Segnalo questo articolo dalla rubrica sportiva The joy of six, una sorta di Top 6, del sito del Guardian. Il tema di questa edizione era appunto il cucchiaio e capirete il mio orrore, il mio sgomento, quando mi sono accorto che un certo qualcuno mancava dalla lista.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/mar/26/joy-of-six-lobs-chips-dinks1. Ariel Ortega
Behold the King Lobster. Ortega traces the most accurate arcs since William Tell's, apparently having mastered all forms of deadly dippiness. What are those forms? Let us distinguish three: the lob, the chip and the dink. The lob is the purest insofar as its singular quality is geometric elusiveness – for a scoring shot to be classed as a lob it must, according to rules made up just moments ago, have passed the keeper at a height that meant reaching it would have been impossible even if the keeper or defender had jumped straight upwards. Reinhard Libuda's winner for Dortmund against Liverpool in the 1966 Cup Winners' Cup final is a classic example, as is Diego Maradona's for Barcelona against Red Star or Philippe Albert's against Manchester United. Mathematical perfection, see.
A chip can be a lob but is not necessarily so. Elevation is obviously essential but it need not be the only salient trait – a chip can succeed because of its sheer unexpectedness, meaning the keeper could have reached it if only he'd anticipated it. Scientifically it is less worthy and yet it can be more pleasingly substantial than the lob. Consider Dennis Bergkamp's noble work for Holland against England in 1993 (1min 46sec in this clip).
A dink is a micro-chip, where peak height is lower because the keeper has not so much been taken by surprise as duped into prostrating himself before the attacker. Basically it's a scam. Ortega's repertoire contains all three forms (and one particularly delicious dink: a flipped curler with the outside of the boot), proving the little Argentine has a mind worthy of Professor Moriarty and a crystal pickaxe for a foot.
2. Karel Poborsky
Actually, there's a fourth category: the scoop, which so far as we know contains only one entry – Poborsky's preposterous effort for the Czech Republic against Portugal. Never has a lob attained such gratuitous height, and so soon after leaving the shooter's foot that it might have been launched by remote control or concealed jet propulsion. Nayim's famous humiliation of David Seaman looped briefly into orbit before falling into Arsenal's goal, but that trajectory was not as freakishly steep as Poborsky's. While we're on the subject of Euro 96, let us recall Davor Suker's contribution. And while we're on the subject of Seaman being lobbed from great distances, let us laugh at Lee Dixon.
3. Romário
This brazen Brazilian was the king of the dink. But he could chip and lob too, and did so with a fiendishly minimalist philosophy that made his works the precise opposite of Poborsky's baroque scoop: Romário always made sure that the ball was tantalisingly just out of the keeper's reach, as if to taunt his agonised victim. Check out his case file, remembering to purr with pleasure around the 4min 47sec mark.
4. Dalian Atkinson
They're cerebral things, the lob, chip and dink. A cool head and deft touch are required, and those qualities are especially difficult to summon after a barnstorming dash past three opponents. When confidence and adrenaline are on the charge, the striker's instinct is to trust in power and assert his physical superiority by ramming the ball past the keeper. In such circumstances it takes rare poise and awareness to appreciate when there is a gentler route to the net, especially if the opposition is Wimbledon in the full throes of Crazy Gangness. Atkinson was inspired, his execution splendid.
5. Antonin Panenka
Imagine: It's 1976 and your team has reached the European Championship final for the first time and play their way into a 2-0 lead. The greatest achievement in your country's entire footballing history is within reach. But the opposition are Germany, who are the reigning champions and ... well, Germany. They fight back to make it 2-1 and then, in the last minute, equalise. There follows 30 intense, exhausting minutes of extra-time. Then comes the penalty shoot-out. You are scheduled to take the last of your team's five. Incredibly, the German before you misses. You could become a national hero. Or you could goof and give the Germans a chance to mount another comeback. You are Czechoslovakia's Antonin Panenka … and your immediate adversary is Sepp Maier, one of the best goalkeepers of all time, who has just won his third consecutive European Cup with Bayern Munich.
Hey, perhaps that means the pressure isn't so bad, that folks will understand if you miss? Not if you miss because you tapped the ball straight into his arms in a moment of monumentally misguided smart-arsery, they won't. No, in that case worldwide humiliation and eternal national vilification are the only possible outcomes. So what do you do? You risk it anyway because, in the subsequent words of a gasping Pelé, you are "either a genius or a madman". You confound the keeper with a sneaky shuffle in your run-up and then dink the ball straight down the middle. No one has ever seen anything like it. No one will ever forget it. You are beautiful.
6. Assorted French greats
How can you make a lob even more delicious? By offering sumptuous hors-d'oeuvre. Look to the French for that. Here's Thierry Henry. And here he is again. And there's Michel Platini. Yum.
