When you can smell the freshly cut and watered grass, you know you are close. When I sat down with my father in the first row at the Camp Nou last week before Barcelona played Paris St.-Germain in the Champions League, the sprinklers were still on, making the glorious green field slick and fast to suit the style of the home team.
This was one of those experiences when even part of it would have been enough. Being in the stadium was enough. Seeing the game live was enough. But front row seats, and seeing Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suárez score — that was almost too much. There are some moments in life for which you cannot write a more perfect script. This game was one of them.
Despite witnessing a poetically brilliant event up close, I’m always in the mind-set of a professional player and student of the game. Here are three observations from watching this spectacle live, from field level:
1. Even in the basics, this was mastery of another dimension. Watching top men’s teams warm up is always intriguing. Warm-ups in soccer are standard for the most part. Every team warms up. Most elite teams have a bit of time for the players to jog and kick around on their own, then go into a series of organized dynamic movements and stretches, followed by some possession, then shooting for attacking players and functional work for defenders. But never has the sentiment “the same but different” struck me as it did with these players. Never have the basics looked more thrilling. Their physical and technical capabilities, even while doing very mundane drills, were breathtaking. The speed and efficiency with which these guys do the basics we all learn as players is mind-blowing. The warm-up was only a foreshadowing. Watching this game redefined my concept of soccer mastery. Passes zipped across the wet grass at warp speed, only to be killed — over and over — with a perfect first touch by the recipient, who often also was running at full speed.
2. Lionel Messi’s movement and timing are even better in person. Often it is hard to truly appreciate players’ work rate and movement on television, which follows the ball. I will admit that for the first portion of the game, I felt Messi was being lazy. He seemingly just hung out wherever it was easiest to receive the ball with little pressure, then he would drift really deep, away from where he could even be considered dangerous.
I was mildly disappointed, even after he scored, until I watched closer. Messi’s movement, which often appeared nonchalant, was in fact brilliant — and incredibly effective. He would purposely drift deep and away from the ball, into an area where he was not dangerous enough for him to be closely marked. Then, whether or not he was involved in the initial buildup of a play, he would make an extremely late and fast movement forward, which was almost impossible for the P.S.G. defense to track. When he received the ball and seemed to have just a moment to do something with it, it was only because he had calculatingly made a 30- or 40-yard sprint to get into the action. But that split second of freedom is often all that he needs to do something brilliant. The takeaway? There is really no way to stop Messi, individually or even collectively, when he couples his immense talent with this type of timing and intelligence in movement.
3. The irony of my viewing experience was that while I was so in awe of everything, I was left with the overarching notion that the players, although magnificent in ways beyond what should be possible in the physical realm, are human. They made mistakes. Ibrahimovic gave away the ball because he waited too long and played a couple of poor, inaccurate passes. Andrés Iniesta tried a nifty behind-the-leg pass that went straight to a defender, with none of his teammates even remotely near it. Sergio Busquets switched the point of the attack, but his ball was behind Marc Bartra, who had to backtrack and scramble to keep it in bounds. It was refreshing to see these stars at the top of their sport make the same mistakes I do.
Yes, the mistakes were made amid play of astounding quality, and at speeds only a fast-forward function could ever allow me to reach. But even the best players and teams in the world are not flawless. That was a good reminder.
My father and I stayed in the stadium for a while after the game. We didn’t want the night to end.
On our walk back to our hotel, we jokingly agreed that maybe we should never watch another soccer game. Nothing would ever compare.
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