Holiday Part 2 Day 1

To the birthday boy(s),

Before we really start and for all those English football fans out there (Howie?), this is the most depressing statistic of all time. Apparently, England have added Germany 2006 to a long list of ignominious exits on penalties - the 1990 World Cup (to West Germany), Euro 96 (to Germany), the 1998 World Cup (to Argentina) as well as the Euro 2004 defeat. Just so everyone is aware how un-Wade England is.

Ripley or not, I’m still in France and still in Chamonix. Since I haven’t slept for 36 hours prior to hitting the deep sack last night, my day started slightly late. At 2PM to be absolutely precise. Ben and then I had a very long lunch which started around 2:30PM and for some odd magical reason, we ended up with a pair of shoes each and a harness. Nice. After that, Mona (Margaret’s guest), Sean (Margaret’s guest), and me (Ben’s entourage) displayed our collective cooking skills and whipped up a curry, which secretly was made out of ready-made paste but then no one needs to know that. Since the pair were ex-hospitality and current professional cook, all I had to do was kick back and let the mystic meg happen in front of my own eyes. After dinner, we chatted happily along for couple of hours and when the wine was pouring out of my right nostril, I knew it was time to write this mail.

Regrettably, there is no football tonight so instead, I will do my usual headlines as well as an important point raised by the birthday boy.

Anup wrote in an email and this is what he had to say:

“I'm fuckin' hammered right now!”

“And Ryu, I have one thing to say: The best player wearing no. 10 on his back is Zizou now? Are you high? I read your emails (every single one of them), and I consider you the residential soccer expert, but the best player to wear no. 10? You gotta be smokin' somethin', dude! You ever heard of a player called Diego Maradona?”

“That's like sayin' Lebron is the best player to EVER wear 23! I mean, he's gettin' there...but no fuckin'way can you make that statement!”

First of all, he did write this email on the day of his birthday and he was hammered. Second of all, I will take this time and place and thank Anup for being such an avid reader. I wouldn’t write this mail, if I knew that I would not garner the accolades from the brotherhood. Feeding my id is my favourite hobby. But the important point is not that he had an exciting and non-malicious birthday or that I have a instant hard on when someone reads my mail. The point is that Anup has opened the Pandora’s box of football folklore or like someone said, “you started it, dumbass”.

Who is the best number 10 of all time?

It’s like saying who was the hottest Bond girl of all time. As Ben, who is sitting next to me said, “That’s so debatable”, it’s the same with me and my number 10 pick.

But for argument’s sake, let’s just start with the comparison between Zizou and the hand of god.

Z: French, Zinedine Yazid Zidane, housing project
D: Argentinian, Diego Armando Maradona, shanty town

Z: Tall, Graceful, unassumingly powerful
D: Short, Stocky, unsurprisingly powerful

Z: Cannes, Bordeaux, Juve, Real
D: Argentinos Juniors, Boca, Barca, Napoli, and various other clubs post cocaine

Z: Media shy
D: Media magnet

Z: World Cup, European Championship, Champions League, various domestic cups and league titles
D: World Cup, Copa America, UEFA Cup, World Youth Championship, various domestic cups and league titles

Z: World Football of the Year X 3, Ballon d’Or
D: *South American Footballer of the year X 5, World Cup Golden Ball, European Footballer of the Year, Best Footballer in the World, World Player of the Year, "FIFA best football player of the century”, FIFA Goal of the Century (1986 2–1 v. England)
*Most of these awards were won in 1986.

Z: 1994-2006 France (105 appearances, 29 goals)
D: 1977–1994 Argentina (91 appearances, 34 goals)

Statistically, I really don't see much difference in the two. And if you do know what they have done on the pitch, they are both almost always clutch. And just like MJ (Bron’ still doesn’t quite have it), they both have that killer instinct that you most definitely need to become a superstar. But to become a legend, you need more than statistics, awards, and titles. You need something that no other homo sapiens can do. This is where the split emerges between the two.

To me, it is all about impression. What I remember most about Diego isn’t the “Goal of the century” or the hand of god. What I remember was that he killed us in the final that year. He himself was the reason why we lost that year and he was stupendously brilliant. To me, he was the round assassin who can dismember you with his passes, shots, and set plays. With is low centre of gravity, he will just rip apart defence whilst defenders bouncing off from him like a cheap chinesese ping pong balls. When he was playing for Napoli, he was a terror on the left flank. His crosses were inch perfect and although lacking the flair perhaps an Henry or Platini possessed, his pace and sheer power was never to be duplicated, ever.

The opposite is true for Zizou. What Zizou has and Diego doesn’t is the ability to impose pace and time to the rest of the pitch. In my mind, he is the better passer of the ball. Diego was the more brutal, Zidane, classically French, which isn’t to say that he did not have the ballons to withstand tackles and wicked pressure from defenders. But he lacks the dynamo like substance that made Diego such a star on the pitch.

So to me, this is a matter of preference. Even when I was watching him during his Napoli days in HK, I never ever thought that he would produce something out of nothing. He was no doubt one of the greatest to ever grace us on the green battleground, but was I ever in complete sodden awe by his skills as a footballer, the answer has to be NO.

With Zizou and his heydays in Juve and earlier part of Real as well as ‘98 and bit of ‘00, I just couldn’t take my eyes of him. Never had there been a footballer who can dominate without pace, without extroverted power, and without the distinct lack of ordinary charisma. Never the one to dominate the limelight, he goes about his business with quiet determination and ferocious almost always controlled aggression. But it is the way he handles and manages the game that impresses me more than anything else. The slight touches and minimal flicks, the smallest of positioning adjustment, the tiniest of space to send the perfect through ball. If I ever have a son (let’s get real, if I had a daughter, I’d be driving her to ballet lessons), I will make him watch all the Zidane DVD’s or Blu-Ray or HDDVD) available.

To me, number 10 belongs to the realm of fantasy. As they are often called “fantasistas”. The ability to raise the overall playing level of the people around you, to thread that offside trap busting pass, to kill off any hope for the other team, to enchant the crowd with the beautiful of all touches.
Zidane does that and more. My pick is perhaps more biased due to the way I see the match and trust me, if you see as many football matches as I do and you know I’m more yee sup chat than a prepubescent valedictorian, you will simply appreciate and see the simple stuff like trapping the ball accurately and so on.

With flair in his play and unfootballer like display of subdued ego, he is the undisputedly disputable best number 10 of our generation. Perio.d.

As for the Bron/MJ argument, since Zidane is only semi-retired because ghost buster’s asylum seeker, aka his brother, begged him to un-retire, it’s not a valid argument. More apt one will be Riquelme and Maradona, but Riquelme isn’t as good as Zizou and he isn’t old enough to buy his own women. If there will be no more apparition induced un-retirement by 2008, then this cup is the last time we will see him as a les Bleus.

But Zizou the best ever to wear the numero dix? Ask me again when I’m in my death bed.

Short headlines:

“Beckham resigns as captain”
Self appoints Gordon Brown as the new one.

“Fifa will investigate German midfielder Torsten Frings for his part in the fracas after Germany's win over Argentina in the quarter-finals”
Too long and shouldn’t care if you are not of German / Italian descent.

“Juninho quits international scene”
But still in the roster for Lyon’s post match celebration with slutty hot wanton women scene.

“Terry to replace Beckham?”
OK

“Nesta chances 'very remote' for Italy's semi”
Good.

“Ricardo explains penalty success”
To be published by Penguin books in August 2006. “Success between the poles: Ricardo’s tale of a night of ecstasy with the English team in Gelsenkirchen"

Ryu’s “I needed this” moment of the day. I can talk about the beautiful sky groping glaciers and the anal shoe store, but this has to be the 11 hours of long nap I took last night.

Tomorrow we bring you more action and reaction from my life in general and if you’re lucky, something related to football.

Watch it (if you really must)