Eusebio: A journey through the 1990s. His memory of the soccer legend and his friend, Roger Bennett, is the mythos of soccer
There is, instead, something deeper at play. Klosterman characterizes our view of the 1990s as a “good time that happened long ago, though not as long ago as it seems.” It has many of its cultural classics, such as The Simpsons, Friends and Haddaway, that seem familiar, but much of their reality seems far away. The internet wasn’t in use by people in the 1990s. They bought CDs.
They are important ones, too, because it is in soccer’s long 1990s that we see the roots of the game as we experience it today. It was not just the era in which soccer fully fused with celebrity for the first time, when the final vestiges of isolationism and national identity were abandoned, when transfer fees and salaries spiraled out of control, when what had been sport became entertainment.
We are our successors, and we were not as exposed to those stars. The 1990s were a decade when it was possible to watch everything, and then never see it again.
Watching Ronaldo play even on television was a relatively rare occurrence, certainly before the waning days of his career. His every appearance was not broadcast around the world. His iconic goals were not played on a loop, endlessly, from the moment they hit the net. There is a fuzziness, a mystery, to him — and to the age in which he played — that subsequent generations do not possess. There are, still, unanswered questions.
It was also, in a sporting context, when the ideas that would shape the game’s future took hold. The administrative part of it was related to the law change in backpass that had to happen for pressing to come into being and the philosophical part was related to the thought of the man, the man’s philosophy trickled down to him.
Roger Bennett is the host of the popular soccer basketball show, and has published a book called “Gods of Soccer.” It looks at 50 women and50 men who have been some of the sport’s greatest players.
Football greatness can make memories of a player that you’ve never seen. Eusebio is one such player for me. That sense of eternal triumph is captured in this image.
Nate: An ever present mythos … seemingly reversing time whilst being a journeyman through it. The bike kick against England echoed this perfectly and he has lent his powers to many teams.
A player who could boil over and be a leader, but who also kept to being a leader. This is what I wanted to capture here; the manic fury of one of English football’s most imposing figures.
Roger: Gerd was a goal machine. He finished with all his body parts. What mattered is that the ball crossed the line. This is pure Mller. Often ungainly. Always lethal.
When they first faced Pusks and Hungary, the English said it was like playing men from outer space. Something otherworldly they couldn’t put their finger on … I wanted this to have a similar resonance. Roger: The mightiest of Magyars … A goalscorer so prolific they named the goal of year award after him.
Roger: The most interesting footballer of all time. He was captured to his core. He believed footballing beauty mattered more than results, and that revolutionary politics were perhaps most important of all.