The weather was closing in. The purplest grey horizon, like some kind of celestial anxiety, looming in our direction as the tendrils of winter began looping across the land. The dog and I traversed down a ravine toward the lake where a stand of towering birch trees had gathered. As the wind picked up and one lofty birch began swaying, I noticed the narrow wrist where its mighty girth had been and I marvelled at these ghost-like beavers that I’d never actually seen. Not for want of waiting and watching.
The dog began drinking from the lake and I whistled and climbed away from the waterline where the beavers had intended the fall. The dog left the water and came to my side and we dropped to the ground and quietly scanned the lake for a sign of these vandal architects. Only the descending pitch of an Osprey, like a cooling kettle, to keep us company.
I contemplated the things we do not see. Those things that are always forming and forging and shaping the world in our absence. And I considered how the vital magic that happens off-stage, in the wings, behind the curtain, is as crucial as the hullabaloo we deem as life. When we got back I wrote this. Enjoy.
Whenever I see Thierry Henry speak about the genius of Wenger he looks as thrilled as a starstruck fan. Henry’s glory years were played out under the tutelage of the great French football connoisseur, but there was something more than mere nostalgia to his tender enrapture. When Henry explains Wenger’s methods it’s like he’s revealing a mystery known only to himself and the initiated, the precious and privileged few. And he is.
During his playing days Henry had once been complaining to Wenger that Freddie Ljungberg didn’t pass him the ball often enough, or at crucial moments in the game. “But can he see you Thierry?” Wenger had asked in return, with that half amused, half stoical expression he so often wore. Wenger went on, “Don’t ask yourself the wrong question, Thierry”, and Henry was left to consider his dilemma.
Wenger’s enigmatic remark encouraged Henry to reconsider his team-mates, their strengths and their skill set’s. He weighed their various talents in his mind and began to formulate a new question. Instead of being annoyed with inability to align with him, he asked himself what he could do to align with them. Where one player preferred a short one-two, or another had the capability to launch a direct cross-pitch long ball, Henry would have to adjust his own game. When Ljungberg was running full tilt, head over the ball as he dribbled, Henry would have to cross his line of sight to be sure to be seen and offer an outlet. Henry began to adjust his runs according to who had the ball (except, of course, with Bergkamp who could find Thierry on the dark side of the moon with a no-look back pass).
One of Henry’s many brilliances was his acceptance that whilst he was a majestic player adorned with the skills of a footballing genius, he was also one component in a bigger picture. He saw that the celebrated idea of isolated and atomised individuals was but a myth. He saw that the team was an ongoing suite of movements and adjustments, like an ever evolving pattern of which he was but one piece. He realised that although we live in a time of the feted individual, the really “big players, truly world-class players are willing to do whatever needs to be done to win”, including putting the ego to one side and deferring to the skills or needs of others.
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