![]() ![]() When you learn to bifurcate your brain, keeping an eye on the main action while devoting equal or greater attention to what’s happening off the ball, the game opens up to you. In soccer, the principle unquestionably applies. The idea is this: to apprehend the main thrust of the narrative, to really wrap your mind around what’s going on, you must shift your focus from the foreground to the background. There may well be an analogous precept, with a German name, in philosophy or art history or mechanical physics. If you ask any astute observer-an experienced coach or player or tactically tuned-in analyst-how to understand the game, they will advise you to take your eyes off the ball. It is also a lesson in the art and science of watching a soccer match. To keep your eyes fixed on him throughout a match is both spellbinding and deadly dull. Sunday’s result might well turn, as so many games have before, on the meandering movements of Lionel Messi, who will spend much of the ninety minutes simply walking around-drifting here and there, wandering the field at the pace, and with the apparent dreamy purposelessness, of a flâneur on a psychogeographic dérive. Yet the telling difference may be found in the least dramatic, least kinetic activity on the field. Perhaps the match will provide all of the above. Will Kylian Mbappé, France’s superstar attacker, produce one of those runs to goal that leave wind-tossed defenders behind him, flapping like suits of clothes on a drying line? Will we see more clever, commanding midfield play from Mbappé’s teammate Antoine Griezmann, perhaps the tournament’s standout player? Or will the middle of the pitch be dominated by Argentina’s stubborn trio of Enzo Fernández, Rodrigo De Paul, and Alexis Mac Allister, with the moments of glory falling to Julián Álvarez, the twenty-two-year-old phenom who has slashed and pounced his way to four goals in his first World Cup? The Argentina-France match, at Lusail Stadium, in Lusail, Qatar, will be a showdown between two of the world’s great footballing powers that holds the potential for all sorts of thrilling action and endeavor. On Sunday, a global audience of a billion plus will tune into the World Cup final to behold the most transfixing spectacle in sport: a small man walking back and forth. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |