I’ve never particularly cared for scoring goals. I don’t discount the possibility that I might acquire the taste for it were I a more accomplished finisher, but goal-scoring has always seemed beside the point, the premise but merely that: the excuse to throw the party. The hunger for goals (in principle, not mine personally) and the fear of conceding them provide the game with its necessary intensity, the frisson of oppositional energy that tautens the pitch, that transforms a patch of grass into a thrilling battlefield, a giant green chessboard in which ground is fiercely contested and intensely significant. Empty space becomes precious; instead of nothingness, a manipulable element. You can see it, almost hear it: it swills and screams around an unmarked winger; it flows between centre backs, whispering to the striker.
我從來不特別在意進球。我不排除如果我是一個更出色的射手，我可能會對進球產生興趣，但進球似乎總是無關緊要，只是一個舉辦派對的借口。對進球的渴望和對失球的恐懼為比賽提供了必要的緊張感，對抗性能量的刺激使球場緊繃，將一塊草地變成了一個激動人心的戰場，一個巨大的綠色棋盤，上面的地盤被激烈爭奪，意義重大。空間變得珍貴；不再是虛無，而是一個可操縱的元素。你可以看到它，幾乎可以聽到它：它在一個無人防守的邊鋒周圍涌動和尖叫；它在中后衛之間流動，對前鋒低語。