The Most Important Match of Last Weekend (In the World)

By: Scott | May 16th, 2010

Now I know what euphoria feels like. Now I know what witnessing an unbelievable and nearly impossible event will do to a person’s psyche. Now I finally know what it’s like to watch a group of men perform above expectations and play well enough to stay at the top of the table. Enough of my words. Let’s go to the video (pay attention to the clock for each goal, especially the last two):

It all changed too quickly for us to truly appreciate what had happened. All we knew is that we are still alive for the championship and that’s what we celebrated. But what happened will be brought up again and again over the coming years. It was the second week in a row that Argentinos scored a last-minute goal to steal points. It continued Independiente’s slide after at one point they were in complete control of the tournament.

Yes, part of the reason they were at one point top of the table by a good margin can be seen in the video. They should have honestly scored five goals and made the comeback futile and pointless. Yet, and the popular refrain is that sports both build and reflect your character, character was reflected. Argentinos has no real idea how it was going to score the goals, it just knew that that was what it had to do. So, two of the central defenders (Sabia and Curuzzo) hung around and waited for their turn. Independiente had no idea of how to control the tide of the match once it swung against them, as the slow, controlled passing between the midfielders right before the last goal clearly demonstrates. The were so out of sorts that they didn’t even realize that clearing the ball would have guaranteed them a draw.

Needless to say, the minutiae of the match matter to me not at all. It was a day of glory and victory and euphoria. One match left and another star may be added to the crest…until then, one more image that captures how emotional everything was.

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