This is a kind of purpose: to ask what these things mean. How is it that the story-craving and myth-making parts of our imaginations are able to see greatness and find joy in some arbitrary movements on a field? What does the rhythmic sidestep or the incisive pass echo in human experience? When the ball goes up like a firework about to burst and knocks in off the top corner of the goal, what does it say about the man who sent it there? What does it say about us? A hundred years ago the game made so much sense that crowds filled the terraces almost by instinct; today a billion people can see it and feel the same thing. What is it telling us? What language does it speak?
Read More: Eric Cantona, Historical Goals, Manchester United
by Brian Phillips · February 15, 2008
[contact-form 5 'Email form']