During Covid, when sport was back but behind closed doors, I hosted a number of strange online shows to fill the void of real life. The highlight was chatting to Darren Gough about a lifesize bronze rhinoceros for 45 minutes to 15 small boxes on a Zoom call. I don’t recall who it was for and where the rhinoceros came from – but it might be in his garden.
I ended up doing virtual pre-match corporate Zoom calls for Heineken before Europa League games. It was the wifi version of Club Wembley: a Q&A happening on stage between a generic host and some random ex-pro while you’re trying to chat to your mate and eat an unidentified square of meat with some dauphinoise potatoes.
I’d be in my little square talking to Luis García in his little square about the ghost goal while an assorted group of faces and living rooms or kitchen tables would stare at you, perhaps interested, perhaps not. Did they even want to be there? Were we on mute while someone from marketing was filling a spare box on my laptop watching Death In Paradise on the TV behind me?
Certainly it was hard to create an amazing vibe with Mark van Bommel while his internet connection crashed and a little note on a Google doc appeared telling me to fill for 25 minutes with my favourite memories of the Europa League. Did these disembodied heads in front of me want the deep dive they got on Tony Parks’ heroics in 1984? How many of them knew about Gary Mabbutt playing centre mid and marking Enzo Scifo out of the game?
One of the guests was Dimitar Berbatov. You’d log on half an hour before the show and say hello, try to build some kind of electric rapport with a man in Bulgaria (I think) presumably looking to get in and get out and get back on with whatever social distancing life in Sofia had to offer.
He may have not had Akabusi levels of energy, and his economy of language was not unlike his playing style – why use a hundred words when one will do? But he was into it and did the job perfectly. I absolutely loved Berbatov as a player. Watching him pluck a goalkick out of the sky was more beautiful than watching a lot of other players banging one in from 25 yards. There’s a YouTube video called Dimitar Berbatov – the most underrated first touch ever? It begins with him standing like a lamp-post on the halfway line at Craven Cottage and stopping a crossfield ball stone dead like it’s an anvil.
Back to the Zoom call: I welcome Dimitar, he says hello, I explain my admiration for him, and then say to him that he made football look easy. Did he find it easy? “Yes” he replied. Totally matter of fact. Not trying to impress – just explaining that football was easy.
And for someone like Berbatov, it is a different level to “good touch for a big man”. This is the ultimate type of grace on a football pitch. And perhaps it is reserved for tall, skilful players. I’ve probably used the word languid already but I can’t think of any other use of the word – reserved for players who are almost balletic.
Is it insane to say it’s more aesthetically pleasing than seeing a Messi or a Maradona waltz through a defence? It almost feels as if a low centre of gravity gives you an unfair advantage when it comes to technical skill. No flailing arms and legs to get in the way of you being naturally brilliant.
My biased brain instantly goes to Glenn Hoddle walking through the Oxford United defence with one sway, sitting the keeper down with a movement of the leg. It’s all saying: “This is easier for me than it is for you.”
Which brings us to Kai Havertz – and that dummy against Chelsea. The more and more football becomes that David Mitchell sketch, the more surprised I am that there are still moments in a game that lead to some involuntary noise from deep within.
The ball from Christos Tzolis is definitely for him. Havertz points in front to where he wants the ball. If it’s played there he can probably get a shot away first time. But when it comes, controlling the ball would have been a sensible choice. Back to goal. He could have turned and shot, or just kept the ball. There are lots of good players to pass it to.
Even the way he lifts his left leg at the last second to let the ball run through to Martin Ødegaard is delightful. It’s easy to forget the pace of the game at this level. And when you’re watching on TV where it’s much easier to see the pass you also forget these guys don’t have that view.
Someone somewhere will have done a report on Havertz’s scanning abilities. He doesn’t appear to look behind to check where Ødegaard is. But awareness is hard to calculate. He just knows. And he does it all in a split second, not even. How wonderful that you can do so much without even touching the ball.
A lot of people do quite well out of repeatedly asking whether Arsenal need a centre-forward, so I don’t want to do them out of work. And Havertz isn’t perfect – he isn’t Robbie Fowler in the box. But he has scored in two Champions League finals. He did win the league last season. A lot of beautiful graceful players tend to be beautiful and graceful without delivering on the biggest occasions. Havertz does both. And when he gets it right, it looks easy to him. Imagine finding it easy.