At last, a serious post from the satirist. Well, insofar as any piece of writing philosophically evaluating the deeds of men who run around a grass rectangle smacking a leather sphere with their heads and being paid millions of dollars for it can be considered “serious.” My point of today’s article is this: Saturday’s clash between Liverpool and Manchester United at Anfield was everything that a spectacular game of football should be. All of the proper elements were to be had in spades, including that most crucial of elements, Manchester United losing.
The first thing that makes a good game is that it is a true, two-sided battle. A pair of capable teams squaring off against one another across an open field, and having at it, as in the days of old. Attack, counterattack, counter-counterattack. The exact opposite of this sort of battle was the Champions League game between Arsenal and Olympiacos. That was a siege. One team turned itself into a stone wall and the other spent the entire time battering and battering away until it finally broke through. As impressive as it was to see wave after wave of probing Arsenal attacks, as a true game it had about as much merit as a tug of war between a man and a cinderblock.
Sunday’s game was a full-blooded, back and forth affair. Wherever the ball was, it was battled over. Clashes in the midfield, clashes near both goals. The possession fights were strong, and most importantly, they were constant. Both teams played a high-energy game, keeping up the fight throughout. And when the goals came, they were not fluke headers, or keeper errors, or – gods forbid – penalties.(ugh.) They were thrillingly executed strikes falling as the exclamation point at the end of an eloquently-worded statement in play and passing.
There is one more element that makes the game exciting – a touch of theatre. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that players screaming at officials, corner kick brawls and challenges that take off players’ feet at the ankle ruin a game as much as any lack of enthusiasm and apathy ever can. That said, a little bit of drama, the crackle of heightened emotion, the sense that something is rolling and bubbling just beneath the surface, that the swift pass of the ball and the slide tackle are but our modern, softer way to cover up our underlying ferocity and thirst for blood, really turns a game into a spectacle. As long as matters don’t get out of hand, I enjoy a little tension.
The players racing and stalking like wolves darting and feinting at one another over a fresh kill, the ref exercising all his power in order to keep the jacket of civilization buttoned tightly over the animal underneath, Benitez and Ferguson pacing, prowling, glowering and shouting like generals staring one another down from opposite sides of the walls of Troy. These things, so long as all involved remember somewhere in their brains that it’s just a sporting event, add that extra bit of spice.
Good play, good passion, good game.
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