When, in 1954, Sepp Herberger told a flabbergasted crowd of journalists some fundamentals of his football philosophy, like:
“The ball is round and a game lasts (in our case) 40 minutes”
No-one could have imagined how true this statement rung, once again, on a Saturday morning in 2007.
The Red Devilz, buoyant from their impressive start to the season the previous week at Seaside Park in Otahuhu and an intensive training workout on Thursday afternoon, gathered before the game at the unusual late morning starting time of 11:00hrs. Grant Keen and Kurt Binder, co-coaches of the Devilz, took the team through their pre-match routines and it all seemed to be boding well for another good workout for the Devilz.
In the pre-match huddle, the coach, Willy, “Show me some more”, asked the Devilz for a fast start to the game.
The Devilz obliged, within 100 seconds Rooney, the burglar was at it again; the Devilz were 1: Nil up and the ‘Coffee 2go’ tasted sooo good.
Biomechanics are funny things at the best of times; they did not treat the Devilz in kind on Saturday, late morning, for sure.
From the side-line it looked like the ball had turned into a tin of spaghetti (half full, for that matter), initially the Devilz made good work of getting the ball up the field but, when it came to the finish, the spectators, fans and devotees were driven to despair. Attempt (I am not kind enough to call it shots) after attempt went begging, the ‘Coffee 2go’ was still hot and the coach still suffers from it now.
The Devilz were suffering from ‘late morning second wind-just-gone-syndrome’; passing went sloppy, positional play was near non-existent and the intensity the Devilz showed all through lat week’s outing was desperately missing.
The Ninjas clawed their way back in the game profiting from a case of ‘time-out’, or was that ‘black-out’, on behalf of the Devilz. The Devilz performed like a bunch of individualists, something very foreign to this team, usually, and, whilst still unleashing shots at goal, the game was anything but what the faithful fan community on the side-line and the coaching staff expected.
As is often the case in these circumstances, the opposition capitalised, not undeserved at the time, and equalised after an authoritative move through mid-field and an uncharacteristic, but symptomatic, mix-up in the Devilz’s defence.
The score was 1:1 and the Devilz went searching for another goal. Seven minutes of scramble followed, at times the Devilz were lucky not to concede another goal and the spectators simply couldn’t believe the confusion they were witnessing.
HALF-TIME, the whistle sounded so sweet; players and coaching staff headed for the oranges, drinks and family consolations. Many hastily spoken quite words of comfort and assurance were offered to the battling Devilz and the head-coach granted a couple of minutes before he called the team in for the half-time assessment.
Give it to the DEVILZ; whatever was said at half-time; it sure wasn’t ‘Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year’, yet; the Devilz came out for the second half with fierce determination to show their fans what they had come to see.
Passes started to stick, positional discipline resumed and urgency in the forward play developed. The introduction of Keegan, The Conductor, Dovey and Jaime, Smiley, Moore added spice and variation to the game, goals now eventuated as a pure consequence.
Messieurs ‘Bergkamp’, ‘The Muss’ and ‘The Viper’ grabbed themselves a ‘double’ each and it just wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t have a ‘Sweet Touch’ in the game.
Confirmation: the final score of 8:1 consoled the fans and coaching staff alike with a first half to worry and a second to cheer, this truly was a game of two halves and the words of Sepp are still ringing in our ears….
By the way; Sepp’s team went on to win the 1954 World Cup and the most memorable quote from the after-match function of Sepp went something like this:
”After the game is before the (next) game.”
Devilz and I are still searching for truer words ever spoken. We are gearing up for next Saturday’s match against Papakura Ardmore at (God help us) 11:00hrs on pitch 04, Bledisloe Park.
If you want to see if that pacemaker of yours is ‘shock-proof’ and don’t believe our assertion that ‘the Ball is quicker than the eye’; come on along for some heart-stopping, fast-paced end-to-end ‘helluva’ entertaining 40odd minutes on a Saturday (late) morning.
On an aside; we wish to thank Caltex for supporting our team this year with plenty of goodies for the player of the day –Thanks Caltex-.
The Devilz’ motto “… the Sky’s the limited!”