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Once upon a time, a man travelled to a remote village in Inner Mongolia, all the way from Europe. He came across a village, and seeing all the people enjoying sports he took out a ball from his bag and began kicking it.
‘What is that that you are doing?’ asked the people.
‘Soccer.’ Replied the man, and seeing that people were interested he demonstrated some tricks. Everyone was very impressed – they had never seen soccer before!
The man decided to stay in the village for a while, as people were so nice and welcoming.
After a few days some local lads asked the man to teach them some soccer skills, and even though he wasn’t too great at soccer, still, he was much better than them, so he happily agreed. ‘I will be the coach,’ he said, so they all replied *coach!*
That being established, the man began to teach the lads some soccer skills, and before long they had the basics, and other people saw them practicing and asked to join in – and the man happily agreed. Soon, there were enough people to make two teams, so the man selected the players and the captains and they began playing against one another. They enjoyed it very much. The man explained all the rules, and all about good sportsmanship, and how important that was. And then they played, and they all enjoyed the game a great deal, and adhered to good sportsmanship.
Many other people, seeing the teams play, decided to take up soccer, and soon many neighbouring villages had the soccer bug too! So soon, more and more people wanted to learn how to play with the coach. Seeing this, the coach realised that in this place he had a nice role to play, and could make a modest living teaching soccer and providing people with a skill that they would very much enjoy learning – and so he stayed, and he began teaching soccer to anyone who was interested. And they WERE interested – many people from surrounding settlements came to learn from him – so many that he had to get a bit more organised! He chose some people to be assistant coaches – which they were very pleased with, because they loved the game and they were happy that their skill and commitment was being rewarded. The assistant coaches helped to teach soccer to everyone who was interested, and soon there was a whole league!
Now, the thing is, although the man loved soccer, he wasn’t a professional - he just liked playing soccer, and had played on an amateur level since he was a boy. But, one day, one of his players went to the capital, and there, on a giant television on a building, he saw Manchester United playing football! He was amazed by their awesome skill – he had never seen anything like it! And so, quite naturally, he was very excited and couldn’t wait to tell all of his friends and also Coach! But when he got back he went straight to the coach first of all, and told him all about his trip and his discovery.
Now, the coach didn’t really know what to say. He could have said that Manchester United were really one of the best teams in the world, and that if people here trained hard, then maybe at some time in future generations they could be as good as that. But he was afraid to say it in case people lost faith in him, because his level was so obviously so much lower than Manchester United. So instead, he said that what Manchester United do isn’t really the real football. What HE taught them is the real football! Manchester United had all of the uniforms and the flashy moves, but really, they hadn’t really got the true knowledge of soccer, and they just run around doing flashy stuff to get lots of people to pay money to watch them!
Well, naturally the man was very disappointed, and he went to his friends and he told them all about the fake football he had seen, and about how Coach had told him what a load of rubbish it was. Everyone was amazed at his story, but being essentially decent, honest folks they were really sad that such things go on in the world – especially as they loved soccer so much.
But, next day at training everyone had a renewed enthusiasm because everyone knew that they were carrying the real soccer forwards in to the future!
The man who had been to the city still had some questions, though, and he asked coach about the things that he had seen – for example players for Manchester United could apparently control the ball very skilfully, and move in and out of players like greased pigs! Yet again, the coach thought in his heart of hearts that he should really come clean this time, but again, he was afraid that if he did so he would lose this nice life, and everyone’s respect. It wasn’t that he was a bad person, or that he didn’t love soccer – he did. In fact, as a boy he had often dreamed of playing for Manchester United. In fact, the respect these people gave to him was fulfilling his childhood dream of being respected for soccer skills.
But, Manchester was a very, very long way away now, and it didn’t really make any difference to these people to know about Manchester United, surely? In fact, maybe if they did know, then they would lose faith in him and so lose their love of soccer, and that in turn would destroy their social life and all the really great things that had come out of the soccer league. A difficult one, eh? What would knowing the truth really benefit them? And worst of all, telling the truth now meant also admitting that he had lied about it the day before. So not only would they not respect him as a coach, they wouldn’t respect him as a man.
So what he did was, he lied, and he told himself that really he was doing it for them, for their own sake, because they had so much resting on him. To keep everyone’s faith he pretended that he was really a top level soccer player and coach – which wasn’t hard to do. In fact, he didn’t really have to lie at all, because the locals all called him great, and all he had to do was not correct them. It wasn’t really lying. More sort of, just letting them believe it if they wanted to.
But he had a problem – the man who had been to the city had seen great soccer skills for himself, and other people often went to the city as well. Being interested in soccer they would be certain to check out professional teams, and when they came back there was no way that he could compare to that level. So what he did was he told everyone that those professional skills weren’t the real skills. He had the real skills, and the real skills were very different. So instead of encouraging people to experiment and improve genuine soccer skills, he found himself having to make up things for them to practice. Obviously he couldn’t have them practice the same things as professional players, because that would give the game away when they came to compare! So he made up new things – things that were a lot easier, but he gave them complex explanations, and used words to mystify everything, and because the people loved him so much they believed him, of course. And they loved him so much that they happily agreed that his soccer was the real, original, true, highest level soccer – they could even feel the special skills that they had learned when they played. They really could feel it!
And so, instead of his original dream of teaching real soccer skills the man now found himself in a nightmare, where everything he taught was actually making his friends less skilful at soccer. And so to try and compensate he began to place a much bigger emphasis on sportsmanship than actual soccer skills. In fact, sportsmanship began to take over from soccer skills, and became a kind of code that everyone applied to their lives. In a way, thought the man, he really was teaching the real soccer – because wasn’t sportsmanship the heart of it? But in his own heart he knew that he was cheating the people, but he just could not think of anything else to do in that situation.
Now, the problem was that with the people believing the man, the logical thing for them to assume from what he was telling them - i.e. that most people in the world were playing the rubbish, fake soccer – was that THEY must be amongst the very few people left who had the real soccer! That made them very proud – of course!
And so, the next time the same villager went back to the city, he went in to a bar and saw a soccer match on the television – Manchester United versus Ajax. People were cheering and shouting, but the man could not understand why! He looked at the screen, and what he saw was nothing at all like what Coach had taught them! Well, maybe some loose similarity here and there, but really, just an empty form of what they practiced. Now he could see why Coach was right! Now he could see it for himself! Why, this professional soccer was nothing at all like the real soccer that Coach taught them! Right there and then he felt overwhelmed with gratitude that he should have had the chance to learn the real soccer! He could not have felt any more loyal and happy towards Coach! What a great man!
Now then, some people in the bar noticed him crying, and asked him what was wrong. ‘I am so grateful,’ replied the man, ‘that I can not help but cry!’ And then he proceeded to tell the people that the soccer on the television was all fake, but that there was a town in the country where the real soccer was played, and all of the people were of a much higher level than those Western frauds! In fact, he became a bit overwhelmed with it all!
When he got back he dedicated himself to Coach and to learning true soccer completely! So much so that Coach soon rewarded him by making him Vice-Coach – which was truly a great honour.
Meanwhile, however, the people in the bar in the city were quite amazed by the story of the amazing village in the country where local village teams had a greater skill than Manchester United and Ajax! They were amazed, and wondered if it could be true! Soon the rumour spread all through Mongolia – Inner and Outer – but most people understood that it was almost impossible that it was true, so the rumour soon died down to just a story about a town in the country where people loved soccer very much. And the story spread so far that a Western amateur football team that was on a friendly tour of Asia heard about it, and decided it would make a great addition to their trip! And so they found out where the village was and went there.
Now, when they got there they began talking to the people, telling them that they were a team from the West, and they had come to make friends across the world through football, and they told them all about the dream of a brotherhood of friendship and respect through football.
However, although the people were naturally friendly, they were still quite mistrustful because of what the coach had told them. Sensing the mistrust, the Western players asked them if there was a problem, at which point the local players explained that Western level of soccer was really fake, and that they maintained the true level of soccer, and that under Coach’s training they were amongst the only people in the world who had real soccer skills.
Well, quite naturally the Western players were amazed at what they heard. In fact, it was quite funny, but they suspected something strange was going on! They kept quiet and decided just to have a bit of a look around, to see what the situation was. Back at their hotel room they had a chat and a laugh, but weren’t too bothered.
Meanwhile, however, the Coach was in a terrible panic! He had dreaded this day coming! The lie was always going to spread and spread – no way to stop it once it had come out of his mouth. He wished he had never taken this path – but he had, and now more than ever, for the sake of the people, he had to keep up the lie. After all, the Western team would go home – and what would they leave behind? A shattered dream?
And so he met with his assistant coaches and explained to them that the real point of football is not to win games, but to have the special skills that he had taught them. He told them all about the fake experts from the West, and how to spot them, which was that if they didn’t recognise what he had taught them as real soccer, then they were fake! So, it was quite easy! Once you had spotted that, no need to worry about anything that they said.
Next day, the men from the West explained that some of the things that people here had been taught or told weren’t really good soccer skills – or even soccer skills at all! The people became very angry! It was like an attack on their whole community – and what’s more, coach was right again! Was he ever wrong? These people WERE fakers – and that was easy to see because of what they said! And worst of all, they were criticising Coach – the one man who had been truly faithful and honest throughout all of this! The foreign players didn’t even refer to him as Coach, which was disgraceful!
The villagers could barely contain their hostility, and sensing it, the soccer team asked outright what on earth the problem in this place was! So the locals told them that they were all fakers, and had no knowledge of real football. The soccer team tried to explain, and told them about professional level teams, and how millions of people in the West loved football and had a good level of skill - but the more they explained, the more hostile the villagers were, and the more they claimed to have the real skill!
So, in the end, the soccer team laughed and said ‘Ok! Fair enough! Let’s have a match and see!’
Well, the Coach had already told them that that must never happen! They had nothing to prove to anyone – as long as they knew they were the best, real soccer players. Besides, real soccer was about the skills that they had learned – nothing to do with winning games, or the fake skills that the Westerners talked about. What’s more, to make sure that they never played a game with outsiders, he told them that anyone asking for a game obviously didn’t have good sportsmanship, so in that case, no need to play against them! Simple! Asking for a match, so he had told them, is considered very, very bad manners in the real game of soccer.
Now, some of the locals wondered about that, so they looked to the assistant coaches for guidance. But the problem was that this ethos had been in place so long now that the assistant coaches hardly ever played any matches themselves any more, even in their own league. Coach had steered them all away from it! So the assistant coaches – who would be the ones who would have to play – secretly felt very afraid and unsure of themselves, now that it came to having a real match! It was ok doing the training, and fantasising about winning against Manchester United, and having the cool title of assistant coach, but now that it came to it, they were very worried at the prospect of even playing an amateur Western team. Now THEY had a lot to lose as well! So, they gladly upheld Coach’s teaching that they needn’t play a game, even a friendly game. And what’s more, because they felt secret shame and fear, they spoke very harshly to the Western players, calling them despicable for having come here and asked for a match! All in all, everything coach had told them had certainly proved to be true!
And so the Western team were quite amazed, and naturally a bit upset, so they explained in no uncertain terms that playing a match was a major part of the whole point of football, and that the things that the villagers said and did were really the real fakes, and worst of all, the worst one was the coach who taught them all of that nonsense!
Well, hearing their beloved coach talked about like that the locals nearly went bananas! In fact, many of the junior players were willing the assistant coaches to play the Western team there and then – to teach them the meaning of real soccer! Well, the assistant coaches sensed that, so they got a bit worried – because secretly, in their heart of hearts, they doubted that they really did have the necessary skill to play the Western team, so instead they seized their opportunity and berated the Western team for their arrogance and lack of sportsmanship! They called them disgusting and said that they pitied people such as them. If only they knew the joy that came from the real game of soccer! And they told them all about the great get-togethers and parties and weddings that came about from their love of real soccer.
And so much for brotherhood through football! That had obviously always been a disgusting lie! How could anyone say that and yet not acknowledge their village as the real, authentic football? Some brotherhood if they weren’t acknowledged as elder brothers!
So again, the team said ‘Well prove it then! Prove you are the real soccer greats!’ And they explained about Pele and David Beckham and the World Cup and golden boots.
But the assistant coaches were terrified, so they said ‘We already have proved it, many times! Our teams play against one another all the time!’ And ‘One of our players is a golden boot player!’ which was true because Coach had awarded the honour personally. And they explained that they had already won the World Cup – the REAL World Cup - it was obviously only held amongst the REAL soccer players in the world – which was them – so they had already won it, several times, and had nothing to prove to anyone after that! And then they said, get out of our village – go away – and never, ever come back!
Once they had gone, all of the locals congratulated themselves, and assured one another that the Western team were exactly the despicable frauds that Coach had promised them to be! And they realised then that they had transcended the need to play matches – their level of sportsmanship was so much higher than the frauds that they need never worry about a football match ever again. And their little town lived happily ever after…
(Apart from one or two of the younger villagers who secretly thought *Hold on – surely we should have just played a match with them?* And began to suspect something might be wrong!)
As for the local man, well, he later went and watched United play on the television again… and watching, he slowly realised the truth – it wasn’t easy – it felt like betraying his friends… but he realised how upside down his vision had been all along! He couldn’t help but realise the truth because, ironically, the moment he had seen Coach first performing soccer tricks he knew that he loved soccer. So Coach had played a big part in his life, and yet, the time had come to move on. And he did, later gaining a place with Ulang Batur United as a reserve player!
(And apart from the Coach, who wondered every night about how life might have been different, if he’d never told that first lie. It would have been better to Coach a happy, normal team to a friendly amateur level than this nightmare of lies and pretence of being the best in the world.)
POSTSCRIPT
A few years later the coach was very old, and who should turn up at the village but Eric Cantona!
X
‘What is that that you are doing?’ asked the people.
‘Soccer.’ Replied the man, and seeing that people were interested he demonstrated some tricks. Everyone was very impressed – they had never seen soccer before!
The man decided to stay in the village for a while, as people were so nice and welcoming.
After a few days some local lads asked the man to teach them some soccer skills, and even though he wasn’t too great at soccer, still, he was much better than them, so he happily agreed. ‘I will be the coach,’ he said, so they all replied *coach!*
That being established, the man began to teach the lads some soccer skills, and before long they had the basics, and other people saw them practicing and asked to join in – and the man happily agreed. Soon, there were enough people to make two teams, so the man selected the players and the captains and they began playing against one another. They enjoyed it very much. The man explained all the rules, and all about good sportsmanship, and how important that was. And then they played, and they all enjoyed the game a great deal, and adhered to good sportsmanship.
Many other people, seeing the teams play, decided to take up soccer, and soon many neighbouring villages had the soccer bug too! So soon, more and more people wanted to learn how to play with the coach. Seeing this, the coach realised that in this place he had a nice role to play, and could make a modest living teaching soccer and providing people with a skill that they would very much enjoy learning – and so he stayed, and he began teaching soccer to anyone who was interested. And they WERE interested – many people from surrounding settlements came to learn from him – so many that he had to get a bit more organised! He chose some people to be assistant coaches – which they were very pleased with, because they loved the game and they were happy that their skill and commitment was being rewarded. The assistant coaches helped to teach soccer to everyone who was interested, and soon there was a whole league!
Now, the thing is, although the man loved soccer, he wasn’t a professional - he just liked playing soccer, and had played on an amateur level since he was a boy. But, one day, one of his players went to the capital, and there, on a giant television on a building, he saw Manchester United playing football! He was amazed by their awesome skill – he had never seen anything like it! And so, quite naturally, he was very excited and couldn’t wait to tell all of his friends and also Coach! But when he got back he went straight to the coach first of all, and told him all about his trip and his discovery.
Now, the coach didn’t really know what to say. He could have said that Manchester United were really one of the best teams in the world, and that if people here trained hard, then maybe at some time in future generations they could be as good as that. But he was afraid to say it in case people lost faith in him, because his level was so obviously so much lower than Manchester United. So instead, he said that what Manchester United do isn’t really the real football. What HE taught them is the real football! Manchester United had all of the uniforms and the flashy moves, but really, they hadn’t really got the true knowledge of soccer, and they just run around doing flashy stuff to get lots of people to pay money to watch them!
Well, naturally the man was very disappointed, and he went to his friends and he told them all about the fake football he had seen, and about how Coach had told him what a load of rubbish it was. Everyone was amazed at his story, but being essentially decent, honest folks they were really sad that such things go on in the world – especially as they loved soccer so much.
But, next day at training everyone had a renewed enthusiasm because everyone knew that they were carrying the real soccer forwards in to the future!
The man who had been to the city still had some questions, though, and he asked coach about the things that he had seen – for example players for Manchester United could apparently control the ball very skilfully, and move in and out of players like greased pigs! Yet again, the coach thought in his heart of hearts that he should really come clean this time, but again, he was afraid that if he did so he would lose this nice life, and everyone’s respect. It wasn’t that he was a bad person, or that he didn’t love soccer – he did. In fact, as a boy he had often dreamed of playing for Manchester United. In fact, the respect these people gave to him was fulfilling his childhood dream of being respected for soccer skills.
But, Manchester was a very, very long way away now, and it didn’t really make any difference to these people to know about Manchester United, surely? In fact, maybe if they did know, then they would lose faith in him and so lose their love of soccer, and that in turn would destroy their social life and all the really great things that had come out of the soccer league. A difficult one, eh? What would knowing the truth really benefit them? And worst of all, telling the truth now meant also admitting that he had lied about it the day before. So not only would they not respect him as a coach, they wouldn’t respect him as a man.
So what he did was, he lied, and he told himself that really he was doing it for them, for their own sake, because they had so much resting on him. To keep everyone’s faith he pretended that he was really a top level soccer player and coach – which wasn’t hard to do. In fact, he didn’t really have to lie at all, because the locals all called him great, and all he had to do was not correct them. It wasn’t really lying. More sort of, just letting them believe it if they wanted to.
But he had a problem – the man who had been to the city had seen great soccer skills for himself, and other people often went to the city as well. Being interested in soccer they would be certain to check out professional teams, and when they came back there was no way that he could compare to that level. So what he did was he told everyone that those professional skills weren’t the real skills. He had the real skills, and the real skills were very different. So instead of encouraging people to experiment and improve genuine soccer skills, he found himself having to make up things for them to practice. Obviously he couldn’t have them practice the same things as professional players, because that would give the game away when they came to compare! So he made up new things – things that were a lot easier, but he gave them complex explanations, and used words to mystify everything, and because the people loved him so much they believed him, of course. And they loved him so much that they happily agreed that his soccer was the real, original, true, highest level soccer – they could even feel the special skills that they had learned when they played. They really could feel it!
And so, instead of his original dream of teaching real soccer skills the man now found himself in a nightmare, where everything he taught was actually making his friends less skilful at soccer. And so to try and compensate he began to place a much bigger emphasis on sportsmanship than actual soccer skills. In fact, sportsmanship began to take over from soccer skills, and became a kind of code that everyone applied to their lives. In a way, thought the man, he really was teaching the real soccer – because wasn’t sportsmanship the heart of it? But in his own heart he knew that he was cheating the people, but he just could not think of anything else to do in that situation.
Now, the problem was that with the people believing the man, the logical thing for them to assume from what he was telling them - i.e. that most people in the world were playing the rubbish, fake soccer – was that THEY must be amongst the very few people left who had the real soccer! That made them very proud – of course!
And so, the next time the same villager went back to the city, he went in to a bar and saw a soccer match on the television – Manchester United versus Ajax. People were cheering and shouting, but the man could not understand why! He looked at the screen, and what he saw was nothing at all like what Coach had taught them! Well, maybe some loose similarity here and there, but really, just an empty form of what they practiced. Now he could see why Coach was right! Now he could see it for himself! Why, this professional soccer was nothing at all like the real soccer that Coach taught them! Right there and then he felt overwhelmed with gratitude that he should have had the chance to learn the real soccer! He could not have felt any more loyal and happy towards Coach! What a great man!
Now then, some people in the bar noticed him crying, and asked him what was wrong. ‘I am so grateful,’ replied the man, ‘that I can not help but cry!’ And then he proceeded to tell the people that the soccer on the television was all fake, but that there was a town in the country where the real soccer was played, and all of the people were of a much higher level than those Western frauds! In fact, he became a bit overwhelmed with it all!
When he got back he dedicated himself to Coach and to learning true soccer completely! So much so that Coach soon rewarded him by making him Vice-Coach – which was truly a great honour.
Meanwhile, however, the people in the bar in the city were quite amazed by the story of the amazing village in the country where local village teams had a greater skill than Manchester United and Ajax! They were amazed, and wondered if it could be true! Soon the rumour spread all through Mongolia – Inner and Outer – but most people understood that it was almost impossible that it was true, so the rumour soon died down to just a story about a town in the country where people loved soccer very much. And the story spread so far that a Western amateur football team that was on a friendly tour of Asia heard about it, and decided it would make a great addition to their trip! And so they found out where the village was and went there.
Now, when they got there they began talking to the people, telling them that they were a team from the West, and they had come to make friends across the world through football, and they told them all about the dream of a brotherhood of friendship and respect through football.
However, although the people were naturally friendly, they were still quite mistrustful because of what the coach had told them. Sensing the mistrust, the Western players asked them if there was a problem, at which point the local players explained that Western level of soccer was really fake, and that they maintained the true level of soccer, and that under Coach’s training they were amongst the only people in the world who had real soccer skills.
Well, quite naturally the Western players were amazed at what they heard. In fact, it was quite funny, but they suspected something strange was going on! They kept quiet and decided just to have a bit of a look around, to see what the situation was. Back at their hotel room they had a chat and a laugh, but weren’t too bothered.
Meanwhile, however, the Coach was in a terrible panic! He had dreaded this day coming! The lie was always going to spread and spread – no way to stop it once it had come out of his mouth. He wished he had never taken this path – but he had, and now more than ever, for the sake of the people, he had to keep up the lie. After all, the Western team would go home – and what would they leave behind? A shattered dream?
And so he met with his assistant coaches and explained to them that the real point of football is not to win games, but to have the special skills that he had taught them. He told them all about the fake experts from the West, and how to spot them, which was that if they didn’t recognise what he had taught them as real soccer, then they were fake! So, it was quite easy! Once you had spotted that, no need to worry about anything that they said.
Next day, the men from the West explained that some of the things that people here had been taught or told weren’t really good soccer skills – or even soccer skills at all! The people became very angry! It was like an attack on their whole community – and what’s more, coach was right again! Was he ever wrong? These people WERE fakers – and that was easy to see because of what they said! And worst of all, they were criticising Coach – the one man who had been truly faithful and honest throughout all of this! The foreign players didn’t even refer to him as Coach, which was disgraceful!
The villagers could barely contain their hostility, and sensing it, the soccer team asked outright what on earth the problem in this place was! So the locals told them that they were all fakers, and had no knowledge of real football. The soccer team tried to explain, and told them about professional level teams, and how millions of people in the West loved football and had a good level of skill - but the more they explained, the more hostile the villagers were, and the more they claimed to have the real skill!
So, in the end, the soccer team laughed and said ‘Ok! Fair enough! Let’s have a match and see!’
Well, the Coach had already told them that that must never happen! They had nothing to prove to anyone – as long as they knew they were the best, real soccer players. Besides, real soccer was about the skills that they had learned – nothing to do with winning games, or the fake skills that the Westerners talked about. What’s more, to make sure that they never played a game with outsiders, he told them that anyone asking for a game obviously didn’t have good sportsmanship, so in that case, no need to play against them! Simple! Asking for a match, so he had told them, is considered very, very bad manners in the real game of soccer.
Now, some of the locals wondered about that, so they looked to the assistant coaches for guidance. But the problem was that this ethos had been in place so long now that the assistant coaches hardly ever played any matches themselves any more, even in their own league. Coach had steered them all away from it! So the assistant coaches – who would be the ones who would have to play – secretly felt very afraid and unsure of themselves, now that it came to having a real match! It was ok doing the training, and fantasising about winning against Manchester United, and having the cool title of assistant coach, but now that it came to it, they were very worried at the prospect of even playing an amateur Western team. Now THEY had a lot to lose as well! So, they gladly upheld Coach’s teaching that they needn’t play a game, even a friendly game. And what’s more, because they felt secret shame and fear, they spoke very harshly to the Western players, calling them despicable for having come here and asked for a match! All in all, everything coach had told them had certainly proved to be true!
And so the Western team were quite amazed, and naturally a bit upset, so they explained in no uncertain terms that playing a match was a major part of the whole point of football, and that the things that the villagers said and did were really the real fakes, and worst of all, the worst one was the coach who taught them all of that nonsense!
Well, hearing their beloved coach talked about like that the locals nearly went bananas! In fact, many of the junior players were willing the assistant coaches to play the Western team there and then – to teach them the meaning of real soccer! Well, the assistant coaches sensed that, so they got a bit worried – because secretly, in their heart of hearts, they doubted that they really did have the necessary skill to play the Western team, so instead they seized their opportunity and berated the Western team for their arrogance and lack of sportsmanship! They called them disgusting and said that they pitied people such as them. If only they knew the joy that came from the real game of soccer! And they told them all about the great get-togethers and parties and weddings that came about from their love of real soccer.
And so much for brotherhood through football! That had obviously always been a disgusting lie! How could anyone say that and yet not acknowledge their village as the real, authentic football? Some brotherhood if they weren’t acknowledged as elder brothers!
So again, the team said ‘Well prove it then! Prove you are the real soccer greats!’ And they explained about Pele and David Beckham and the World Cup and golden boots.
But the assistant coaches were terrified, so they said ‘We already have proved it, many times! Our teams play against one another all the time!’ And ‘One of our players is a golden boot player!’ which was true because Coach had awarded the honour personally. And they explained that they had already won the World Cup – the REAL World Cup - it was obviously only held amongst the REAL soccer players in the world – which was them – so they had already won it, several times, and had nothing to prove to anyone after that! And then they said, get out of our village – go away – and never, ever come back!
Once they had gone, all of the locals congratulated themselves, and assured one another that the Western team were exactly the despicable frauds that Coach had promised them to be! And they realised then that they had transcended the need to play matches – their level of sportsmanship was so much higher than the frauds that they need never worry about a football match ever again. And their little town lived happily ever after…
(Apart from one or two of the younger villagers who secretly thought *Hold on – surely we should have just played a match with them?* And began to suspect something might be wrong!)
As for the local man, well, he later went and watched United play on the television again… and watching, he slowly realised the truth – it wasn’t easy – it felt like betraying his friends… but he realised how upside down his vision had been all along! He couldn’t help but realise the truth because, ironically, the moment he had seen Coach first performing soccer tricks he knew that he loved soccer. So Coach had played a big part in his life, and yet, the time had come to move on. And he did, later gaining a place with Ulang Batur United as a reserve player!
(And apart from the Coach, who wondered every night about how life might have been different, if he’d never told that first lie. It would have been better to Coach a happy, normal team to a friendly amateur level than this nightmare of lies and pretence of being the best in the world.)
POSTSCRIPT
A few years later the coach was very old, and who should turn up at the village but Eric Cantona!
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