First, for those who doubt the role of the homegrown talent that  plays the part of supersub, let’s re-live a classic moment of American cinema. We shall call it the “Guti-Rudy Moment.”

Guti did get considerably more minutes than Rudy, but the effect was always the same – despite concerns over stamina and his first step, the Madrid faithful knew the blonde boy wonder was a wizard with the ball at his feet. Take a walk down memory lane and drool at the array of fake shot/slide rule passes.

Of course, in addition to the vision for the game, Guti was quite adept at using both sides of the foot. From taconcitos to taconazos, Guti unlocked defenses with cunning and guile. His first touch was impeccable, and one could see him tap-dancing the night away to this Little Richard’s classic “Tooty Fruity” (which happens to rhyme with Guti!).

So there you have it – Guti is gone. The Mourinho era has begun, praising defensive diligence and work rate over creativity and vision. Or perhaps this is just the sands of time running out on a fabled career, a 33 year old recognizing his legs can’t compete with players half his age. Either way, there’s no reason to be snooty or engage in cruelty when reflecting on Guti. He was Madrid’s super sub for many a reason, a role he played well and willingly.

So, no. I am not Mister Manager. The gossip tales do not tug at my heartstrings. Press conferences and asides from overpaid agents do not make me salivate at the mouth. Why? Too much smoke. Not enough fire.

Except for this one.

The ever excellent Argentine footy blogger at HEGS brought to my attention a very curious case – the Juan Roman Riquelme anti-transfer transfer. You see, most transfers involve a player going from one team to another. However, Riquelme’s contract ended, yet he wants to stay at Boca. Some individuals refer to this as a “renewal”, “resigning”, or an “extension.” I prefer anti-transfer transfer.

But the differences between this anti-transfer transfer and the typical gossip mill transfers do not end there. Oh no. You see, most players say “it’s not about the money” while the clubs talk about “building contenders.” Granted, there are a few exceptions. Regardless, the Juan Roman Riquelme anti-transfer transfer is in an entirely different dimension, a dimension where your eyes, like, are worthless because the fourth dimension, like, does that to your eyes.

Why?

Well, I could only speculate on the fourth dimension’s effects on your mind’s capacity to perceive different dimensions, but in the case of Juan Roman Riquelme we have some solid facts. Yes, Riquelme, the publicity darling and coaches pet who has twice resigned from the national team, let out the hysterically vapid details.

First, Riquelme is furious that the Boca Juniors offer pegged his maximum salary to the Argentine peso. Riquelme, an astute economist who in his spare time invests in the London Stock Exchange and reads the Wall Street Journal, fears that a rising dollar and weakening peso could significantly lower his pay.

Second, Boca Juniors absolutely insists that Riquelme include his (presumably worthless) transfer rights so that they can use it as a tax write off. Yes, the man who lead Villareal to the Champions League semi-finals now has a negative transfer value. How the mighty have fallen. And Boca along with him.

So, there you have it. The key thing in this anti-transfer transfer mill of truth, not rumors, is unashamedly money. And no, not just in terms of figures, but rather tax write-offs and currency speculation. This is some seriously delectable estate planning money grabbery, almost on par with Arshavin’s complaint about the English income tax hike. Almost.

Truth be told, the long pauses have come about for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I have come under a brutal attack from both the general audience and family members. Some people think its preposterous to predict that a three year old can ascend to greatness. The “naysayers” say too many things can  happen between now and five, when Junito signs his first professional contract. Of course, the old Brazilian refrain that the good looking boys get girlfriends and the ugly ones get good at soccer has a kernel of truth. Still, I managed to be dashingly handsome and decent at pelota, so surely Junito can just take things to the next level.

The more stinging criticism, though, from closer quarters, is not so easily dismissed.

The illustrious and super secretive inner circle has roundly criticized me for heaping a hefty dose of expectations on Junito. Granted, I think some of my training tactics have been misunderstood. Junito and I do watch a lot of tape, usually classic mid-90’s era Serie A, and I do remind Junito that he too can pivot like Van Basten if he sets his mind to it. However, I am not trying to push Junito to compare himself to Van Basten. Far from it. Van Basten merely won a few domestic titles and the European Championship. If anything, Junito should try to top that by twenty.

Rather, I want Junito to focus his young talents on refining his technique, balance, and first touch. He should emulate the masters in form only, sketching Picasso’s shadows but painting his own masterpiece. I read this great NYTimes piece on the Ajax academy, how they focus on polishing a few diamonds and not so much on winning worthless youth league games. And that is my approach with Junito.

Still, I will concede that the super small sized Madrid jersey with “Di Stefano” on the back may have been a tad exaggerated. A tad. But despite the grueling hours of video sessions and training, despite the endless pivots and pirouettes and headers, I swear you can see the diamond shining through.

From a player development perspective, the only problem is that Junito has skipped a beat. Rather than focusing on his positional sense and kicking of a ball, he just pushes other kids around, runs a lot, and says “Soy musculoso, soy fuerte.” While as a youth coach I understand the importance of laying a strong foundation of fitness, I think Junito is skipping a step or two.

But as for the strongest indicator of success, love of the game, all signs point to yes. Anytime we watch television and surf past a channel showing soccer, Junito cries and pleads that we watch pelota. And he constantly pleads for me to take down his arquito so that he can echar goles. So I’m just following his little lead, reading up on sports nutrition and even hitting the gym myself, just to dar el buen ejemplo.

“Ya mido y peso mas que Xavi….grrrrrrrrrr”

But enough of that, onto links and classic videos from South Africa 2010.

The final was not particularly memorable but for the dirty Dutch and Iniesta’s wonderful strike in injury time. Here is that strike again…

The only thing sharper and more brilliant than that sweeping Spanish attack was Nick Dunmore’s satire of the latest incarnation of Dutch Football, known simple as “Total Bastard Football.” You must read it. Here.

Brook at DirtyTackle has done an admirable job of aggregating every single amusing celebration-video-gone awry. The first is what happens when you combine Germans’ two loves: fast cars and celebrating their national team’s success on the international stage.

I assure you no Kraftwerks were injured in the filming of that video. Conversely, Spain celebrated their first title in style, with Pepe “Reigning King of Mirth” Reina a bit tipsy on the team’s bus after too much sangria.

Pepe Reina’s antics began several hours earlier, though, where he led a drunken conga line in the airplane that carried the Spaniards home.

Does anybody else find it odd that he is so excited to have won a title? After all, Liverpool finished a respectable semi-finalist in the Europa league and have a new manager. I hope he does not expend all this “title celebratory energy” too early on and not have enough gas in the tank come next May.

The Tournament’s Best Player, Diego Forlan, showed a samuraiesque mastery of the jabulani. While others complained about the shape, size, and flight of the new ball, Forlan spun miracles with his right foot. His first goal of the tournament, against South Africa, defied gravity, aerodynamics, and your lowly expectations of Uruguay.

Forlan was not done there – in the quarterfinals against Ghana, his spinless free kick fooled the keeper, finding the far corner and even fooling one of the cameramen. (Please ignore the commentator)

But, ahem, he similarly was not done. With his charrua compatriots overmatched by the mighty Dutch, Forlan’s fearsome left foot let go from distance, again fooling the keeper and keeping the match close.

I know what you’re thinking – yeah, this guy has a cannon of a shot, but where’s the touch, the timing, the grace, the balance? Is he just lugging a rocket launcher around the field? Nein. Just ask the Germans…

Wow. Shades of Zizou? Yes. Granted, the third place game is not as grand a stage as the Champions League final, and it was on Forlan’s favored right foot, but the bouncing was beyond fantastic. For you Spanglish speakers, the proper term would be “picadita.”

So there you have it – drunken Spaniards and dancing Uruguayans, the World Cup summed up in a handful of Youtube videos as you get ready for the European transfer rumor mill and a boring August. Hasta luego…

Take a deep breath. And try to hide your disappointment.

We often approach the past as we do societies, creating a metanarrative with a set result in mind, reducing the individual and autonomy to mere wheels in the cog of a grandiose machine. Looking back at World Cup 2006, we always knew that Totti would bury that penalty kick against Australia with the Italians a man down and fighting for their life. David Terezeguet’s shot will always kiss the post, gifting Italy the title. Yet in the moment, we held our breath and said our respective hailmary’s.

To repeat the obvious – this truly is a golden generation of footballers for Spain. It seems like yesteryear that Figo was turning Puyol, Xavi was coughing up balls to Frank Lampard, and Sergio Ramos galloped up and down the flanks in Sevilla. Flash forward to 2006, when Spain held a 1-0 lead over France in the quarterfinals and dominated possession. Only a collective surge from the veteran midfield trio of Makelele, Vieira, and Zidane could asphyxiate Xavi and company, but you knew the seeds of greatness had been planted.

Tiki-tak. Juego tram tram. The Spanish game has a number of adjectives, some positive, some negative. My preferred metaphor has always been the anaconda – the furia roja keeps the ball and slowly wears down defenses both physically and mentally, preferring a safe pass backwards to a risky attack. Over the course of 90 minutes, a gap or two will open. A defender will slip or not step and commit an error. And then they squeeze their grip.

The Dutch defense grew tighter and compact as the game wore on, with De Jong and Von Bommel practically holding hands in the later stages and Schneijder rarely foraying into the attacking half. Robin Van Persie, starved of service, almost completed disappeared from the match. The only hope was the soccer equivalent of the Hail Mary, a long pass to Robben over the top. And it almost worked.

Robben the goat. Iker the savior. Take your pick of blame and credit and label the players as you deem appropriate. The harsh reality: the ball did not enter the net, and relying on balls over the top of Pique’s head was a low percentage strategy to begin with anyway. The red card for Holland was the stage cough, the forshadowing of an imminent demise. When the Dutch defense finally opened up and Iniesta got a half chance, nobody doubted he would bury it. This was a man that two years ago had dashed Chelsea’s dreams with a wonder strike deep in injury time.

Clutch. Brave. Persistent. Pick your label and place it on Iniesta, whose presence added an offensive spark to Spain when compared with last summer’s Confederations Cup. When looking back at World Cup 2010, Spain’s first star, and this golden generation of the furia roja, Iniesta’s right footed strike will fill the eyes with a shining example of timing and technique.

It’s a mere puff of the pipe, but it’ll have to do.

What he had to say will probably only confuse you, unless of course you obtained a doctorate from the European School of Philosophy. But not the University of Chicago – everybody knows those hacks just say really big words. Ahem. Now onto the interview!

Slavojile, you’ve argued very vehemently against the hegemony of regimes that presume interpellating individuals in a set polity. Is that really just a subtle dig at Total Football?

The problem with a set polity and an emphasis on individuals as parts is that it overlooks the important role of psychology within each individual. Only when we focus on the category of the subject, accepting a degree of “manque”, will we begin to decipher anything of worth.

Slavdawg, you seem to walk a fine line in your interpretations of consciousness according to Marxist ideals. On the one hand, you reject the concept of “false consciousness”, yet you also claim no individual truly grasps their own motives. So, does Sergio Ramos wear tight green pants because he knows they’re ridiculous? Or is he clueless?

The existence of tension underscores a truth that cannot be plastered upon every landscape at every given time. On the one hand, the Marxist notion of false consciousness represented quite well the 20th century bourgeoisie – the prevalence of creature comforts sedated them into submission, and any attempts to empathize with the proletariat were hollow. However, just because the self cannot pinpoint it’s won motive, that does not foreclose a better appreciation of conscious workings in how those motives play out in the real world.

Slavvyslav, your work has been summarized as the Lacanian approach to reconciling the eternal tension between materialism and idealism. Basically, “the Real” is not experienced by the subject as our systems of comprehension order it. Does that explain why Camacho flipped his shit when Villa scored against Paraguay?

Sadly, your question answer itself with a very important presupposition. If we begin our analysis with a non-referential scope of ideology, then the domination of the subject’s senses and experiences clouds our conclusions. Only by rejecting these assumptions and inverting the pyramid can we approach a true and accurate Lacanian understanding of the modern self at this exact point in time.

Audioslavoj, you have steadfastly critiqued the modern desire to scientifically analyze the brain, concluding that a biological description would still leave a gap between material reaction & consciousness – that very gap, known in Freudian terms as “the death drive”, is, in your understanding crucial. Will Spain find any similar gaps in the Netherlands’ back line on Sunday?

A techno-scientific discourse is to philosophy as the conquistadores were to the natives of the Americas – all consuming, destructive, and a retardation. The desire to paint ourselves in a black & white light is tempting, yet ultimately this picture reflects more of what we hope for than the reality beneath. More troubling, this discourse, with its matter of fact descriptions and conclusions, obscures and ignores the more important, fascinating, and overarching questions of morality that guide the subject conscious self.

Slobslav, relying heavily on Descarte’s problem of possible automation, you take the controversial conclusion that consciousness is opaque – thus, one can never know if another conscious being is truly conscious or a mere mime. Do you think Xavi will dance circles around Von Bommel, like those annoying mimes along Las Ramblas?

The problem of interacting subjective conscious entities always comes back to the Husserlian failure to account to the other’s selfhood. Von Bommel and DeJong do not accumulate yellow cards because they are a tad slow or reckless in the tackle, but rather because they do not acknowledge the consciousness of opposing attacking midfielders.

Luckily, Junito is still a decade or two away from such problems. Although he did recently throw a tantrum so ugly it would make Franck Ribery appear a GQ coverboy.

The other day, Junito, Angie, the missus, and I were kicking a pelotita around when Junito got mad at not receiving consistent service. Se enojo and was inches away from pegging one of his trademark mordiscos when I restrained him and placed him in timeout. I can handle some heat in the locker, err, living room, but unlike the stargazing Domenech, at some point one must impose authority or all hell breaks loose.

So Junito sat in his chair in a rinconito, and I still couldn’t help but reflect upon the subtle effect of time on character. A few years ago, Gattuso was talking smack about Zidane and his club was a Champions League finalist. Now, humbled by a first round exit, he admitted he deserved scorn. Cannavaro fared little better – his second spell was Juventus was a disaster, and a date with a Persian Gulf paycheck awaited the former World Champion.

I looked back at the Italian run to the top, smirking at how easily we write history in stone yet live the present on a whim. Italy, after all, barely edged Australia on a horrendous penalty kick call. The match against the Ukraine ended 3-0, but any neutral saw a tight match where but for a few friendly posts, the game could have gone either way. And, of course, the final was decided by a single errant shot in a penalty kick shoot-out. Football, even of the non-American variety, appeared a game of inches (perhaps centimeters).

The career arch of Junito is still squarely in the “petulant and cocky Frenchman” point, what with his cocky showmanship and silky first touch. Still, if history is any guide, if genetics play a role, then I like to think that Junito could enjoy perhaps a career of two decades. Why? No, not because of me. If he eats half the enchiladas I have, he will be lucky to make his high school team. No, because of Junito’s abuelo.

Last October, we received the chilling news that foretells the tribulations between adolescence and adulthood. Junito’s abuelo had a stroke. We all worried about my papy’s health, some fretted about a will (or lack thereof), but naturally my thoughts turned to the most important thing of all – soccer. Would my 60 year old dad still be able to play?

The answer was a thunderous, joyous, and rapturous yes. During the Dia de Gracias, spent at the abue’s, grandpa could still pivot like a teenager at a school dance and chip thirty foot passes like a 60 year old Xavi that recently had a stroke (use your imagination). I was alleviated. I was elated. Despite the worn legs, the brain’s cruel recollection it too is a muscle, smile after smile graced my papy’s face.

In this game of inches, where young French men cry and fight like three year olds, they forget a simple truth: the game should never cease to be a game. Despite aching knees, mistimed tackles, and the fatigue dizzies, the Italians marched into the World Cup for one simple reason, for the same reason that a 38 year old Maldini deputized at leftback for AC Milan….

“Jugamos pelota nietito?”

“Clarisisismo que si!”

From the audience perspective, the German counterattacks play out like a creepy killer carefully entering and walking through the house. As the masked villain slowly tiptoes down the hallway towards the bedroom, we flash to scenes of the impervious back line, taking a shower. Will Heinze step in time to rule Podoslki offsides? Oh no...he’s decided to use conditioner and can’t hear the killer turning the door handle to the bedroom!

On the other hand, with enough possession and half chances, the victim always manages to kick and punch and wrestle her (or his) way out a window, only to find that she’s stranded on the roof. She manages to wriggle down a nearby tree, but you know the killer is already hiding in the backseat of her car. In this sense, the German victory resembles the finality of surgery, where anesthesia dulls the pain until the very end. Instead of seeing the victim’s eyes as the knife enters the abdomen, the last ten minutes of the match we witness slumped shoulders and half-assed runs. The curtains slowly close and soon the credits role.

This game presented a contrast to the Argentina of 2006, which I argue was built like Dunga’s Brazil. That albiceleste side packed the midfield with Maxi, Mascherano, and Cambiasso – all of whom worked as ball winding bodyguards that in turn supplied Riquelme. The emphasis on possession and organization yielded a draw against Germany, which they won on penalty kicks. This Argentina side rode on the backs of three strikers, sacrificing meaningful possession for offensive forays. Mascherano ran his tail off, but the trifecta of Higuain-Tevez-Messi failed to seriously trouble a packed German center.

The few moments of danger came from Dimaria, which is the closest proximity to a winger that Argentina has produced as of late. The lack of width, and notably of overlapping runs, was the antithesis of Brazil’s over-reliance on the galloping Maicon. Yet neither served either country in their quest to advance past the quarterfinals. For all the talk of nationalism, of how importing foreign players dilutes national teams, the two largest suppliers lost to the Dutch and the Germans. And in 2006 they lost respectively to France and Germany.

So the only answer is for the respective Argentine and Brazilian leagues to open up a large pipeline for German, French, and Dutch players. Or something like that.

Regardless, the press will jump on Maradona for the lopsided defeat. Still, he took his side as far as Pekerman four years ago, albeit losing in emphatic fashion. The Argentine questions of “por que no puso a Milito” will cascade throughout the internet, but such tactical substitutions and ruminations will amount to little. The Germans on their day are always one step quicker, jump an inch higher, stay composed in the box, and are a few steps behind you with a shining dagger in their hand.