I’ve watched Javier Pastore at the stadium!

December 1st, 2011 | by: Maxi Lopez | Comments Off

Hola amigos,

I’ve watched el flaco at the stadium, where he was facing Ajaccio with his club, Paris. I’m giving you my feelings… The game happened mid-october and I couldn’t post this because of the past albiceleste actuality.

The first thing I want to write is that I wasn’t able to set my argie flag up. You see, we Corsicans are nationalist and have a painful history because of the French, especially from Paris… That’s why I couldn’t put it… otherwise you wouldn’t see your favourite blog being updated (they would have killed me…).

I am so lucky to have seen so many great players live before: Ronaldo, Batistuta, Zidane, Crespo, Weah, Ortega, Thuram, Trezeguet, Baggio, Shevchenko, Veron, Zanetti, Raul, Djorkaeff, Blanc, Gullit, Rui Costa, etc. And now, Pastore finally joins this long list and it was fantastic to watch him.

Unfortunately, my place at the stadium was next to the field (grass…) so I couldn’t feel the game much… but I was near, very near, and I could see the faces and hear the physical impacts. All these little things that we never see on TV.

Pastore was a monster. He impressed me a lot in his controls which were Zidanesque, believe me. His backheels too. Tremendous technically. So confortable with the ball. He did a couple of long passes that would turn Veron’s face ashamed. I saw one of his “little bridges”, at less than 3 meters from where I was, and I could feel the opponent’s humiliation (even if Pastore does that only to be efficient).

PSG are in transition. Some people won’t be there next year. Néné, for example, wanted to shine all the time and was ignoring Pastore, dribbling many times. Some others did the same but not on purpose. Without Pastore, PSG are nothing.

I watched Pastore and only him. I don’t even remember the other players on the field. Almost never watched the game, actually! My brain & eyes were fixed on el flaco, only. It’s funny, he runs like a snake. I didn’t realize that before…

Although I perfectly knew he was like that, what amazed me a lot was his kind behaviour on the pitch: always smiling. He smiles all the time! When an offside is close not to be one. When the referee ignores a foul on him. When Mexican GK Ochoa stops his lob with a magnificent save and Pastore goes 5 minutes later congratulating him. When he goes asking for another ball to the referee because it’s deflated. When Sirigu doesn’t see him on a counter-attack and prefers to wait, so Pastore looks at him and simulates an handicapped arm just to show he’s useless (!). Always with smiles. So many little things that show how natural and nice this kid is. “Fun” is the word. What we need for the NT: this is a game so lets just play.

Then, he did a couple of mistakes (1 pass failed, 2 solo actions and got his shot blocked). On each of them, it was clear he was torturing himself in his mind. El flaco is a perfectionnist, I’m sure about it and I didn’t know that. Zidane was like this too.

We don’t notice it on TV but guys like him (and Messi) get kicked all the time. He was subbed at the end of the game because of a little ankle injury (terrible noise on the impact though).

Finally, he is being used by PSG like Messi. He manages his efforts a lot, ON/OFF, and is asked to not defend much, like Messi. And that’s a sort of a problem for our NT. That is how lots of our forwards are now used in their clubs. Pastore can defend though, if asked so, no doubts about that.

At the end of the game, Pastore was applauded. Maybe it actually happened once before but I’ve never seen an opponent getting applauded in Corsica. But I can tell you for sure that it never happened for a player from Paris…

Vamos el flaco.