Nothing Like Inevitable
by angualupin
The truth is this: when you look back on it, there is a kind of crushing inevitability about it all, the Eurocopa, the treble, the World Cup. Victory, victory, victory, every team trying to shore up their defenses in front of goal until, inevitably, you find that one weakness and watch them collapse. But when you're in the middle of it it doesn't feel like that: each game is a new danger, each new space of ninety minutes a towering, colossal fortress to overcome. The world outside is filled with paeans to your footballing style, the overwhelming superiority of your play; the world inside is filled with nagging doubts and memories of your past failures.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter not because you keep winning, or because your play really is overwhelmingly superior, but because all of you breathe football, because for a month and a half, for all of you only the pitch is real. The opposition breaks itself on your defense not because they cannot keep the ball but because they are only human, men trying vainly to control a round inflated bit of leather. You are not. You are football itself, and the crushing inevitability is the way the ball moves around you, through you, into the net. Before each match you worry, fret, remember Inter and USA and every Spanish failure in every World Cup before this one, and before each match you step onto the pitch and it all falls away. This is football. This is what you are.
***
The truth is this: Switzerland is neither an end nor a beginning. You are (even now) not used to losing, and that tiny hungry place inside you that wants nothing but victory claws angrily at your center. Yet if there is one thing that Barça has taught you, it is how to move forward no matter what you are waiting for. If you are not given victory you will take it, with no apologies and no regrets and not a single moment of hesitation - because Barça has taught you that as well. And so the ball moves - again and again the ball moves, and what you are not given you take. It is enough.
***
The truth is this: Each game lies pristine in your memory, as removed from the rest of your life as the pitch itself. You know this is what you will take from South Africa: not the late-night poker games, the tactical training at Potchefstroom, the endlessly repetitive press conferences, but the weight of the ball at your feet, the moment when you look up and see your path clear in front of you, your pass perfectly timed.
Being at the World Cup may be a dream but it is the world outside that is dreaming. Xavi sits next to you during one of your rare quiet evenings and you laugh over what is written about you, the sheer unreality of it transforming what might otherwise have been hurtful into merely the ridiculous.
"If this is what we're like when we're playing badly, I wonder what they expect of us when we're playing well?" Xavi asks.
"Brazil 1960 and Argentina 1982 all rolled into one?" You say.
"God himself playing football, maybe," Xavi says, rolling his eyes. "Like God himself could do anything against a team that doesn't leave their own half for the entire game."
"I think you're doing a pretty damn good job at imitating God himself," you grin back, nudging him in the ribs. "Even against teams that never leave their own half."
Xavi laughs. "Hey, I have to pass the baton on in style," he says. "It's not like I'll have another World Cup."
Something inside you twists, as it always does when he talks about retiring, but you snort in exasperation. "You expect me to believe that? You couldn't walk away if you tried, and you wouldn't try."
"I'll be 34 in 2014," he says, and while there is humor in his eyes, there is a sad kind of solemnity as well. "I'll be old."
"You'll be more experienced," you say. You take the opportunity to climb on top of him, knees bracketing his hips. "You expect me to believe you'll ever walk away from football? Not while you can still breathe, and run." You kiss him.
"I won't be able to run forever," he murmurs against your lips, but by then both your and his hands are busy, and you are able to pretend you didn't hear.
And maybe it is unfair to say the games will be the only things you remember: you will remember these moments too, the touch of flesh on flesh, the shared gasps and moans, as if they were something new and precious to you, instead of just a continuation of your daily life.
***
The truth is this: You knew you were going to win the moment you stepped out on the pitch. Inevitability has nothing to do with it, the way you don't have to look to know where everyone else on the pitch is does. Holland is an irrelevance, their late challenges and frantic counterattacks nothing more than the futile snarling of a caged beast. The ball is yours, it has always been yours, and the sky and the pitch and the very air you breathe is red and gold. You will not fail, not here, not now. And so - you do not.
***
The truth is this: the goal comes as they always do, a moment of absolute purity, when the world about you simply stops and waits as you look up, shoot, score. There is nothing around you in these seconds, not the opposition's defenders, not your own teammates, not even the goalkeeper, just you, the ball, and the net, and as you bury it the world breathes once again.
You try to explain it to Xavi afterwards, the stillness before goal, but you know you just can't get it across. For all the similarities of your positions and play, Xavi lives and dies in the midfield, and he will never understand the terrifying solitude of the penalty box.
"Does it matter?" he says. He kisses you. "Campeones."
No, it does not matter.
***
The truth is this: you are (even now) not used to winning, but as that tiny hungry place inside you quiets, you think you can be living with it.
The truth is this: when you look back on it, there is a kind of crushing inevitability about it all, the Eurocopa, the treble, the World Cup. Victory, victory, victory, every team trying to shore up their defenses in front of goal until, inevitably, you find that one weakness and watch them collapse. But when you're in the middle of it it doesn't feel like that: each game is a new danger, each new space of ninety minutes a towering, colossal fortress to overcome. The world outside is filled with paeans to your footballing style, the overwhelming superiority of your play; the world inside is filled with nagging doubts and memories of your past failures.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter not because you keep winning, or because your play really is overwhelmingly superior, but because all of you breathe football, because for a month and a half, for all of you only the pitch is real. The opposition breaks itself on your defense not because they cannot keep the ball but because they are only human, men trying vainly to control a round inflated bit of leather. You are not. You are football itself, and the crushing inevitability is the way the ball moves around you, through you, into the net. Before each match you worry, fret, remember Inter and USA and every Spanish failure in every World Cup before this one, and before each match you step onto the pitch and it all falls away. This is football. This is what you are.
***
The truth is this: Switzerland is neither an end nor a beginning. You are (even now) not used to losing, and that tiny hungry place inside you that wants nothing but victory claws angrily at your center. Yet if there is one thing that Barça has taught you, it is how to move forward no matter what you are waiting for. If you are not given victory you will take it, with no apologies and no regrets and not a single moment of hesitation - because Barça has taught you that as well. And so the ball moves - again and again the ball moves, and what you are not given you take. It is enough.
***
The truth is this: Each game lies pristine in your memory, as removed from the rest of your life as the pitch itself. You know this is what you will take from South Africa: not the late-night poker games, the tactical training at Potchefstroom, the endlessly repetitive press conferences, but the weight of the ball at your feet, the moment when you look up and see your path clear in front of you, your pass perfectly timed.
Being at the World Cup may be a dream but it is the world outside that is dreaming. Xavi sits next to you during one of your rare quiet evenings and you laugh over what is written about you, the sheer unreality of it transforming what might otherwise have been hurtful into merely the ridiculous.
"If this is what we're like when we're playing badly, I wonder what they expect of us when we're playing well?" Xavi asks.
"Brazil 1960 and Argentina 1982 all rolled into one?" You say.
"God himself playing football, maybe," Xavi says, rolling his eyes. "Like God himself could do anything against a team that doesn't leave their own half for the entire game."
"I think you're doing a pretty damn good job at imitating God himself," you grin back, nudging him in the ribs. "Even against teams that never leave their own half."
Xavi laughs. "Hey, I have to pass the baton on in style," he says. "It's not like I'll have another World Cup."
Something inside you twists, as it always does when he talks about retiring, but you snort in exasperation. "You expect me to believe that? You couldn't walk away if you tried, and you wouldn't try."
"I'll be 34 in 2014," he says, and while there is humor in his eyes, there is a sad kind of solemnity as well. "I'll be old."
"You'll be more experienced," you say. You take the opportunity to climb on top of him, knees bracketing his hips. "You expect me to believe you'll ever walk away from football? Not while you can still breathe, and run." You kiss him.
"I won't be able to run forever," he murmurs against your lips, but by then both your and his hands are busy, and you are able to pretend you didn't hear.
And maybe it is unfair to say the games will be the only things you remember: you will remember these moments too, the touch of flesh on flesh, the shared gasps and moans, as if they were something new and precious to you, instead of just a continuation of your daily life.
***
The truth is this: You knew you were going to win the moment you stepped out on the pitch. Inevitability has nothing to do with it, the way you don't have to look to know where everyone else on the pitch is does. Holland is an irrelevance, their late challenges and frantic counterattacks nothing more than the futile snarling of a caged beast. The ball is yours, it has always been yours, and the sky and the pitch and the very air you breathe is red and gold. You will not fail, not here, not now. And so - you do not.
***
The truth is this: the goal comes as they always do, a moment of absolute purity, when the world about you simply stops and waits as you look up, shoot, score. There is nothing around you in these seconds, not the opposition's defenders, not your own teammates, not even the goalkeeper, just you, the ball, and the net, and as you bury it the world breathes once again.
You try to explain it to Xavi afterwards, the stillness before goal, but you know you just can't get it across. For all the similarities of your positions and play, Xavi lives and dies in the midfield, and he will never understand the terrifying solitude of the penalty box.
"Does it matter?" he says. He kisses you. "Campeones."
No, it does not matter.
***
The truth is this: you are (even now) not used to winning, but as that tiny hungry place inside you quiets, you think you can be living with it.