Sarhan in the presence of football... titles, icons, and the creation of glory and legends.
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Sport
Sarhan in the presence of football... titles, icons, and the creation of glory and legends.
Hesspress Sports·
The World Cup, the trophy and not the finals, is the icon of the game, indeed the crown jewel of it, for without it all other awards such as cups, medals, and golden shoes pale in comparison... However, each tournament is accompanied by another unforgettable icon made of flesh and blood.
In April 1982, Paolo Rossi completed his suspension from playing, which had been imposed following accusations of match-fixing, originally set for three years before being reduced to two. Two paradoxes accompanied this: first, Juventus signed a contract with the player while he was still under suspension, and second, the national team coach, Bearzot, immediately called him up for the World Cup finals that were approaching. Football fans needed a personal madness to understand what was happening with the boy, especially since Italy was teeming with stars from various backgrounds.
After a forgettable first round, Paolo Rossi exploded by scoring six goals, three of which were against the greatest version of Brazil, leading him to win the World Cup, the tournament's top scorer, and the Ballon d'Or. It became clear to everyone that the old lady was not mistaken, and that the wise Enzo had a vision under the red light; otherwise, how could he see veins pulsating with gold in a dormant clay?
The 1986 World Cup is undoubtedly the World Cup of the giant Maradona. In it, he scored the strangest goal with his hand and the greatest goal of the century with his foot, not counting the lethal goals he scored with his tongue when he responded to the press about it.
In that year, Maradona was a player, a captain, a team, and an Argentine all by himself, thus rising to the ranks of the gods of Olympus.
In that year, Maradona said: "Here I am" as no other boy ever has or will.
Four years later, the world was set to meet an icon of another color, an icon from the ebony of Africa. Although Cameroon had the greatest team in its history, that did not prevent the country's president from personally calling the old man Roger Milla, to bring him back from retirement to bless the pitch. Almost as happened with Rossi, Milla scored decisive goals and won the African Ballon d'Or at the age of thirty-eight, becoming the oldest to do so, and gifted football fans that beautiful dance at the corner. And if history were to forget, which it sometimes deliberately does, it would never forget his cunning goal against the goalkeeper Higuita while he was at the height of his arrogance.
Roger Milla did not stop there; he returned in the following World Cup to add another chapter to football, scoring at the age of forty-three, once again becoming the oldest player to do so in World Cup history.
That World Cup also had its icon, but it was not one of joy or cheer or gold, but rather one of pure sorrow, a sorrow from which there is no escape... Yes, it is exactly whom I mean: Roberto Baggio.
In the 2006 World Cup, the icon would have a different taste, neither joy nor sorrow, but the taste of dignity this time, as a response to an affront to his honor, Zidane delivered his famous headbutt to Materazzi, which was immortalized by a giant statue, even more than the cup that France lost due to the expulsion of its captain. Zidane retired immediately afterward, and Materazzi was the last header he scored in his illustrious career.
What place does Morocco hold in admiration?
In the Qatar World Cup, Morocco was truly the icon, both for the world-class performance of the team until its unjust exit from the semifinals, and for the accompanying promotion of the country's culture and traditions, shaping its image in the world, as well as the seismic celebrations that followed each victory, echoing in the farthest corners of the earth.
In those far corners lies a country called Indonesia, which produced shirts commemorating the famous dance of Boufal, with his mother carrying the following phrase: "We are not great, but the prayers of our mothers are strong." Is there a more eloquent icon than this?
As the game is played on the vast land of God, with leagues in most maps and competitions on every continent, and with a significant presence in the Olympics and a high seat in the World Cup, its community is filled with titles of every shine. The cups, medals, golden shoes, and gloves, along with other icons of glory and symbols of honor, are indeed beyond enumeration. Even if we resort to specialized websites, we will find nothing but numbers following one another, and I believe that there is no pleasure to be gained from that.
Therefore, the titles that truly deserve to be the subject of research and study, which the eloquent and the knowledgeable delve into, are those bestowed upon players and coaches... created for them with much talent or attached to them with all bluntness.
Egyptians are widely considered the most title-happy people, with thousands sharing in this and thousands in that... However, if one of them sings outside the flock, they reward his uniqueness with a unique title, so he becomes the "black nightingale," and she becomes "the star of the East"... And because football is certainly not exempt from the norms and customs of the people, they have followed their own path in this matter, as their ancestors engaged in it thousands of years ago, creating expressive titles like "the magician," "the teacher," "the joker," "the maestro," "the high dam," "Kahraba," and "the bulldozer,"... just as they took the easy route in others, attaching their players' names to those of other world stars, so among them are Messi, Neymar, Trezeguet, Dunga, Nedved, Beckham, Zico, and Zola... Perhaps the psychological superiority over their African brethren is clearer than to be pointed out here, as there is no mention of Drogba or Kalusha, Eto'o or Okocha, or even George Weah with his golden ball and presidential palace. Perhaps the arrogance among our Egyptian brothers is akin to the nose of the Sphinx himself.
Amidst the multitude of titles and their varying sources, "the Kaiser" stands out as the most prominent of all, as there has been no Khosrow on the fields until now, and he is only mentioned, due to his greatness, with a slight bow to history. The Kaiser of football, whose real name is Franz Beckenbauer, won the Ballon d'Or twice, which no other defender has achieved, and he lifted the World Cup both as a player and a coach, a feat that may not be replicated by any other Germans in the foreseeable future, thus sharing glory with the country: what belongs to the Germans is for the Germans, and what belongs to the Kaiser is for the Kaiser.
During the 2006 World Cup, Beckenbauer and Merkel watched from the VIP stand, and with every German goal, they stood up with a strong sense of joy and embraced each other in celebration before the cameras of the world, appearing as Kaiser and Cleopatra contemporaries, had they not given birth to any "Caesars" for the empire of football, for history, for some reason, does not repeat itself with a period and a comma.
The Germans, who derived a title from the greatness of history for their great player, are also a people steeped in technology. Therefore, when they saw what they saw from Philipp Lahm playing in various positions with the same efficiency, they dubbed him "the wireless." We may not have to wait long before radar, code, satellite, Bluetooth, drone, and server all descend onto the football fields... However, the paradox in bestowing titles lies in the fact that "the wireless," for example, is over two thousand years younger than the Kaiser, while Lahm is only forty years younger than Beckenbauer.
Titles often do not require exceptional talent or vast imagination, in football as in other fields. With a slight alteration of the name, Zlatan became "the Sultan." By focusing on the size of the players, titles like "the ant," "the pea," "the Hulk," "the gazelle," "the bulldozer," "the flea," "the tank," and "the pasta" emerged... And by appreciating skill, vision, and precision, there were "the magician," "the artist," "the engineer," "the maestro," and "the philosopher"... And by successfully describing the style of play, there were "the spider," "the wall," and "the roadblock"... The spread of titles was aided by the fact that the football community, consisting of fans, coaches, commentators, journalists, and analysts, now has a contemporary agora of channels, through which everything about the game is disseminated to most of the world with unprecedented speed and efficiency.
Coaches also have their share of titles, but the duty of respect requires that none of them be vulgar as is the case with some players. We only need to look at these examples to clearly see the esteemed status some of them enjoy: Sir Ferguson, Professor Wenger, the Special One Mourinho, Philosopher Guardiola, Don Carlo...
And there must be mention of Morocco, no matter how long the talk is.
In the 1940s, with Africa having no notable football significance, Moroccan players were adorning the glory of Europe through major French and Spanish clubs, earning the highest titles and the most esteemed expressions of appreciation for their remarkable achievements.
For example, the Arab Benmbarak was the crown jewel in the kingdom of the game, deserving of the title "the black pearl," which he sought for years before Pelé appeared on the fields. When he transferred from Stade de France to Atlético Madrid in 1948 in a record deal, the French press coined the phrase for him: "Sell the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe, but do not sell Arab Benmbarak." This phrase holds a known value in the bank of immortality exclusively.
Arab Benmbarak rightfully earned the title, as evidenced by his heir; when he met Pelé, he said to him, "If I am the king of the game, then you are its god." If we may borrow the absent text from critical theory, Arab Benmbarak is the absent person for Pelé, just as our remarkable player deserved that eternal phrase, for in his first two seasons with Atlético Madrid, he achieved a cup and two league titles in the presence of the giants, Real and Barça, which has not been repeated for the team again. Yet, we cannot escape, in this channel or that site, from the cities of salt or fields of locusts, from those who question who the greatest Arab or African player is. The more astonishing is that such questions are still posed even after the emergence of Hakimi and those of his caliber, Hakimi, who has won the Champions League three times, and carries titles whose cups, medals, and awards would weigh heavily...
Arab Benmbarak is credited with alerting Europeans to other Moroccan jewels, as he was joined, at intervals, by Battash, Al-Khalifi, Tatoum, and Al-Khamiri, who was nicknamed "the cannon" for the power of his shots, and Belmahjoub, who even played for the French national team and was nicknamed "the prince of the Princes' Park," and the elegant Abdullah Al-Zahr, whom the French envied for his refined style of dress, and Hassan Aqsabi, the top scorer in Africa in the French league until further notice...
When these and other Moroccan talents were soaking their shirts on European pitches, fate brought them together with Puskás, Pelé, Di Stéfano, Kopa, Fontaine, and others who are landmarks in the history of the game, achieving titles, cups, and medals... While they were doing all of that, Africa was still in the warming-up phase. Years later, it would have a union named after it, and the first African Cup of Nations would be organized, with only three teams: Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, which, coincidentally, were the same nations that competed for the cup in its second edition, so continental glory at that time required at most two victories, just as happens in another well-known game called: Rock – Paper – Scissors.
Morocco witnessed its first official championship during the French protectorate under the name "Moroccan League," which had its stars and titles, of course. With the beginning of independence, the Moroccan Football Federation was established, which has since overseen national competitions. Since then, Morocco, both clubs and national teams, has had its share of glory wherever it competed, and its players shine wherever they performed.
In terms of the country's titles, Morocco has achieved in recent years what Africa has not achieved in all its football history. As for player titles, from "the ball's owner" to "the apricot seed," passing through the streets of dribbling, the legend, the maestro, the golden glove, the silky executioner, and the rock of defense... Moroccans have created titles of remarkable creativity. And if anyone among the eloquent or those of similar standing were to delve into these titles with study and analysis, we can only encourage them with one that deserves a comprehensive chapter in their thesis, it is Abdul Aziz Qamar Al-Zaman, nicknamed "Azouz Al-Qabr."
Abdul Aziz Qamar Al-Zaman, what a beautiful name, was a defender for Kawkab Marrakech during the 1970s, and due to his lethal efficiency, the Marrakechi people dubbed him "Azouz Al-Qabr." The transition from Abdul Aziz to Azouz, fortunately, preserved some of the boy's features; had his name been Abdullah, for example, they would have turned it into "La'bil," and it would have required linguistic DNA testing to confirm that this is indeed that. As for Qamar Al-Zaman, they brought him down from the heights of his eternal light to the darkness of the eternal grave, even though the boy was from the neighborhood of palaces and not the neighborhood of graves, the graves of martyrs. May God bless them, may God bless the people of Marrakech, for they did not see in him just a grave digger, but they saw in him the grave itself, the grave that accommodates all opposing attackers, and because of that, it is, therefore, the size of a pitch. Therefore, I propose to the guardians of the game in the city that Kawkab Marrakech host its opponents in a stadium named "Azouz Al-Qabr." With this terrifying name, the coffins will come to mind for the shirts of the fiercest attackers.
