v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

Jacoby Jones on Kimmel

What's My Name?

From The Nation:

As 80,000 Baltimore Ravens fans gathered at MB&T Bank Stadium to rally and celebrate their team’s triumph in Sunday’s Super Bowl, head coach John Harbaugh had something to say to the massive crowd. “We had a visit from the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali…. And he used to say, ‘What’s my name?’ We’re going to finish it off right here, with our whole stadium declaring to the football world, loud and clear who we are. Three times. Are you ready? What’s our name? [crowd answers, “Ravens”] What’s our name? [crowd answers, “Ravens”] What’s our name? [crowd answers, “Ravens”] Yeah! Thank you!”

It was deeply moving to hear Coach Harbaugh invoke the champ. Ali visited the team before the start of the season and was a source of inspiration throughout the year. There were stories over the weekend that the great Ali was close to death. Thankfully, this turned out to be false and his daughter Laila tweeted a picture of him getting ready for the big game and very much alive.

The words of Muhammad Ali are also a beautiful thing to hear in the twenty-first century. Harbaugh is keenly aware of its history and what Ali meant in his day. As he said in September, “He molded a generation. He was courage for a generation. He changed the world, but not just in the ring. The ring was his platform to change the world.”

Harbaugh is absolutely right, and the phrase “What’s my name?” encapsulates that courage. In 1967, heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali was defending his title against challenger Ernie Terrell. By now, “the Greatest” had already cemented his position as the most controversial and derided athlete in the history of the United States. Ali had already changed his name from Cassius Clay after joining the Nation of Islam. His name change meant that he had declared allegiance to an organization that called white people “devils” and believed racism was an incurable part of the United States. He had also by this time become an anti-war lightning rod by becoming a draft resister and refusing to be any part of the US war in Vietnam. Sportswriter Murray Robinson echoed the overwhelming majority of the media when he said, “[Clay] the adult brat, who has boasted ad nauseam of his fighting skill but who squealed like a cornered rat when tapped for the Army, should be shorn of his title.”

Ravens Come fromBehind Win in Playoffs

From ESPN:

As the Baltimore Ravens celebrated winning one of the best playoff games in NFL history, the players came off the field yelling, "No one thought we would win."

The Ravens made a convincing statement in Saturday's AFC divisional playoff game, riding big plays from Joe Flacco and a wave of emotion surrounding outgoing leader Ray Lewis. Their 38-35 double-overtime victory over the top-seeded Broncos was epic and thrilling. But it's not the fact that the long-shot Ravens won. It's how they won. What makes you believe in the Ravens more than ever is how unbelievable the triumph was.

How does a team that lost four of its last five regular-season games (the Ravens) beat a team that had won 11 straight (the Broncos)? How does Corey Graham, a Pro Bowl special-teams player last season, intercept Peyton Manning twice, including in overtime to set up the winning score? And how does Jacoby Jones get behind two Denver defenders to catch a soaring, 70-yard touchdown from Flacco to tie the game with 31 seconds remaining in regulation?

By the time Justin Tucker's 47-yard field goal sliced inside the right upright to end the fourth-longest game in NFL history, there was a sense that this was more than a special victory. This is a special team.

There always seems to be a team that gets hot late and makes an improbable championship run. The hot team this season is the one that emerged victorious after braving 4 hours, 11 minutes in minus-1 wind chill temperatures. It's a Ravens team that is headed to its third AFC Championship Game in five seasons but never before in such improbable fashion.

"We could be a team of destiny," running back Ray Rice said. "But I think we’re a team of believers."

It's hard not to believe in the Ravens after witnessing the final minute of the fourth quarter. The Ravens trailed 35-28 with 41 seconds remaining and no timeouts. They stood 70 yards from the end zone on third down.

The Ravens' hopes didn't look much brighter when Flacco dropped back and immediately felt pressure coming from both sides. Then, right as he saw a receiver getting behind the defense, Flacco stepped up and heaved the ball 54 yards in the air. Jones, who described the pass as a pretty spiral punt that landed in his hands, caught the ball at the 20-yard line before outrunning cornerback Tony Carter and safety Rahim Moore to the end zone.

If Nashville can have the Music City Miracle, the Ravens can have the Mile-High Miracle.

"You have to get a little bit lucky. It worked out," said Flacco, who averaged 18.3 yards per completion. "We’re able to take a shot, and everybody came through when that one opportunity kind of arose."

How much were the odds stacked against the Ravens at that point? According to ESPN Stats & Information’s win probability model, Denver had a 97.2 percent chance of winning the game before the Jones touchdown. In other words, Flacco might have had a better shot at winning the lottery than this game.

"It was one of those miraculous plays," said Graham, who watched the play from the sidelines. "I don’t think it will ever be forgotten."

Before this game, Ravens safety Ed Reed watched a piece on television about how the Immaculate Reception occurred in the 1972 season and The Comeback (the Bills rallying from a 32-point deficit) happened in the 1992 season. Now, Flacco's desperation pass will be added to NFL lore.

"I was just watching that not knowing today would be one of those special moments in time," Reed said.

So, does Reed get the feeling the Ravens are one of those special teams?

"We knew it was a special team regardless of what happened at the end of this," he said.

Reed is right. The Ravens have bonded this season over adversity, from the passing of owner Art Modell just before the start of the season to the death of Torrey Smith's younger brother in Week 3. They have been able to overcome injuries to linebackers Lewis and Terrell Suggs, and watched both return to the team when many initially thought both would be lost for the season. And don't forget about the Ravens' other miracle this season -- Rice converting fourth-and-29 in San Diego.

Still, the Ravens looked like the least likely of the AFC teams to make a Super Bowl run. They backed into the playoffs with a disastrous December, which included losing four out of five games and the firing of offensive coordinator Cam Cameron. The turning point came four days before Baltimore's first playoff game, when Lewis announced this was going to be his "last ride."

"We’re dealing with something where everything is ‘a last’ for us. It’s the last game or last drive for Ray Lewis," Rice said. "Peyton is coming back next year. [Colts coach Chuck] Pagano is coming back to coach next year. We love them guys, but it’s the last for our guy."

Lewis and the Ravens have embraced the underdog role, and few gave the Ravens much of a chance in the divisional playoff game. Baltimore was a nine-point underdog, and for good reason. The Ravens had lost nine straight to Manning. They had lost to the Broncos by 17 points just four weeks ago. And the Ravens were traveling across two time zones on a short week of rest.

None of that mattered as the Ravens battled back in a game in which they trailed by seven points four times. The Ravens battled back after giving up a 90-yard touchdown on the game's first punt and a 104-yard touchdown on the opening kickoff of the second half. It was the ultimate test in postseason resiliency.

"If I miss anything about my career, it will be to listen to what people say you can't do and then go do it," Lewis said. "There was only one way to cap last week, and that was to win this week. And that's what we, as a team, spoke about. We said: 'What if we do the impossible?'"

The Wisdom of Games

Gregory Jacob's eloquent article on Buck Showalter:

And then, on Sept. 8, Buck made a full-fledged baseball fan out of my wife. There he is misty-eyed I dare say, seated in front of the mike looking like he has to tell the country that Ahmadinejad had just bombed Alaska. It was clear that we had defeated the motherloving Yankees. It became clear that we had won like our 76th one-run game of the season. And, lastly, it became clear that CC Sabathia had hit Nick Markakis and broken his hand.

Buck, emoting full bore now: “It breaks my heart, personally. It’s emotional for all of us.”

He collects himself, not quite like he did the night Flanagan died, but emotional in just the kind of way my wife likes it – on edge, on the cliff, but balancing himself there.

“Because we know how much he means, and more importantly, how much the Orioles mean to him,” Buck continues. “He’s been here from the start … He’s a special breed. We’re lucky. The more you manage, the more you’re lucky to have a guy like him, regardless of what the statistics say. If you get bogged down with statistics, you’d never be able to make out your lineup.”

“So Nick is like a son to him, just like that other hurt guy?” my wife asks.

I’m choked up a bit, too.

“Seems so,” I say.

And then, referring to the big win again, Buck says something like this: the older I get, the more I sit back at moments like this and take in the grandeur of it. Buck scoffing at statistics and sitting back and enjoying it? Steinbrenner himself must have wanted to emit a thunderbolt from the billionaire heavens at that one.

Sentiment. Wisdom. WAR and WHIP and OBP and all these abbreviations, all this information that consumes us and makes Brad Pitt want to make a slow movie out of a book that was slower-moving than the game of baseball itself, and finally Buck arrives, with his hard-won wisdom, and realizes the whole thing is a lot more complex. Luck, that’s what all the statheads say now. This team has deviated from statistical predictions for longer than thought possible but will revert with aplomb – be it in October or next season.

But the regulars at the theater who pay to hear Shakespearian Buck, part rousing Henry V, but now, after all these firings and backyard reflection, part Hamlet, too, overhearing himself as this spectacle takes on a life of its own, know better.

Buck, it seems, embraced that antique baseball world where wisdom counted the same, if not more than information. Indeed, the next crop of GMs at the fancy universities are no doubt plotting their ouster of the statheads by pilfering science’s new rage, a field called complex system theory that says, well, the obvious: a social system, even a team, like an ecosystem or molecule – is built upon complex parts that interact unpredictably. But Buck is a step ahead of the new new thing. Balancing wisdom and information, emotion and precision, he has built as cohesive a team as television can present.

And now we hope they play on, my wife and I, not so much so we can keep watching the games, but to partake one more night of this television persona, this jowly, twanging Buck with his rarely humorless but regularly enlightening post-game TED lecture, imparting, disdaining, emoting, professing, lamenting, reflecting, instructing, debating …

This American authentic’s last lecture may well be nigh, but the wisdom has been bountiful, and come October the whatevereth, we’ll sorely miss ones like this past Saturday, when Buck tells us, goddamnit, that he urged the team’s rock, Matt Wieters, to stay back in California with his wife and newborn son and forget about the pennant race because some things are just more important.

“He’s where he should be,” Buck said. “One thing experience allows you to do as you get older, you try to keep people from making mistakes you made.”

Premonition in Early June from Javiaer Marias

From Javier Marias' blog about the opium of the EuroCup for Spain:

Creo que, por primera vez en mucho tiempo, una competición de selecciones nacionales (la inminente Eurocopa) va a ser libre y claramente aceptada como un oasis, una tregua, un paliativo, una evasión de la realidad, un mundo falso y paralelo, un bienvenido opio. Y que será abrazada como tal, sin vergüenza ni reserva ni remordimiento, no sólo por los Gobiernos europeos que la organizan y a los que conviene, sino por la mayoría de la población del continente. Sí, un antiguo comunista pondría el grito en el cielo, y no sólo condenaría esta actitud sino el campeonato mismo, al que tildaría de engaño, estafa, distracción de los problemas graves e infame placebo. Pero esta clase de denuncia tendría sentido sólo si la gente fuera inconsciente e ingenua y no estuviera al tanto de que el fútbol no le cambia la vida ni resuelve sus problemas ni los empeora; no procura un empleo al que carece de él ni pone fin a la precariedad y la zozobra del que aún lo conserva y teme perderlo todos los días.

No, los ciudadanos, con muy escasas excepciones, están hoy al cabo de la calle. Saben que durante los noventa minutos que dura un partido podrán instalarse en esa ficción (el fútbol pertenece a esa dimensión casi tanto como las novelas y las películas), y fingir, en consecuencia, que lo único que importa es el triunfo de su equipo, y que al lado de esto su desempleo, sus apuros económicos, su preocupación por el futuro de sus hijos, incluso su afectada salud, palidecen y pasan a segundo plano. He dicho fingir porque hoy conocen bien la verdad: que, una vez terminado el encuentro, todas las desdichas y los temores seguirán ahí, inalterados, independientemente de lo que su selección haya logrado. Y sin embargo se prestan a ese breve fingimiento, o es más, necesitan de él en mayor medida que en las últimas cuatro o cinco décadas, que ya es tiempo.

Esta droga que permite un pasajero olvido no les sirve tan sólo a los aficionados al fútbol: como es sabido, en la Eurocopa y en el Mundial casi todo el mundo acaba poniéndose delante de la televisión, extrañamente contagiado; hasta quienes no se sentarían ni una vez a ver evolucionar a jugadores, así fueran geniales, en los dos años que median entre competición y competición de alto rango. Los habitantes tienen una ilusión, algo de lo que estar pendientes en compañía del resto, y llega un momento en el que las victorias del equipo de un país no son importantes por la victoria en sí, sino porque cada una le permite avanzar y jugar un nuevo partido, que no sería posible si quedara eliminado: lo fundamental de los triunfos es que éstos posibilitan que dure un poco más el encantamiento colectivo.

La gente no está por tanto “narcotizada”, sino que ha comprendido lo cruciales que son los respiros, las sublimaciones, las ensoñaciones y los hechizos transitorios; no sólo los asume con plena conciencia de que son sólo eso, sino que los exige. En el caso de España, además, se llega a este campeonato con las expectativas ya colmadas por los pasados títulos europeo y mundial de 2008 y 2010, respectivamente. Es decir, sin ansia. Si el equipo fracasa, no habrá ningún drama, sino agradecimiento por lo que ya se conquistó en las anteriores citas. Será fácil achacar las posibles derrotas a las bajas de Puyol y Villa, o a la mala suerte, o al natural menor rendimiento de los jugadores más veteranos. Así que tampoco habrá que ver sospechosa y ridícula patriotería en el deseo de que la selección siga adelante, sino sobre todo lo ya apuntado: cuanto más lejos llegue España, más durará el oasis, la tregua, el paliativo que concluirá en todo caso, la bendita ficción que nos descansa.

Una de las razones por las que me hice novelista hace muchos años fue porque me parecía un oficio que merecía doble agradecimiento: no sólo lo pasaba bien uno, sino que contribuía —con suerte, claro— a que lo pasaran bien otros. Lo mismo se puede decir de quienes hacen cine o crean series como Juego de tronos o The Big Bang Theory. También de quienes saltan al campo y logran que durante noventa minutos suspendamos nuestras cuitas. Ahí continuarán una vez consumidos, y lo sabemos. Un campeonato como el que va a comenzar no nos engaña, nos alivia tan sólo, y eso ya es mucho en los tiempos oscuros.

Looking at Today's Clasico

From The Guardian:

He questioned their relationship with Unicef and Uefa, running his way through a catalogue of referees, greeting each name – Stark, Ovrebo, Busacca, De Bleeckere, Frisk – with a simple: ¿por qué? He provoked their manager into an astonishing, asterisk-splattered rant and inspired their pointed end-of-season celebrations, watching them sing: "Why? Because we're the best, so fuck you!" He even poked their assistant coach in the eye. Now, José Mourinho could be on the verge of really hurting FC Barcelona.

It wouldn't be the first time, or even the first time Real Madrid's supporters have gloried in his success. But this would be different; this would be theirs. An image presides over Mourinho's office at Valdebebas, Madrid's training complex near Barajas airport. In it Mourinho runs, finger raised, across the Camp Nou pitch after the 2010 Champions League semi-final in which Internazionale knocked Barça out.

Madrid were grateful to be spared watching Barcelona reach a European Cup final staged at the Santiago Bernabéu. That Mourinho would join them was an open secret; Madrid wanted him to do the same for them. Desperation had set in. Florentino Pérez, trophyless in four years as president, saw in Mourinho the only man able to end Barcelona's dominance – a special one to beat a side many called the best in history.

Signing Mourinho represented a revolution. At times, it was a trauma. So much has happened, so much has changed, over the last 18 months – from political battles to moral crusades, for and against – that it can appear impossible to keep track of it all. There's no turning back. Madrid fans do not want to. They're now so close they can almost touch it.Pérez's bet was risky and he was forced to back it heavily, but he may just win in the end.

Last season, Madrid beat Barcelona in the final of the Copa del Rey. It was the least important of three competitions – Barça won a La Liga and Champions League double – but it was a start and it softened memories of a famous, painful 5-0 defeat in La Liga in November. Yet there was criticism too: not just of Mourinho's behaviour – which created a kind of devil/angel dichotomy – but his tactics, which were often seen through the same prism. His approach against Barcelona in La Liga was met as if it was some kind of moral aberration, not just a way of trying to win a game

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Subtlety of Sundays

Interview with Puyol

From El Pais:

Pregunta. Hace dos años, antes de jugar la final de Viena, dijo que quería ser el mejor. Fue el mejor. ¿Y ahora?

Respuesta. Supongo que lo diría por la necesidad de ser el mejor como equipo. Pero es cierto que siempre he tratado de ser mejor cada día, más competitivo. Nunca he dejado de fijarme metas y de buscar caminos para aprender.

P. Después de ganarlo todo en dos años, ¿de dónde saca la motivación para seguir?

R. La encuentro cada mañana porque disfruto con lo que hago. Me gusta entrenarme, competir y ganar. Ganar es seguramente el mayor aliciente. Pero a mí me gusta estar con los compañeros, superarme, ponerme retos, ser mejor cada día y aprender.

P. Por ejemplo, practica pilates y no sé si continua recibiendo clases particulares de táctica...

R. Hago pilates desde hace años. Lo otro no eran clases particulares, sencillamente era un análisis de los partidos que me ayudaba a mejorar. Lo dejé, pero todavía hay cosas que tengo muy presentes. Me ayudaron mucho a entender el juego.

P. ¿Y que conclusión ha sacado?

R. Una fundamental: ahora me preocupa más el espacio que el balón. Antes, fundamentalmente, iba donde iba el balón. Ahora podría decirse que juego con más cabeza y menos piernas, menos corazón. O por lo menos intento pensar; antes iba a todas. Me sigo llevando golpes, porque creo que llego a todas, pero he aprendido a pensar en el campo. Es más importante defender el espacio que la pelota.

P. ¿Se puede entender que hay un antes y un después de Viena en su vida?

R. Sí, por muchas razones, personales y deportivas. Ganar aquel título fue como una liberación. Eso, unido a que venía de pasar un año muy malo en lo personal... Entendí que estábamos en esto para divertirnos, dentro de un orden y una profesionalidad, pero hay que disfrutar. Antes no es que fuera un sufrimiento, pero sí estaba pendiente de demasiadas cosas, muchas veces irrelevantes, o por lo menos que no eran tan importantes como yo creía. Me refiero al juego, pero también al vestuario. Ahora lo paso mejor, lo disfruto más porque he aprendido a vivir el fútbol sin tanta angustia.

P. ¿Qué parte de culpa tuvo la llegada de Piqué al Barcelona?

R. Influyó, claro. Futbolísticamente he aprendido mucho de él. Y en la vida también.

Mas

Midfield Heaven

From The Guardian:

The theory that Dutch thinkers bequeathed the style Spain will bring to the field today has become so pervasive that the instinct is to search for flaws in that belief. Cruyff, a Barça idol in his playing days and architect of the Dream Team (1991-94), talks of the two cultures as if they are indistinguishable. "I am Dutch but I will always defend the football Spain play," he says. "If you play attacking football, like Spain do, you have more chances of winning. And if you try to play on the counter against a team that really wants the ball, you deserve to suffer.

"The fact is that if you try to outplay Spain they will kill you, and Holland now know they face the best team in the world. When you look at Spain, you see Barcelona, you see Xavi, [Andrés] Iniesta, [Sergio] Busquets and Pedro [Rodríguez] in midfield, players who want the ball but then will put pressure on high up the pitch to win it back. Now, deservedly, Spain are in the final, a match that is only about winning, as I know. Spain have a great footballing generation, who may never get another chance like this."

The premise, encouraged by Cruyff, is that the finalists are blood brothers. The lineage runs like this: at Ajax from 1965-71 Michels revolutionised Dutch club football, pioneered kaleidoscopic Totaal Voetbal (Total Football), exported it to Catalonia, handed it on to Cruyff, who then shaped the Barcelona raison d'être in the Ajax image, before Louis van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard kept it going, then passed the torch to Pep Guardiola, the current coach, who was a Barcelona player under Cruyff and Van Gaal.

El gol es la culminación del trabajo colectivo

Interview with David Villa, key striker of Spain, in El Pais:

Pregunta. ¿Su bisabuelo se llamaba Trosky?

Respuesta. Sí. Y su hija, mi abuela, Libertad. Esa todavía la tengo. No conocí a mis abuelos, así que imagínese al bisabuelo.

P. Cuenca minera, libre, borracha y dinamitera..., luchadora.

R. Gente de Tuilla, mineros, gente luchadora. Me siento muy orgulloso de esas raíces.

P. Tal vez eso justifica su tenacidad para sacar goles de la nada.

R. Más por los valores que me dieron desde siempre: haber sido educado en el valor del esfuerzo.

P. Lo suyo no es puro talento...

R. Sin sacrificio, sin amor a tu trabajo, si no luchas, es imposible llegar a nada. Si el fútbol fuera solo talento, muchísimos jugadores que se quedan en el camino llegarían. Todos tenemos a un amigo que, cuando empezamos, era el bueno y un día decidió que no le compensaba. Y son muy felices, pero llegar cuesta y hay futbolistas que, a base de sacrificio, superan el ser menos talentosos.

P. Hiela la sangre a los defensas. Si fuera defensa, ¿qué pensaría de un tipo como usted?

R. Toda la vida he jugado de delantero y me paso el partido pensando en el gol. Cada vez que cojo el balón, aunque sea en posiciones más atrasadas, busco el camino más rápido para ir al gol. Lo que sé es lo que me dicen los amigos que han jugado contra mí. Dicen que han de estar atentos, que es muy incómodo para ellos.

P. Sus botas son las más ligeras del mercado. Según los diseñadores de Adidas, la idea es aligerar peso para ser más rápido que nadie. ¿Tan importante es eso ante el gol?

R. Lo importante es la velocidad de ejecución, de reacción, de atención, de saber definir. Hay muchas cosas que te dan un gol. La mayor parte de un goleador es instinto.

P. Su capacidad de sorpresa incluye el remate con las dos piernas. ¿Eso se aprende?

R. Yo no lo recuerdo, pero mi padre dice que a los cuatro años me rompí la pierna derecha y los meses que me pasé escayolado tiraba con la izquierda. No sé si me dio precisión, pero fuerza y potencia sí.

P. ¿No dejó de jugar al fútbol ni escayolado?

R. No.

P. ¿Le suena Bienvenidos al infierno?

R. Es el lema del campo del Tuilla, de Tercera. La gente va mucho. Apoya. Es muy difícil ganar allí.

P. De ese infierno salió un diablo.

R. Un poquito de diablo sí me habrá quedado de eso.

P. Usted es de los que va por la calle pensando en los goles.

R. No imagino los goles, si es a lo que se refiere. Pero reconozco que tengo un punto de enfermo y que a veces no debería ser tan obsesivo. Pero adoro esta profesión y disfruto de ella. Vivo pensando en el fútbol.

P. Cuando marca un gol como ante Portugal, ¿qué siente?

R. Cuando acabas de marcar un gol en un partido tan cerrado, a falta de 25 minutos, no piensas nada. Sencillamente, es un momento de alegría enorme que quieres compartir.

P. ¿Por eso, en vez de buscar la grada, busca los abrazos?

R. Sí, porque el gol es la culminación del trabajo colectivo.

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