Those adjectives really apply to Zinedine Zidane, nicknamed Zizou – the captain, legendary midfielder, and guiding spirit of "Les Bleus" or the national football team of France.
Early last Sunday, Manila time, the French didn’t exactly shock the much-fancied Brazilians by preventing them from repeating as World Cup champions. The last time these teams met in the World Cup Finals, it was at the Final or championship match, played in Paris in 1998.
A much younger Zizou scored two goals to lead the home team to a rousing victory over the samba gods in yellow and green. Eight years later, on the eve of retirement, he engineered the single goal that won the quarterfinal match.
Last weekend provided a chance for retribution or redemption for the Brazilians, whose talent level is such that it’s said they can field a second team that would probably beat most other national first teams. Unfortunately for South America, and for everyone who associates the romance of futbol with the contemporary likes of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Robinho – three generations of turf dancers who take after their great predecessor Pele – the hex couldn’t be broken.
There went the Selecao’s dreams of a "hexa" – a sixth World Cup title. Monsieur Hoodoo still says the Apache existentialists have got the capoieristas’ number.
As in 1998, much of it had to do with Zidane. At 34, he is slower, past his prime. He has said it would be his last international event. Even in-the-box guys who still iconize him were foolishly texting, hours before the Brazil-France knockout match: "Au revoir, Zizou."
But he proved no less than masterful, magical, majestic, magisterial, magnificent. Singlefootedly, he shaped Gallic thrusts and stole the expected thunder from the Bra boys. His team gained tempo, momentum and confidence, grabbed the rhythm from the acknowledged virtuosos. Having barely survived the first round of competition, the French peaked for the challenge, surprisingly performing as an energetic, flowing unit orchestrated into vivacious play – by one man who summoned up all his resources, his authority, his savoir faire, to dictate athletic arpeggio.
It was Zidane himself who lofted a free kick beyond a fracas of heads bobbing up across the goal, right into his striker Henry’s foot. "There, kick it in, Thierry," the maitre d’ must have said to himself an instant before all of France exulted: "Goal!"
Then he held the Maginot Line together.
"The executioner Zidane makes Brazil cry for a second time," headlined Brazil’s Internet portal an hour later. Folha Online saluted the rival captain: "Again Zidane stood foursquare in our way with France." German broadcaster ZDF caught Pele’s post mortem: "In the main, this was down to one magical player who held sway over the match – Zinedine Zidane." A website acknowledged: "Zidane had one of those Zidane days, and one of creative football’s last, unpredictable Mohicans defeated Brazil."
Ah, there’s another: "M" is for Mohican, who is also pathfinder and seerslayer, heh-heh. On his last legs, Zizou wanted to go out in style.
Now he has a chance to conduct the team all the way to the last dance on the world stage. A win over Portugal, and another against neighboring rivals – either the host Germans or the fellow claimants to the same color of sky, the Italians a.k.a. Azzurri – and the aging French team could reclaim the FIFA crown, just in time for a more riotous bash on Bastille Day.
Whether Les Bleus can go all the way remains speculative, of course. Despite the continuing dominance of traditionally strong teams, the World Cup always serves up a saga of twists and turns, sudden mishaps, national calamities, and conversely, virginal paroxysms of joy.
It’s a game that validates our sexpot’s infamous quote: "It’s a crazy planets (sic)." Any team can shame the form charts and claim an upset. The erstwhile luck of the Golden Goal, the Russian roulette that is a penalty shootout, someone brought down in the penalty box, a startling red card, a bend-it-like-Beckham free kick – and a game is suddenly, dramatically won or lost.
Maybe that is why it’s called the beautiful game – because it fuels and induces extreme collective emotions. For the most part, watching teams going back and forth across the pitch in seemingly Sisyphean waves transfixes us in an exercise in frustration. But suddenly, or slowly as in a well-calculated build-up we recognize in quick hindsight, a beautiful, creative moment arrives, OR drops from whimsical Olympus, and the frustration climaxes in momentous release.
It can be a cruel game, as Argentina and England experienced in their sudden-death shootouts against Germany and Portugal, respectively. But the ebb and tide of play also translates into epiphany, an exclamation point to a defining moment.
Then there is the beauty of a game where a player for all ages does it all for his underdog team, and emerges victorious with them, and a nation, over a collection of better individual talents. "M" is also for MVP Zinedine Zidane, the Maestro who mucked up our forecast, albeit not to our regret but appreciation.
Pinoy sports lovers rue the national lack of interest in this most popular game in the world. Often it’s lamented that basketball still draws us small fry to impossible hoop dreams that could best be shifted towards a passion for, shall we say it, soccer.
Yes, we join in the hopes for a revival of a commercial football league, which can only come about if an influential padrino designates himself as official godfather. That man could be Dr. Lucio Tan, El Kapitan himself. What Manny V. Pangilinan is doing for badmin, with the MVP Cup and all, the taipan might well consider doing for Filipino football.
We recall that part of the reason for the demise of what used to be a vigorous league, as in the old MICAA days when private companies funded teams for sports other than basketball, was that Chinoy managers and players segregated themselves into their own exclusive league.
That was understandable. Allegations of corruption and mismanagement always hounded the Pinoy head honchos for football. Victimized was the vision of assembling tisoy, bisoy (Bisayan tisoy), Chinoy, and indios from Barotac Nuevo into a national mélange of a football team.
Who better than Dr. Lucio Tan to restart the process, and merge it with current efforts to recall, for international tourneys, our young Fil-foreigners playing abroad. With Tanduay Distillers leading the way, why, San Mig can’t be far behind, and Meralco for all its problems can re-electrify its own team together with those of other, new companies, say, the Jollibee Eleven, the Smart Socceroos, the Globe Trotters… Television coverage, even of collegiate matches, might just spark national interest.
But I disagree with the notion that Filipino athletes, generally of light build, are better suited for football. Well, true, if the comparison is with basketball. But you will note that the major teams that have mastered the beautiful game are still much taller and heftier than your average kasimanwa from Iloilo.
At best, we can become more competitive with our Southeast Asian neighbors. It will take a decade or two to arrive at the same footing, at best, with powerhouse Thailand, but only if Pinoy football receives consistent vigorous support. Then it’s another great leap forward to get into the level of play of Korea and Japan. Even Thailand can’t make that breakthrough. For World Cup 2010, the four Asian qualifiers will surely include Australia, which has been re-grouped away from Oceania.
So it’s a stretch to fantasize seeing a Pinoy Eleven in the World Cup. Not in half-a-century. Tradition’s a tough hump for jeproks-come-lately. If our footballers of the Fifties had enjoyed a continuum of passion, not just national interest, we might have had a chance, through the Juan Cutillas era till the present.
Now we’ll have to jumpstart from practically scratch. No reason not to do it now, however. And hope that more and more of our OFWs (Overseas Filipino Wingers) get to play in the English, Italian, Mid-Eastern and North American leagues.
Who knows? We might yet produce a Manny, a Boom-boom, a Jaca, a Bata, a Paeng – who can take us into world-class level the way our boxers, billiards and bowling champs have been doing.
Going for goal is going global, or the other way around.