The Tenth of February
Raúl Gonzalez/Fernando Morientes, G. 10 February, 2008.
The stadium erupts in a collective, goooooooool!
He kisses his ring, the crest on his shirt, his club, his team-mates, and in the midst of the celebration and noise and ticker-tape, he looks past all of them for one face in particular, a face he won't find.
And when the whistle blows he steps off the pitch accompanied by applause.
He tugs off the armband, the one that, despite the praises sung alongside his name, makes him tactfully, diplomatically, state, the league is not yet over, and, this team will work hard until the final whistle of the season is blown, and the public approve of this.
When he is finished with his duties he is met with the cheer in the dressing room.
The boys are thrilled, knowing tonight is going to be a good night for them, and tomorrow they won't have to worry about what the press will report because they played a match worthy of the crest on the jerseys they sport.
But when they all leave the stadium in celebration he doesn't join them.
The captain, he sits in the silence of his car, phone in hand, willing it to ring, and though they say a watched pot never boils, he waits patiently because all the events leading up to this tonight is merely a warm-up to this moment.
And in a little while the phone lights up for the man with the famous name.
Congratulations, the message from a seaside province starts, but I was really waiting for the hat-trick from you, and those few words on the flickering screen was worth the wait.
He dials as his body surges like a child rewarded for a task well done.
When the line is picked up, I remember that like it was yesterday, he says, even though it's a cliché, and the man on the other end laughs at that and wonders why he isn't out to revel in this win the way they did back in 2002.
And the hero of the hour, he says, I am, I am celebrating it, like the last time, with you.
The stadium erupts in a collective, goooooooool!
He kisses his ring, the crest on his shirt, his club, his team-mates, and in the midst of the celebration and noise and ticker-tape, he looks past all of them for one face in particular, a face he won't find.
And when the whistle blows he steps off the pitch accompanied by applause.
He tugs off the armband, the one that, despite the praises sung alongside his name, makes him tactfully, diplomatically, state, the league is not yet over, and, this team will work hard until the final whistle of the season is blown, and the public approve of this.
When he is finished with his duties he is met with the cheer in the dressing room.
The boys are thrilled, knowing tonight is going to be a good night for them, and tomorrow they won't have to worry about what the press will report because they played a match worthy of the crest on the jerseys they sport.
But when they all leave the stadium in celebration he doesn't join them.
The captain, he sits in the silence of his car, phone in hand, willing it to ring, and though they say a watched pot never boils, he waits patiently because all the events leading up to this tonight is merely a warm-up to this moment.
And in a little while the phone lights up for the man with the famous name.
Congratulations, the message from a seaside province starts, but I was really waiting for the hat-trick from you, and those few words on the flickering screen was worth the wait.
He dials as his body surges like a child rewarded for a task well done.
When the line is picked up, I remember that like it was yesterday, he says, even though it's a cliché, and the man on the other end laughs at that and wonders why he isn't out to revel in this win the way they did back in 2002.
And the hero of the hour, he says, I am, I am celebrating it, like the last time, with you.