So we’re six minutes into the UEFA Champions League semifinal, second leg. Cristiano Ronaldo, on the road for Manchester United in his native Portugal, buries a stunning first-time thirty-yarder to put his side ahead on a night where they surely faced elimination from the continental quality quest.
It was … perfect.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
And it stood up as the winner, too.
“Perfect” is a strange and two-headed quality. It’s so rare and elusive. One of the great joys of being a sports fan is that sport encourages perfection – and you know right away on the rare occasions it shines.
But the pursuit of perfection can really mess you up. The stress, the over-analysis, the tension. There have been soaring, transcendent moments in my life that certainly weren’t perfect. What a shame it would have been to miss them being overly honed in on something so rare and so impractical.
Yeah: impractical. The strangest thing about perfection is it tends to just happen. No practice, no plan – just an indescribable moment where different things come blindingly together, and there’s nothing anyone can do but be amazed.
Sure, Ronaldo is shocking gifted. But long shots in soccer go wonking off goalposts and duck-quacking over crossbars all the time. If he’d missed, and United had subsequently been eliminated in a scoreless draw, what do you bet Sir Alex might have his impetuous young star taking extra shooting practice in tomorrow’s gray Mancunian dawn?
One of the best soccer shots I ever saw was in the Robbie youth soccer tournament in Scarborough a few years back. Late in a tie game, an anonymous 11-year-old striker won the ball at the corner of the penalty area, turned his defender, and scorched a transcendently beautiful outswinger into the near top corner for the match-winning strike.
I’d only just sat down a moment before, and here’s perfection! I don’t doubt for a second that the kid meant to score. But like that? Only in his dreams – and this one shining gorgeous-and-gone moment.
Now – Toronto FC:
Since coming home from a fine season-opening road trip, the ragged Reds have taken just one of six points at home, scoring one and only one goal.
The intriguing thing? That goal was perfect. Adrian Serioux with a blazing throw-in only Dwayne DeRosario could reach, which DeRo headed down a line where it could only and always be a goal.
It’s clear that perfection can really give you a lift. Players, teams, fans – who doesn’t respond to something so shiningly and unarguably unimprovable? And yet, TFC settled into listlessness that afternoon, ultimately conceding a soggy tie against the last-place team.
Maybe it’s a context thing. Attacking throw-ins are rare in world soccer. They’re stunningly effective, but somehow they lack tradition. But what could be more basic that Ronaldo crunching a 30-yarder that curves stingingly past the diving goalkeeper’s aching empty fingers, then lets itself be caught and cradled by the waiting goal-net, still spinning defiantly even as it inevitably falls to earth?
TFC fussed and futzed over far too many attack opportunities this past weekend. The attackers were clearly nervous, looking like they were trying to be … perfect. What this team needs is for one of the strikers to just crunch one.
Blast a ball; bury a goal.
Fullback Jim Brennan did it in Kansas City in the opener. Midfielder Amado Guevara did it twice. But aside from DeRo’s header last Saturday, no one deployed in the TFC front line has found net in the opening four matches of the new MLS season.
The most perfect thing DeRo, or Pablo Vitti, or Danny Dichio – or Chad Barrett – could do right now is forget perfection, and just start blasting. Some of those balls are going to go in. One might even be as pretty as Ronaldo’s. And THAT would give all concerned on the Good Ship TFC exactly the lift they need to rise from these turgid seas, and set proper, purposeful sail for the long-awaited, oft-promised distant port in the playoffs.
… Except, of course, that perfection is fleeting.
But the lift endures. Toronto ’09 is a team that will give up a lot of goals. They need to stop treating scoring chances like they are rare and fragile. If the ball’s got a sniff of the net, hoof it. If you miss, hoof the next one.
No fineness, no fussiness, nothing cute – just blast something and see what happens. Win a couple of games like that, and then we can work on the fine points.
Perfection – if it comes at all – isn’t something you can plan for. And there’s no point plummeting out of contention because you’re afraid of making mistakes.
A soccer-coach friend of mine used to say “30 shots, 3 goals.” It bugged the crap out of me, because it strips the beautiful game of all its art and subtlety. But I’ll sure take it now – and so should the TFC strike force.
Such artless lack of perfection might even be … the perfect solution.
Onward!