan has played some stunningly beautiful football, it is true. But it has also played some truly shockingly awful football. But that just makes it more precious, because it's that discontinuity that is at the heart of the game. We all love it win our teams win, of course, and every hard-core fan wants their team to win everything, even things they're not playing in, but football wouldn't be football if you could predict the outcome of the matches. So I embrace the awful days, the matches where Rino can't run and Pirlo's timing is impeccably horrible and the defense is as porous as Real Madrid's back line and Dida seems to have lost his hands and Pippo is permanently stuck in an offside position and even Kaká can't convert the inevitable Wasted Gila Chance. Because I know what I need to know: this is Milan. This is football.
*That is, for any of you not familiar with the stunning awe that is Paolo Maldini, thirty-nine years old, twenty three years playing professional football, and all of them at one club.