It was like one of those volleys in the beach chops, when you hit the ball with everything, whatever it comes out, it will not break any glass or go to the street, at most it falls into the water and the waves return it right away . Or it bites into the sand and slows down. Those balls that come from air and one feels the irresistible temptation to hit it with everything, no matter what happens, wherever you go. That is what Marco van Basten felt on June 25, 1988. He forgot about his damn ankle, the one that almost ruined his life, and it entered him fully with his soul, as in the field, when he was a child and played with his friends. see who sent it further. Only he was in a serious game, in the final of the Eurocup …
A tall and long center came from Mühren, very long, one of those in which the author regrets as soon as they come out, because he knows that he threw it wrong and will go outside on the other side. At the other end, Marco glimpsed that perhaps he was arriving and took ten, twelve side steps to get closer to the place where the ball would land; that cost him to get away from the arch, to be very skewed to it. But more and more it seemed to him that he could reach her. And he kept staring at the ball. It fell like a grape from heaven; He did not think he was in the Munich Olympic stadium with 73,000 spectators or in the ridiculous or anything else. His mind was clear, in a little field in Utrecht and he was thirteen years old. And he gave. He impaled her with all the instep and all the strength of his leg. It was, perhaps, the most extraordinary volley in the entire history of football. From a closed, oblique, awkward position, his right foot produced a perfect bomb, with violence and precision, which rose above the feline and elegant Rinat Dasáyev, the best Russian goalkeeper after Lev Yashin. The missile passed behind Dasayev and fell into the bow, describing a beautiful parable. It exploded within the network and blew up half the world. The thousands that were in the stands and the millions that we watched on TV. Even in Russia they will have celebrated such a goal. Because art has no nationality, it is universal.
It was the last goal of that Eurocup, the one that ranked the entire tournament and made it unforgettable. He put a label on the final: “that of Van Basten’s goal.” The tens of thousands of Dutch fans, all waving orange flags, justified the 800 kilometers of road between Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands to the capital of Bavaria. The boy Van Basten, in his native Utrecht, would never have imagined that a bullet from his right foot would generate such an outbreak. It is the cyclonic force of football, the wonder of its charm.
Now that another European Championship is approaching, they asked us from Colombian television for “the best memory of a European Championship”. We answered on the touch and without hesitation: that of Van Basten’s goal. He may not have had the epic or skill of Maradona’s goal against the English, but he got fully into the history books. And in the hearts of all football fans. We are a little Vanbastenian for that prodigy, who was not ecstatic and happy to have seen such a technical feat …? The football fan is the one who celebrates the goals and triumphs of his team, the “football” fan is the one who celebrates the masterpieces of the game, wherever they come from.
The funny thing is that Van Basten went to that European appointment almost like a rehabilitation. It was part of the squad and the preparation fell remarkably well for him. It came from two of his many physical woes. On November 14, 1987, he underwent a delicate operation on his right ankle, which would eventually end up withdrawing him from activity at the age of 28. Unusually, he had played a full season with torn ankle ligaments, which aggravated the injury. “I was fed up with the pain, I couldn’t take it anymore,” he confesses in his book Fragile. That mishap cost him that his first season at Milan was almost testimonial (just 11 games and 3 goals in Serie A). However, Rinus Michels called him up for the Eurocup. To make matters worse, in a friendly match against Real Madrid, in a collision with the rival goalkeeper he fractured a cheekbone on his face. Another operation. And there were only eleven days left until the premiere in the continental championship. “I took the European Championship without competitive tensions, like a great training ground,” he recalls. At least her ankle wasn’t hurting after all this time. The fixed forwards were Johnny Bosman and John van’t Schip. “But in all practices, the substitutes beat the starters, and that caught Michels’ attention,” says Marco. And things started to happen …
In the debut they suffered a tumble, the Netherlands fell 1-0 to the Soviet Union. That convinced the technician: it was necessary to change. Bosman and Van’t Schip would come out and Erwin Koeman (Ronald’s brother) and… Van Basten would come in. “When I saw my name on the board among the headlines to face England I realized that I was serious, that’s where the European Championship began for me.” The rest looks like something out of a novel: Holland beat the English 3-1 with three from Van Basten. Already in the semifinals, 2-1 to Germany (the local) with one of Marco. And in the closing, again face to face with the Soviet Union and the immortal goal to seal the 2-0. At the end of the year he would win the first of his three Ballons d’Or.
“When we beat Germany the whole country was upside down celebrating. Our women were present, we danced, they all took it as the final, but for me there was only one final … Arnold Mühren is a talented southpaw, although that ball was not fit. It was a loose ball. But it was one of those days when everything fits … When the center arrived I thought: by God, I have to put it in, I’m too tired to do anything else. And he entered, from an impossible angle. He surpassed Dasáyev, who was the best goalkeeper in the world. After the goal I felt pure disbelief. God, what happened here…? I didn’t even believe it myself. My own colleagues told me ‘What happened? As you have done?’. But I had no idea. “
According to Maradonian logic, it was the right foot of God. (O)
