Speaking of Luxa, I found
this excellent article from
The Guardian's Sid Lowe. I particularly love Luxemburgo's new nickname...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Just call him Wonderbra
by Sid Lowe
Monday January 10, 2005
Never mind the dodgy birth certificate that says Wanderley instead of Vanderlei and 1955 instead of 1952. Forget the accusations of sexual harassment, accepting backhanders and drug trafficking. And who cares about the conviction for tax fraud? Not Real Madrid's fans, that's for sure, because new coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo has turned things round at the Santiago Bernabéu. For now at least.
It is just thirteen days since Luxemburgo boarded the same plane for Madrid as Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos; thirteen days since they asked him if he was off on holiday; thirteen days since he replied: "No, I'm going to be a coach -
your coach." And in just twelve days (the flight was pretty long, you see), Luxemburgo has pulled Madrid up to second place, cutting six points off the lead of FC Barcelona, who last night lost 3-0 to a brilliant Villarreal side led by Juan Román Riquelme and Diego Forlán (yes, that one).
Luxemburgo has performed the feat thanks to a couple of bizarre victories. In seven surreal minutes - preceded by the official, operatic club anthem, which lasted almost as long as the game itself - Madrid managed to beat Real Sociedad 1-0 with a fourth-minute penalty (well, 2-1 with a 92nd-minute penalty) in the continuation of their bomb-threat abandoned match of 12 December. Then, with Luxemburgo patrolling the touchline, walkie-talkie in hand, they incredibly defeated Atlético 3-0 in the city derby last night.
All of sudden, the atmosphere has changed at Madrid. And it's all down to wonderful Vanderlei. Marca has decided they should call him Wonderbra, because there's not all that much substance to Madrid but, boy, does he make them look good. He, the Madrid press gleefully crow, has brought organisation, discipline and hard work, a change of attitude.
He has also brought luck - lots and lots of luck.
Seven minutes were enough against la Real, who offered the most tactically inept defence since some bright spark said "ooh, look at that nice wooden horsey; let's wheel it in", while last night it took 83 minutes longer, but (seriously) less shots on target. Three. As El País's Santiago Segurola put it, "Madrid scored the first time they got into Atlético's area. And the second. And the third." Atlético, by contrast, could not score on their first. Or their second. Or their 22nd. They couldn't even score on their final, 27th chance.
How that hurts at the Calderón. Atlético midfielder Marcelo Sosa welcomed in the new year by cheerfully admitting: "I don't like Luis Figo. He looks at you funny if you so much as touch him. And as for David Beckham, there are 10,000 players better. He's only here to sell shirts; as a footballer, he never existed."
Which was nice of him, and on yesterday's evidence he might have had a point: Figo spent the game whinging and Beckham was anonymous - apart from when he ran very, very fast to make sure he was first to celebrate each goal, which he then marked by shouting very, very loudly. The best thing Beckham did was grace a huge banner in the South End of the ground, depicting the Seven Capital Sins. Representing lust, a cartoon Beckham - you could tell it was him because, like those truly pathetic sketches in the Mirror, he had his name written in - was buried in something (and it wasn't a book).
But it wasn't just Beckham. Virtually all Madrid's players were poor again. "I'm happy with the result, but not the performance," said Luxemburgo. "It could have finished 6-3 rather than 0-3, anyone can see that," added Iker Casillas, with understatement: Madrid were destroyed by Atlético, whose new signing Jesper Gronkjaer - excellent yesterday - must still be wondering how he didn't start with a win in a game as stubbornly one-sided as this column trying to complete a Rubik's Cube.
"I don't know what to write", said AS's Iñako Díaz Guerra, writing something, "because I've never had to explain the unexplainable before." Actually, he could have explained a truly surreal result in four words. Not 'Madrid were unbelievably lucky', although they were, but: 'Ronaldo and Iker Casillas'. The Brazilian started and finished it and the goalkeeper did the rest. "Fernando Torres is not Ronaldo", ran one headline, not so much hitting the nail on the head as hammering it through the skull and into the brain. Ronaldo had two chances, Torres ten; Ronaldo scored twice, Torres didn't score any.
Ronaldo, who inevitably represented greed in the banners, got the first after seventeen minutes. Roberto Carlos - subjected to monkey chants all game long; chants that got even worse after a PA announcement asking the fans to stop - escaped and pulled back a bobbling cross. Expecting something more decisive, Atlético's centre-backs flew past like cartoon characters running off a cliff and by the time they'd realised, put the brakes on and plummeted onto the rocks below, Zinedine Zidane had missed the ball completely. Ronaldo didn't. He never does.
Then, after Casillas had finished being Inspector Gadget, miraculously shooting out arms and legs and reaching everything, Ronaldo scored a third with six minutes left. The stadium was empty by then because Madrid's only other decent performer, Santiago Solari, had broken away to make it 2-0 three minutes before, prompting most of Atlético's fans to leave - one on a stretcher after getting a ball in the face, despite Nike's claim that it's scientifically proven to be the most visible ball ever.
They left with a horribly familiar feeling, too: a sense of inevitability. "Atlético playing Madrid is like going out on the pull with George Clooney", joked one columnist: "you do all the work, but you know he's the one that's going to score." For, Atlético are defined by inequality, by their suffering. Their centenary hymn glories, "What a way to suffer! What a way to lose!" and as Juanma Trueba says in AS this morning: "Atlético keep adding new chapters to their history. Clinical history, that is. They are a romantic myth, Humphrey Bogart to Madrid's Cary Grant. Atletico had no rival yesterday - except luck."
Sponsored by Colombia Tri-Star, each month Atlético's shirts bear the name of the latest release. This month it's Closer. They should remove the C.
:howler:
