“World Player of the Year. It’s a title with few rivals in the international arena: pope, for sure; president of the US, perhaps.” There is no messing around when it comes to the fame of the top footballers in the world. Messi, Ronaldo, Maradona, Pele, etc. are household names in the many corners of the world.
So what makes someone like them a hero?
Is a hero someone that can dribble and entire team before slotting a goal past the keeper like the likes of Messi or R9, is it someone who can play with tremendous flair like Neymar jr., does this title fall upon the greatest personalities in the sport such as N’golo Kante or Mohammed Salah.
My hero growing up was Sergio Ramos and in the stories of many others he is a villain. I loved him for the same reasons so many others hated him. He played hard, he was scrappy, he had an attitude, and he left it all on the field for his team. “I was running after Morata as fast as I could. At one point, I heard a voice in the distance saying “KILL HIM”…It was Sergio Ramos.” This quote from Valverde just about sums up Ramos. Is he a villian? sure. Is he also a hero? of course.
The World Cup has had many heroes and many villains, in fact I believe that in order to be a hero, you must also be a villain.
Looking at the “World Cup’s 25 biggest villains of all time” I think it is entirely possible to consider some of these people as hero’s – that is at least someone’s hero. Now as delicious as Chiellini’s shoulder may be, I am not here to defend his biting habits, however I think there is definitely an argument to be made that Suarez’s actions (handball) against Ghana could be considered heroic.
The “hand of god” is another great example of the heroism of a villainous act, one that also considers the political influence. Argentina and England have a rocky history to say the least, and Maradona’s hand of god is a great example of political defiance. Now of course to the English (sorry Dan) this is the act of a villain, however I would be curious to see how the Argentinians felt about it. Plus can we really count this against him, it was God’s hand anyways…
There are countless examples of villains in our reading this week and I want to re-emphasize my point from before to conclude my post – I believe that the villians to someone are the heros to someone else.
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