Soccer
I'm a sports fanatic and have a BA in English Literature so when I read this passage about Paoli Rossi and soccer I needed to share it:
You never see him anywhere on the playing field except where he has to be. A thin devil of a man who can't be seen except after the goal is scored, exactly like a jet fighter, invisible until the explosion of its target. And where Paoli Rossi is, there the goal will be and the cheers. Then he will disappear or fade away, only to open paths in the air for his feet, busy concocting opportunities and ripening them, then sending them off to the summit of realized desire. One doesn't know if he's playing soccer or playing the game of love with the net. The net resists, and he tempts it, luring it with Italian chivalry and elegance on a hot Spanish playing field. He tempts it with the slipping and sliding movements of a cat aroused by cries of desire. And in full sight of those guarding its chastity, who afterwards reseal its virginity with a membrane of ten men, Paolo Rossi will come forward, totally passionate, to penetrate with a muscle made of air a net that surrenders to a beautiful ravishment, relaxed, willing to be taken, and no longer able to resist.
Soccer.
-Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982
Translated by Ibrahim Muhawi
You never see him anywhere on the playing field except where he has to be. A thin devil of a man who can't be seen except after the goal is scored, exactly like a jet fighter, invisible until the explosion of its target. And where Paoli Rossi is, there the goal will be and the cheers. Then he will disappear or fade away, only to open paths in the air for his feet, busy concocting opportunities and ripening them, then sending them off to the summit of realized desire. One doesn't know if he's playing soccer or playing the game of love with the net. The net resists, and he tempts it, luring it with Italian chivalry and elegance on a hot Spanish playing field. He tempts it with the slipping and sliding movements of a cat aroused by cries of desire. And in full sight of those guarding its chastity, who afterwards reseal its virginity with a membrane of ten men, Paolo Rossi will come forward, totally passionate, to penetrate with a muscle made of air a net that surrenders to a beautiful ravishment, relaxed, willing to be taken, and no longer able to resist.
Soccer.
-Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982
Translated by Ibrahim Muhawi