N/A: Marco van Basten, Netherlands, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game International Legends Collector Binder (Exclusive to Tesco)

This week Mat Jolin-Beech takes on a request post for Michael, the mastermind behind Twitter’s 80s&90s Football account, with a look at the power of nomenclature in the beautiful game. Sadly injury robbed us all of enjoying more of today’s subject’s talents in the era of Gazzetta Football Italia but three Ballon d’Ors, three league titles with both Ajax and AC Milan, two European Cups, a Cup Winners’ Cup and a European Championship probably acted as reasonable consolation when he was forced to hang up his boots aged 31 after two years on the sidelines. Moreover, as Mat discusses, one of his many moments of brilliance left an incredible legacy. We hope you enjoy this Michael – over to Mat.

There are a few things in life that make such a cultural impact that they become the thing. THE thing. Now, let me give you context. Hoover = vacuum cleaner. Another? Breville = toasted sandwich maker. One more? Marmite = yeast extract. That last one is not for everyone – although I have found myself a recent convert from the hater camp to a lover. But “football” I hear you cry dear exasperated reader. Or not as you’re probably all used to the odd, off piste ramblings here at A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words.

A Bosman? Read free transfer when your contract has expired. Big money in that these days for players and agents. Or not, just ask Jesse Lingard this summer.  More football pseudonyms I imagine you’re asking. I don’t care if you’re not – you knew what you signed up for when you came here. As I’ve previously said on these hallowed pages, hitting a “Yeboah” as a kid on the theatre of the lunchtime pitch was something that would grant you god-like status. At least right up until you smashed the next one out of bounds and into the park over the fence. Rolling the decades back a bit further, and one that has a stronger grip across the international game, the Cruyff turn = disguised pass or shot that results in dragging the ball through your own legs and leaving the defender befuddled, bewildered and beaten. 

Continuing the Dutch theme, the van Basten = tight angled volley with both fee in the air. A masterpiece from the Netherlands. Or an East Kent playground, although not if I was playing. It’d be more Peter Kay in that John Smiths advert that the Oranje great. But it is moments like these that, during our formative years whether directly or via football osmosis, as when Cruyff did his turn, I wasn’t even born, and when Marco made his mark in the Euro 88 finals, I wasn’t even a full year old. And yet, I know exactly what it was, what it meant, and what it meant to emulate it back when football was daily life. Running out at lunchtime to get your uniform ripped to shreds on the concrete or covered in grass stains before heading home and up to the park with your new Mitre ball to play until it got dark or you got hungry and headed home for pizza and chips. 

Now, what I’m about to say is not going to come as a shock to anyone who ever had the pleasure (or misfortune) of ever watching or playing with me. I’m not very good. Moments of skill are more by fluke than design. The ideas were, and still are, in my mind. Making them happen is where things fall down. Sometimes literally. But those moments when you execute a Cruyff turn perfectly, rattle the crossbar in Tony-esque style, or time that van Basten perfectly make you realise, and remember, why we love this game. And hope, even as I fast approach my 36th birthday, that my own mini Jamie Vardy story of making it could still, somehow, maybe just happen. I mean, Gibraltar must be looking for players, right?

So, in a long, roundabout way, with little to no context, that’s you Marco. Your legacy still lives on with kids trying, failing, and sometimes succeeding, in copying you and feeling like the best player in the world.