Match Report: Friendly Currents (England vs. Mexico Friendly, 5.24.10)

A friendly is like an electrical grid. Parallel currents at different voltages headed to different destinations. Directions and objectives opposed but still getting and giving energy to a bigger network. It’s bodies and it’s running but it’s not a game exactly; it’s more and less than a game. Everyone on the pitch is playing their own game of candidacy, but they’re also just an x on a chalkboard in motion. Speeds become personal: while some players are just going through the motions, jogging in place, others fight for their lives. On the surface a friendly can seem boring, exclusively theoretical, but if you look more closely there's terror and panic. You never know when you'll hit a live wire; an unanticipated connection; a shock to the system.

Match Report Part 2: The Power of A Head Bandage (England vs. Mexico Friendly, 5.24.10)

At some point during the first half of the friendly against Mexico, Steven Gerrard took a knock on the head. He returned to the pitch with a bandage on his head and a new outlook on life. During the Chelsea v. Liverpool game a couple of weeks ago, I compared him to a mental patient; with roughly-wrapped gauze around his forehead he certainly looked like one. But a liberated one. Gerrard looked like a mental patient who had escaped from the asylum of his season at Liverpool through a very small bathroom window and thrown his sedatives into the artificial pond as he roared out of the compound. At least until the mania hit, intoxication was guaranteed: with his freedom, with everyday life, with breathing. Alternatively, you might say he looked like a little kid who fell out of bed after a season-long nap. Watch out mummy, he’s mad and he’s ready to play! Take your pick. He was a man resurrected.