Newsgroup: it.sport.calcio.milan
Titolo: [En] - Van Basten's son asks who's the daddy

Hugo Borst
Sunday May 28, 2006
The Observer
One by one the Pancratius boys emerge. Alex van Basten is the last to leave 
changing-room 4. Immediately he throws himself into a battle for the ball, 
more out of playfulness than in a real effort to win the thing. Just as 
quickly he leaves the fray and gazes around.
His father is a couple of metres away, his face brown from a skiing holiday. 
Marco has just tied the laces of his son's boots.
'Are you playing today?' I ask him.
Marco nods. 'At noon. But I always only play the second half. I get there at 
half time.'
It's 9.20 on Saturday morning. We're walking to pitch two, where the eighth 
team of Pancratius under-eights face their away match against Vlug & 
Vaardig's second team. Marco says this is Alex's first away match. Until now 
the boys have played only at their own club, in a tournament called the 
Champions League. Then Alex van Basten would play for Barcelona and in all 
his matches put together scored only one goal. The temptation is to compare, 
but one glance at the seven-year-old during pre-match shooting cautions us 
not to do so.
Alex, unlike his two elder sisters, is still unaware of his father's past. 
Marco doesn't make a show of it. Quietly he chooses his spot behind the goal 
of the fat little keeper of Vlug & Vaardig, at some distance from the other 
fathers and mothers, who are practically on the pitch. He watches the match 
in silence. Only in the second half is the invisible man noticed. The fat 
little keeper's daddy requests an autograph for his son.
It's a couple of degrees above freezing, but there's no wind. The last drops 
of dew will soon melt. The sun is so low that you could almost head it away.
We both experience the Saturday-morning feeling again. Up early to play a 
football match. The game Marco continues to play is fun, but nothing 
compared with the football he played when he was Alex's age. 'It keeps 
getting harder. I now have to get my happiness from a square pass.' Marco 
grins at his own remark.
Driving around near Opmeer sports park in Amsterdam this morning, he 
recognised some club names. DCG, for instance - he once played against them 
with Ajax under-18s. He started out at the club of which his uncle was a 
member, EDO uit Utrecht. Legendary first training session, he says. He had 
been waiting an hour when it turned out they had forgotten to collect him.
One minute into the match, Pancratius under-eights open the scoring. Alex 
has yet to touch the ball. He takes up position in the no-man's land between 
forwards and defenders. He is the central pivot in the famous 'egg-timer' 
formation: 3-1-3.
'Defensive midfielder,' I comment.
'So it would appear,' says Marco, who is not about to give his son any 
instructions.
Alex's first touch of the ball is a vain attempt to win it. It doesn't seem 
to bother him much. A little later, far from the madding crowd, he makes 
vigorous feints with his arms. We see him talking to himself. It's not clear 
to Marco what game he is playing. It has nothing to do with football, but 
Alex is having an excellent time.
Meanwhile, Pancratius go 4-0 up. They will be taking the three points home 
to Badhoevedorp, the commuter village outside Amsterdam, but the importance 
of that seems to elude Alex. Very occasionally he gets the ball. As a 
footballer he closely resembles PSV Eindhoven's Andre Ooijer, I think. 
Ooijer, too, frequently spits on the ground.
At half time Marco calls Alex over. Alex doesn't hear. 'Come here, Alex.'
Close up, I see that his face, too, looks very like his mother's. Big eyes, 
full eyelashes, gap between the teeth.
I'm curious to hear what Marco will say. Should Alex take a better look 
before he passes? Run into space? Ask for the ball? Come into the box behind 
the dangerous strikers? Cover the zone better? But Marco just asks: 'Are you 
going to score a goal for Daddy?'
Father and son press their foreheads together. When they separate again, 
Alex acts as if he is thinking deeply. Then he says: 'Maybe.' He skips away.
'He runs quite well, you see,' says Marco a little later, 'but he's not 
flexible. That's because he watches TV all the time.'
'What does it matter?' I say. 'My son Charlie's the same. He has lots of 
hobbies, but not football. Out of courtesy he sometimes watches a couple of 
minutes of a match with me. Who cares, man? As long as they're happy.'
I'm suddenly ashamed of the dreadful cliche. I only wanted to say that as a 
father you shouldn't project your dreams on your child, but Marco has got 
there before me.
'I've said to him a couple of times, "Do you enjoy it, Alex? Daddy won't 
make you play football." After I said it the first time, he did his best 
especially. But football means nothing to him. He doesn't support a club, 
either. It really doesn't bother me. It's just good for him to move a 
little, to play sport. But he likes K'nex much more - the toys you have to 
put together. His grandpa, Liesbeth's father, is handy, too. He must have 
got it from him. Alex can put together a K'nex fairground in an hour. And 
yesterday he was doing a puzzle.'
The ball thuds against a team-mate's arm. Alex is the first to reach the 
kid. 'Does it hurt?' he asks sweetly, and briefly touches him.
The ensuing corner disappears behind the goal. Alex hangs on to the 
goalpost, then dives into the side netting, sticks his head through one of 
the holes and looks dreamy. Perhaps he is thinking of his puzzle.
A little later we see him pulling funny faces in the middle of the pitch.
Again he disappears within himself. His hands and fingers look like pistols 
being fired. Meanwhile the game for which he has pulled on his boots 
continues. It will finish 9-3, a score that passes by Marco's son like the 
barges passing his grandpa's house in Utrecht, unseen.
'I mustn't interfere,' says Marco. 'That wouldn't be nice for him.'
'The way your father drilled you, you mean?' I remark.
'To me it didn't feel like that at all. That's how he experienced it.'
'Does he ever come and watch Alex, or go and see your daughters play hockey 
or ride?'
'No, never. He always has my mother on the weekends.'
'That's good. Nice.'
'Well, you see, I don't know. Because of that he has no social life.'
'But I mean the loyalty. Every day, year after year.'
'You could call it guilt,' says Marco.
'Do you still see him often?'
'I drop by every two or three weeks.'
The match is over. The player by the name of Van Basten has accounted for 
none of the nine goals.
'I thought you were going to score a goal for me?' Alex thinks about it. 'I 
said maybe.'
He has one more chance. Every match in the under-eights finishes with 
penalties.
'Oh yes,' says Alex, who immediately runs off to join his team-mates, 
doesn't push in front and joins the back of the queue. I'm curious about his 
run-up. It doesn't feature Marco van Basten's trademark skip. He shoots... 
It's a hard shot. It goes straight at the little Schmeichel of Vlug & 
Vaardig. A save.
'He struck it well,' notes Marco.
Alex is a blessed child. No inheritance to burden him: he has his father's 
surname but his mother's sporting genes and therefore none of the 
expectations that saddled someone such as Jordi Cruyff.
Silently they walk side by side towards the dressing room. 'OK, off you go, 
shower,' says Marco.
Taken from 'Everyone has a Good Story - Football, published by cafeDiverso 
(
www.cafediverso.com
), price ?22.50.
Hugo Borst

Nel suo scritto precedente, Carolina72 ha sostenuto :

aridaie co sto inglese, mo faccio come sheva...

Hugo Borst
Bello, per una volta non una storia "prossimo campione"

 Bello, per una volta non una storia "prossimo campione"
esatto, al figliolo garba fare puzzle e bricolage, fa bene. tanto di Van 
Basten ne nasce uno ogni 50 anni.
Van Basten il nostro eroe romantico:)
Carolina72,
P.S. Noi BBBilanisti siamo gli ultimi baluardi del romanticismo
P.P.S. Speriamo Sheva gli venga la cistite cronica seguita a ruota da una 
prostata sanguinolenta per cui l'arbitro non lo fa entrare in campo perche` 
sanguina: non lo permette il regolamento


Nah, io non gli auguro niente di male, se ha fatto le sue scelte lo
avra' fatto, non credo solo per denaro, ma anche per amore per di
qualcosa o di qualcuno. Spero solo che noi vinciamo CL e campionati, e
lui non vinca piu' nulla. Questo si. Cosi' quando, a 45 anni si guarda
indietro si renda conto che ha bruciato l'unica cosa che gli voleva
bene spassionatamente (detto questo mi accorgo che e' una fesseria, se
non segnava i suoi gol, col cazzo che lo amavamo spassionatamente....)