four sides and an image.
Here, a small selection of my favorite photos from the match, the celebrations, and the aftermath. My great weakness is that no matter who wins, I will always look at the photos, the material rendering of unfettered joy -- the wild eyes and crazed limbs and colors and lights, the greatest sustained explosion in the world.
That great orb, which is not floating in the sky on wheels made of clouds, but stuck firmly into the ground, steel beams and concrete columns as sturdy as the feet and legs that pound away resolutely inside it. Gravity not as the chain of human life, but as the limit that wants to be broken. How do you break it? By imagination. By playing.
One man at the center of it all, the last line of defense but the first man to go up the steps, with steady hands and even calmer eyes. But tonight, the metal feels different from all the other kinds he's touched in his life: heavier than history, yes, but lighter than the brush of the ball off his fingertips and -- yes, no, wait, yes, just wide of the goal.
The smoke clears and revelation comes to fill in the spaces. Him, them, all of them; bound together by big fat gleaming molecules in the air, joy made visible.
There's a band of light that circles all the way around the place, but this is not a spaceship from the future, or a metaphor, or an illusion. This is happening. This is really happening. If the reflection of his face is a momentary inversion of expectation and reality, his fingerprints are proof.
Miles and hours away, they try their best to scale the buildings and climb straight into the charred sky. They can't, so they settle for a conflagration, a melding, a chorus. The leaves sway and the flags wave, but there is no wind, just voices and movement in the shadows.
Whose idea was it, these colors, this arrangement? Which decree that set this in the air? Substanceless but not inconsequential, it will evaporate within minutes, but by then everybody has tipped their heads backward (the opposite direction of prayer) in salutation.
And lastly, the true mark of champions: that no man finds it necessary to look around him for confirmation. He looks up and it's there, above him in glints of gold. He looks out and it's there, in the adulating swarm of bodies and outstretched hands. He doesn't need to look inside because it's been there the whole way.
And now to ruin the effect, a two-part demonstration titled "Pepe Reina is a deranged bitch."
Because he just is, okay.
That great orb, which is not floating in the sky on wheels made of clouds, but stuck firmly into the ground, steel beams and concrete columns as sturdy as the feet and legs that pound away resolutely inside it. Gravity not as the chain of human life, but as the limit that wants to be broken. How do you break it? By imagination. By playing.
One man at the center of it all, the last line of defense but the first man to go up the steps, with steady hands and even calmer eyes. But tonight, the metal feels different from all the other kinds he's touched in his life: heavier than history, yes, but lighter than the brush of the ball off his fingertips and -- yes, no, wait, yes, just wide of the goal.
The smoke clears and revelation comes to fill in the spaces. Him, them, all of them; bound together by big fat gleaming molecules in the air, joy made visible.
There's a band of light that circles all the way around the place, but this is not a spaceship from the future, or a metaphor, or an illusion. This is happening. This is really happening. If the reflection of his face is a momentary inversion of expectation and reality, his fingerprints are proof.
Miles and hours away, they try their best to scale the buildings and climb straight into the charred sky. They can't, so they settle for a conflagration, a melding, a chorus. The leaves sway and the flags wave, but there is no wind, just voices and movement in the shadows.
Whose idea was it, these colors, this arrangement? Which decree that set this in the air? Substanceless but not inconsequential, it will evaporate within minutes, but by then everybody has tipped their heads backward (the opposite direction of prayer) in salutation.
And lastly, the true mark of champions: that no man finds it necessary to look around him for confirmation. He looks up and it's there, above him in glints of gold. He looks out and it's there, in the adulating swarm of bodies and outstretched hands. He doesn't need to look inside because it's been there the whole way.
And now to ruin the effect, a two-part demonstration titled "Pepe Reina is a deranged bitch."
Because he just is, okay.