One Party Football
What does football in the One Party Communist State of Vietnam look like? Well, for starters they don’t call it football. Instead, they call it bóng đá. Don’t ask. I don’t know why nor do I know how to ask in Vietnamese. Just so long as they don’t call it soccer, I don’t mind. Also, amazingly, it was free to get in. There was no turnstile, no ticket stub and no fee. No money? No problem — just walk on in & take a seat. Fantastic. Now, I don’t know if this ticketing situation was standard or a one-off, but it immediately got me thinking of my mate in England.
All morning he had been pestering me with messages & pictures, giving it the big ‘un, because he was going to be rollin’ rollin’ with the fat of the land at Anfield for Liverpool V Spurs. Yes, no sitting next to scallies with six fingers and no front teeth. He was going corporate. High end… in the Carlsberg Room. Don’t laugh. Carlsberg is a classy high end beverage. And a rather appropriate sponsor, because — to pinch their marketing line — If Carlsberg did Liverpool football fans, they’d probably be the richest football fans ever. And they’d need to be, because a ticket to that dunkin’ doughnut shed was going to cost my mate around three hundred & fifty quid… plus VAT. Bargain. Yep. Let that just sink in for moment. Over four hundred quid to watch James Milner trundle around a football pitch. Commissioner, where do I sign? Still, my friend assured me, at least there was a free flow of food & drinks on offer, as well as a kiss & cuddle from a former Anfield legend. Cute. This time around it was Roy Evans. The former manager of the Spice Boys — the boozing, womanising, yodelling bunch of prima donnas who scored loads of goals, conceded even more and died head-on in those cream suits in the FA Cup final. Naaah.
Anyway, back in Vietnam at the Hanoi Stadium where Hà Nội T&T were taking on SHB-Đà Nẵng, I looked to my right to see why I couldn’t get into the home end — there wasn’t one. The only seating areas available were on either side of the pitch, and in the corner — some of which was elevated. Very strange. Perhaps the stadium had hit the kind of complications where the hands go up and the tools go down, and stay down. But then again this was not a typical football stadium. It was a typical athletics stadium, complete with the number one enemy of all football fans — the running track. You see, it’s difficult to take any football club seriously if their ground has a running track. Every football fan knows this. Every football club knows this. West Ham know this, even though they have attempted to disguise reality with a large radioactive green coloured carpet. Genius. Decent effort, but it still fails miserably. And it fails because you still feel miles away from the action — because you actually are miles away from the action. Like a long distance relationship, they just don’t work.
Still, while camouflaging the running track hasn’t stop West Ham fans from creating a hostile atmosphere — by punching each other in the face — likewise, here, it hasn’t stopped the home & away fans from facing off. Kind of. Instead of fighting they hammer large drums, sing & shout into megaphones. Standing at the front, five rows below me was a small group of fifty home fans who were playing follow the leader. Two lads gave out directions and the rest followed, jumping up and down arm in arm in two-word sing-alongs, which barely lasted longer than five seconds. Like a pair of teenagers on their first date, they all appeared somewhat nervous & unsure about the whole thing. Still, at least they were enthusiastic. On the opposite side of the pitch, however, you could only just about make out the thirty-odd away fans who had made the trip — I think. Again the distance. Always the distance. You had to cup your ear, squint & peer into the distance to make anything out. In the end it would have been better if we’d just done semaphore & sent smoke signals.
Pitchside, the bóng đá wasn’t up to much either. I looked up at the clock and pulled a face — only 17 minutes had passed. This was going to be a long day. And making it even longer was the weather. Me — being an idiot — had made a slight misjudgment. Hanoi gets a little chilly this time of year and obviously I hadn’t packed adequate clothing. Idiot. Well, maybe the football would help warm the old cockles. Hmmm, not quite. Although, I had to give both teams credit. They were keeping things very communist by playing equally terrible. A fair distribution of awful passing and inept decision making coming from both sides. Even their formations were the same: 4–1–4–1. Fair’s fair. And, also, strangely enough, both sides had a player wearing the number 99 shirt. A first for me. A number which is more akin to the American flavour of football, which is based on motorcycle helmets, chest pumps & commercials, rather than the real worldwide version. Nevertheless, it was a number which proved rather apt, because both teams had 99 problems — and right now playing football was every single one of them.
Security! We have a rogue flare. The fireworks are go and the home fans are celebrating. Hanoi have just scored. A miracle. A fabulous strike from the sweet left peg of number 19, Nguyễn Quang Hải from the edge of the box. It flew straight into the top left hand corner of the net. He deserved it. I needed it. Just before half time, too. A necessary pick-me-up. Also, we’re still having trouble with that flare. Stamping on it isn’t working. Getting angry and pointing fingers also isn’t helping. Finally, someone has connected the dots. They’ve grabbed a large damp cloth and smothered it. Well done, lads. And with that goes the half time whistle. Forty five forgettable minutes which have been made slightly memorable by a wonder goal and a rogue flare. And did I mention it was quite cold? Christ.
Still, what about that lad, Nguyễn Quang Hải, eh? A fine left footed player, who wasn’t quite a winger, but more of an inside left forward, who’d drop deep and play in between the left winger & striker. A little bit like David Silva at Man City. Composed & neat in tight situations and relaxed & smart in space, he was by far the game’s best player (which wasn’t hard). Also, he was a proper footballer. And when I mean a proper footballer I mean a footballer who actually has a first touch, vision, skill and an understanding of the game. You see, today, too many footballers have been forgiven for having the touch, vision & composure of a Dalek simply because they’re either massive or they’ve got bags of pace, power & determination. Yes, welcome to the rise of the Athlete-fooballer where pace & power have not only become the order of the day, but the Super Sunday special. Sure, pace & power can be and is devastating, but without an exquisite first touch, a wee drop of the shoulder or a subtle slide rule pass? Well, like my Dad says, just open the gate — because this is football and not the 50 yard dash. Isn’t that right Mr. Walcott? Anyway, while the footballing Gods had clearly blessed Nguyễn Quang Hải, it seems they’d rather forgotten about those around him. Nevermind. But then again maybe the goal would give them a boost. You know, more confidence, better play, yeah?
Naaah. The second half was just a repeat of the first. Troubling. Even with their opponents on the ropes, Hà Nội T&T just couldn’t land that final knock-out punch. Instead, SHB-Đà Nẵng bobbed and weaved, riding their luck now and then, and countering whenever possible. Then Hà Nội T&T decided to force the game by making a change. Substitution. They knew — because everyone knows — one-nil is never enough in football. This game needed someone to finish it off, so they sent on another striker. Another number 9 to play up alongside their number 99. All the 9s, 999. Strangely enough, that’s the number you dial for the Ambulance service in the UK. Hmmm. Still, the extra man up top didn’t really do anything to suggest he was the solution to Hà Nội T&T’s 99 problems. Instead, it now looked more like 999 problems. Just the same old probing and possession but no goals. Frustrating. And, if anything, it was SHB-Đà Nẵng who’d had the best clear cut chances in the second half. On one occasion Hà Nội T&T’s goalkeeper was forced into an incredible double save before the crossbar saved him on another. But, then, not long after, with twenty minutes to go, he was forced to pick the ball up out of the net. SHB-Đà Nẵng booted the ball into Hà Nội T&T’s box. Hà Nội T&T didn’t defend it properly. SHB-Đà Nẵng got onto the loose ball and took advantage. Bang. 1–1. With twenty minutes left on the clock, Hà Nội T&T attempted to re-take the lead by removing all their problems off the pitch — Mr. 99 was substituted. Yet, still, the pattern and the problems remained. Lots of huff & puff, but no real hammer blow. Damn.
Now, as the final minutes turned into the final seconds of injury time, I watched my man of the match, Nguyễn Quang Hải, trying desperately to weave some kind of magic to make something-anything happen. It was hard not to feel sympathetic for the man. To score a worldie, put in a Man-of-the-match performance and be walking off the pitch with just a solitary point in the bag, rather than all three, must hurt. But I guess that’s life. That’s football. Afterall, at the end of ninety minutes the points go to the team, not the individual, because football is a team game. And yet, here’s the curious thing — so much about football is about the individual. We constantly hit on the players. We praise them, idolize them, discuss them, criticize them and sing songs about them. Rarely do we ever talk about the team like we do the players — but here comes the cute bit — folks would say that to talk about the players is to talk about the team. Hmmm, but is it?
Football, thus, it seems, appears to oscillate between the collective & individual in a rather awkward and muddled fashion. It is neither solely about the collective nor all about the individual. Rather, it is, to a degree and of a vague, confusing and indeterminate kind, both. A bamboozling dichotomy, it seems, which doesn’t fit our preferred simplistic black-and-white world order of understanding, but it does perhaps explain why football is so fascinating & unpredictable. The fact that you know you can win without having the best individuals and that you can make up the differences between the individuals with collective brilliance is exciting in its own wonderful way. But again — this is just one way of thinking about football. A game which has and is constantly being re-invented.
Now, it’s understandable to feel a little confused & lost when talking about the beautiful game, because to understand it fully without folly when the outcome of each match depends on not just a combination & miss-match of talent and non-talent, but on random things like a referring decision, or a football flying in off somebody’s backside, is like trying to manoeuvre your way through quick sand. In the end, whether your team gets more than what they deserve, less than what they deserve, or exactly what they deserve, is a discussion that sometimes goes on and on and round in circles; a little bit like those ones about Communism V Capitalism.
Still, someone who was getting much more than what he deserved — in my opinion — and who looked completely confused during the entire game was Nguyễn Quang Hải’s opposite number — the right winger of SHB-Đà Nẵng. I didn’t get his name. It wasn’t necessary, if you catch my drift. His contribution during the game had been absolutely dreadful. He was very much on the opposite end of the spectrum to Nguyễn Quang Hải, and yet here he was walking off the pitch with a point in the bag, just like Mr. Nguyễn Quang Hải. Daylight robbery. Nevertheless, he got me thinking the same old questions — how was he a professional footballer, and I wasn’t? and also he made me wonder if I should dust off them old boots and give them one more pre-season. But then it hit me. Suddenly, I realized that we had ourselves a footballing doppelgänger on our hands. Ticking all the boxes, it couldn’t be any clearer: He ran like a penguin, had shovels for feet, had the pace of a wheelbarrow, couldn’t beat a man, couldn’t pass, couldn’t cross and he looked like he’d been programmed by Cyberdyne systems 101. Ladies & Gentlemen, I was looking at Vietnam’s James Milner.
