Many names come out reinforced from this Super Cup: Benzema, modric, Ancelotti, Courtois. But no one talks about MVP from my heart: Ferland Mendy. Just because of that suicidal play he starred in in the 90th minute against Barcelona, executing an unusual roulette in his own area, would already deserve a separate prize. If you freeze the frame of that moment, it’s chilling: Courtois is out of the goal and a Mendy surrounded by three Blaugrana rivals undertakes a series of dribbles in the opposite direction, each one more insane, in a clear moment of temporary mental alienation. He played without a net.
Anyone who sees the Frenchman playing might think that he has never heard any of those instructions repeated by coaches in lower categories: “goalkeeper also plays”, “never a horizontal pass in the area” or “the last one does not dribble”. Because Mendy doesn’t follow any of those established rules. Always think outside the box and live outside of your comfort zone. I should give talks TED and be done influencer of entrepreneurs because no player represents like him the love for risk and contempt for the conventional. He does not understand dangers, only calls to action. When the others are burned by the ball, Mendy loves her. Mendy loves her, even when she shouldn’t. In Anfield, in the tie against Liverpool, I almost had to do the maneuver heimlich when I choked on a cashew when I saw him cross several kamikaze passes on the front. When in the final Madrid was left with ten after the expulsion of Military, with 6-7 minutes still to go, some of us were already afraid that Mendy would try a cow tail in the area against the brothers Williams.
Mendy contains multitudes. Play possessed by different personalities. Sometimes he is an impregnable defensive back. Sometimes is coffee. Sometimes Napoleon. Because all of a sudden you see him wandering around the attacking areas of the field and nobody understands very well what he is up to. Vinicius the good Ferland. Remember one of those goats that suddenly appear climbed to the most unexpected places possible, like the top of a tree or the steep slope of a mountain, with a completely natural face. Until in one of those improper moves of his, he skillfully outflanked Alves, helping to put Madrid ahead again.
Mendy is an iconoclast, like Philippe Petit, that guy who dared to walk on a steel cable across the Twin Towers, ignoring bystanders, police and helicopters trying to dissuade him. “I know it’s impossible, so let’s start doing it.”
Mendy is our goat, our Napoleon, our Philippe Petit, our steel cable between towers. Why settle for existing, being able to live like Ferland Mendy.
#Live #Mendy