"Everything I have achieved in football is due to playing football in the
streets with my friends."
Zinedine Zidane said that.
Like most other industries, the coronavirus pandemic has halted football leagues all around the world. Result? There won't be much fan fights, online polls or panel discussions to choose the finest goal or scorer for the season. Of course, we witnessed some spellbound runs and breathtaking finishes before the outbreak hit the world. But something will remain unfulfilled as the incomplete leagues will now have to declare the frontrunners champions or abandon the season without winners. What if the best of the season was yet to come? What if we missed somebody's career-defining moment to the suspension?
It's not easy to fill the void that the absence of favourite clubs and players have left us with. However, little bits of wonder and happiness can do magic and lift our emotions at times. One such video of a bunch kids playing football on the road has gone viral on social media now.
Shared by countless users on Twitter and Facebook, the video has a handful of kids having a game of football on their neighbouring street. A kid in pink shirt is on the move with the ball as the last player between him and the goal charges to block. He beautifully dribbles past him and another kid who was catching up to tap the ball in, before falling losing control.
But the kid who tried to stop him earlier makes a last-minute move to deny him a goal and clear the ball. Two things happen at this moment. One - the fine set of skill the kids display -- both the attacker in losing his markers and the defender in stopping the goal from going in -- and two, the pink kids acrobatic balancing from hurting himself.
If you pay some attention, you can see the boy balancing on all four like a neighbourhood cat without following into a roadside pit after losing his balance on the attempt on goal. A fall could have hurt him really bad, but the lad is sporty enough to avoid the danger.
But the best part is yet to come.
By the time he recovers and gets back to business, the opposition's counter had come to a close at the other end and his teammate before the goal has the ball. The tall boy makes a sublime over-head pass (better than any through balls you have ever delivered on PES or FIFA) to find his teammate, who redirects it to the net with a phenomenal backfoot flick! Voila! The video ends as our excited scorer runs to the middle of the road to celebrate his goal like Cristiano Ronaldo.
The volley is so perfect and majestic that it will leave you shellshocked for a moment before you realise how many Latin American legends became the legends they are on the street.
The undated video gives little clue about if it is from pre-coronavirus days or not. However, the empty roads hint a lockdown is in place and the kids are out against instructions.
"I must admit that football in the streets gave us a great sense of freedom and liberty," Eric Cantona said that.