...to Roy Symonds, for services rendered to gobbing off, gobbing on (the playing surface mostly) and the occasional bit of this;
...to NZ's own Pig Styris, for staying the hell out the way other than for a bit of completely atypical glory-hunting at the final siren;
...to Supercoach Boof Lehmann, for teaching 'em up good in the ways of sinking piss and swearing at the opposition;
...and finally, most crucially, to that dodgy Cheech Marin looking dude who was on camera all the time because he apparently owns the team;
...and to his
...and to these girls. Likewise, for services rendered.
Lost somewhat amidst the global sporting clusterfuck of the weekend - IPL final, Monaco Grand Prix, Indy 500, final round of the English Premier League, penultimate rounds of Serie A in Italy and the Primera Liga in Spain, the second England vs Windies one-dayer, NBA and NHL playoffs and probably a host of other momentarily-significant events in the self-referential, self-reverential Tower of Babel that is American sports, including a 600 mile NAASCAR race (which I understand is the National Association for the Advancement of Stock Car Auto Racing - thanks Jen) - one small milestone went pretty much unremarked. That of the final home game in the football career of one Paolo Maldini.
Yuri, the Dog and I went to college together, so we were used to sitting around drinking beer, talking bollocks and arguing in pubs in lieu of actually winning on with women, which we were all thoroughly shit at. The Dog and I both played for the college football (round-ball) team, which usually involved me warming the bench while everyone else watched the Dog poncing about holding up the ball in midfield doing stepovers and circus tricks while we waited for someone to lose patience and pole-axe the bastard. Occasionally it was even someone from the other team. On one of my post-Brisvegas-move sorties down to Sin City, we'd been stationed in the beer garden of the Coogee Bay Hotel employing the tried-and-tested triumvirate of beer, arguing, and football. To wit: drinking beer while arguing about football. The topic: the best footballer in their position in the modern game. Up and down and around again with no likelihood of consensus, nor were we really seeking it since it'd probably mean we'd have to stop drinking or come up with something else to argue about. Later in the afternoon I caught up with another uni mate, a kinda-sorta-not-really-ex-flame. To the same floated question she simply smiled and said 'Paolo Maldini', and I instantly wanted to have her babies. Which would have been difficult, given she was the one with the uterus - I presume - and the nudey-rudey part of the relationship was the bit that we never really figured out. But warranted, justified and legitimised, cos she was sooooo right, and the rogues' gallery of English, Latin and Continental hacks the boys and I had been discussing didn't even get near the topsness of Maldini.
Sure he got on the attack about as often as Seeds, the Dog and I successfully got on the pull, but who cares? The man was all class. Stoic as fuck at the back, as fluid as you'd want linking through into midfield, and when that name got read out on that team sheet, you never had a question mark against it. Add yourself a Baresi, a Panucci or Tassotti and a Billy Costacurta to it and you've got a fuck-off-scary back four that most of Milan's late '80s and early '90s successes were built on.
I've been a Milanista for as long as I can remember - probably longer than we even had SBS and its Italian football coverage - though I have to admit a soft spot for Vicenza, where my grandfather was from. He lived long enough to see them (briefly) top the league early in the 1997/98 Serie A season. I have no idea why I'm a Milan supporter, any more than anyone adopts any team for reasons other than direct origin or familial link. But put it this way - across the last 18 or so years I've been glad to have them as my lads. Always there or thereabouts, always near the pointy end, and without needing to resort to bribing the refs like those slunting douchefelchers at Juventus. (Being a Milanista obviously gives you full reign to hate on i bianconeri, which is fine in my book, cheating pack of fucks.) And for as long as I've been a Milan supporter, Maldini's been there, imperious and implacable at left-back (apart from occasional sorties at centre-back, usually on international duty), striding about like he owned the fucking place, and most importantly for an Italian footballer, hair immaculate. Maldini bossing it from left back is as much a fixture of the Milan story, even today, as Rino Gattuso's 'what, me, ref?' look after centre-punching his studs through some hapless opponent's thigh, or Super Pippo Inzaghi being offside. That dude was born offside.
Ironically Milan lost to Roma in that last-ever home game for Maldini at the San Siro, by the very un-Italianate scoreline of 3-2.
The most remarkable stat in the Maldini story ain't the 640-odd club appearances, nor the Italian-record 126 international caps, the multiple Scudetti or Champions League winners' medals, the World Footballer Of The Year plaudits for 1994, or even that Italy inexplicably found him dispensable for the victorious 2006 World Cup campaign. It's the date of his debut match - January 20, 1985. Maldini played top-level professional football, in arguably the toughest football league in the world (and definitely the toughest for defenders), for nearly twenty five years. Short of some of the superannuated veterans of NAASCAR, and the odd MLB pitcher, 25-year professional sporting careers are something to be marvelled at, and something to be honoured.
And strongly hoped for, for the likes of Gilly, Roy and Warnie, on the off-chance they're needed for the Ashes tilt in 2013.
The Doctor is OUT.
13 comments:
What a game - I seriously thought that Bangalore were going to win for most of the game. The finish was excellent - v exciting. Gilly v Kumble.
Cricket & Gilly were the winners!
See now admittedly i'm a fat lazy 33 year old bastard. I have struggled since 25 to do anything over a slow canter for more than 6 meters.It always amazes me that someone can be at that level of sport for that long.
ROTFLMAO
You will NEVER let me forget that NAASCAR slip!!
That guy DOES look like a dodgy Cheech Marin--or that porn guy, Ron something or other.
LOL
Lerm - true, with one other set of winners as well, the mighty (if stupidly named) Otago Volts. They announced the format of the T20 Champions League tourney which it turns out WILL include the winner of the NZ domestic T20 comp - so my local side are going to the Big Show. Better still Baz McCullum and Dimitri Masceranhas reckon they're in. (NSW have an option to transfer McCullum to their side after the silly shit that happened around the Oz T20 final but there's a >$200K transfer fee which should put paid to that nonsense.)
U - know exactly how you feel (ie washed up). Maldini's 40, Gilly's 37, there's backup QBs running around in the NFL which are 40-odd as well. Still if I was getting paid that much I'd make it my business to be able to run around like that at that age...
Jen - not at all. I seriously think if stock car racin' is ever going to eradicate the bigotry and discrimiation it suffers daily from small-minded people from non-red-states who can actually spell their own names, an organisation like NAASCAR is exactly what they need in order to promote diversity in motorsport and promulgate understanding of their creed. Plus it'd totally be a tax dodge. Geddit, tax Dodge? As in the car? Huh? Huh?
Yeah, I'll shut up now.
And yeah (a) he does look like a subcontinental version of Ron Jeremy, at least from the waist up and (b) don't pretend you didn't know his name.
Didn't watch the cricket and hate soccer so my only comment is, how could you mention the Coogee Bay Hotel and not do a poo joke?????
You weren't at the Coogee Bay a decade or so back before an ODI were you? The Johns boys and another Knights player were there. My mate Dogboy was also there. He noticed their frequent trips to the dunnies. Suspicious, he followed one time and yep, they were paying attention to their nostrils through rolled up bills.
When he sprung them they didn't even offer him a toot the cheap bastards.
Who would you rather see opening the innings for Straya's 20-20 team? Gillie and Haydos or Warner and Haddin? Just sayin'.
I was wondering who the Cheech/Ron Jeremy lookalike was the other night. Thought he was some gimp they'd given a dugout seat through a contrived cricket-charity gig, like "Whoever bids the most for Warnie's diuretic bottle gets to nominate a lobotomised crab-eating macaque to sit on the bench. Don't know one? Well, here's one we prepared earlier."
And yes, I'm also a fat lazy bastard.
Naut - because in an earlier time, in a gentler era, the CBH was known for more noble and gentlemanly pursuits. Like Craig Gower unzipping and doing the 'helicopter' in the front bar during an Origin camp about 10 yrs ago. And what Therbs said.
Therbs - all gold in that comment sarrr. Wasn't there that day but were there fairly regularly (we lived over the hill in Cowper St in 98/99) and don't doubt it for a minute. If we were taking this T20 World Cup seriously we'd pick a team entirely from guys who were matchfit from the IPL - and the two top scorers of the tourney as the opening batsmen would absolutely be opening the innings, not one dude who epic-failed for Delhi and another who couldn't even get picked up in the pre-tourney auction.
Cheech was hilarious. All the other owners look corporate as fuck, he looked like some bum off the street, as my mate Yuri would have said. Still he fit in perfectly on the sideline surrounded by fat bastards like Boof and Pig. You can tell he's moulded the team in his own image!
Best Sweeper Evar....Franz "Der Kaiser" Beckenbauer. Of course, he invented the position, so he kind of has to get credit for being the best at it. Worst hair I've ever seen, even by German standards, but the Dagos have nothing on him.
And if Serie A was as punishing as the EPL, they would not have such fabulous hair. So really, Serie A is not all that.
I need to find the video I saw once about Juventus, right after they were relegated, to the tune of "Let it Be." It was titled (and the chorus went), "Serie B."
It would of been nice if he could of finished of in the Champions League Final, for his final game to round of a fantastic career, but he's not so... COOMMMMEEEE OONNN YOUUUUUUUU RRRRRREDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSS
Steve - should have pointed out the question pertained at the time to the Current Era, and while Der Kaiser had his era, it weren't ours. By the time I started watching football Beckenbauer was known only for wearing heinously foul gold aviator sunglasses, spouting absolute and complete bollocks at high volume and randomly firing Bayern coaches. As he has continued to this day. And find that vid, please. Sounds oresome.
Mr Stu - at least you're a Man U fan FROM Manchester, not inside the M25 like the rest of them! There are going to be some cutting things said about Man U and the fans thereof very shortly on these pages and almost none of them apply to your good self, just so you know...
You go for it, it's what they deserve, you should support your local team through thick and thin not somebody else because they get the glory.
Oh, modern times? Well...Frankie Hejduk is kind of awesome. He is as good at his position as Landon Donovan is bad at his. If that makes any sense. Well, I shouldn't say bad, since he is a goal scorer, but shit, I've seen Donovan make mistakes on a pitch that my U10 girls know not to do.
Hejduk saved our asses against El Salvador a couple months ago. A team we should've punished 5-0, we tied 2-2, thanks to 2 good plays and solid work ethic by Hejduk.
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