Soccer in Sun and Shadow

The Theater

The players in this show act with their legs for an audience of thousands or millions who watch from the stands or their living rooms with their souls on edge. Who writes the play — the manager? This play mocks its author, unfolding as it pleases and according to the actors’ abilities. It definitely depends on fate, which like the wind blows every which way. That’s why the outcome is always a surprise to spectators and protagonists alike, except in cases of bribery or other inescapable tricks of destiny.

How many small theaters inhabit the great theater of soccer? How many stages fit inside that rectangle of green grass? Not all players perform with their legs alone. Some are masters in the art of tormenting their fellows. Wearing the mask of a saint incapable of harming a fly, such a player will spit at his opponent, insult him, push him, throw dirt in his eyes, give him a well-placed elbow to the chin, dig another into his ribs, pull his hair or his shirt, step on his foot when he stops or his hand when he’s down — and all behind the referee’s back and while the linesmen contemplate the passing clouds.

Some are wizards in the art of gaining advantage. Wearing the mask of a poor sad sack who looks like an imbecile but is really an idiot, such a player will take a penalty, a free kick, or a throw-in several leagues beyond the point indicated by the referee. And when he has to form a wall, he glides over to the spot very slowly, without lifting his feet, until the magic carpet deposits him right on top of the player about to kick the ball.

There are actors unsurpassed in the art of wasting time. Wearing the mask of a recently crucified martyr, such a player rolls in agony, clutching his knee or his head, and then lies prone on the grass. Minutes pass. At a snail’s pace out comes the fat masseur, the holy hand, running with sweat, smelling of liniment, wearing a towel around his neck, and carrying a canteen in one hand and some infallible potion in the other. Hours go by, years go by, until the referee orders them to take that corpse off the field. And suddenly, whoosh, up jumps the player and the miracle of the resurrection occurs.