Authority, Tenacity, Surely You Might be Talking about Fabio Cannavaro

The tales that the children hear will always be of vanquishers, who attack their rivals and make their mark with their triumphs. The ones who valiantly defend their fort are always forgotten. The goal scorers get into the record books for their number of goals. The creativity of the midfielders is also praised. The goalkeepers have their own uniqueness to be remembered too. There is a group which is most times forgotten, the defenders.

A person who is over-curious, and wants to know more than he ought, always carries the match in his hand to set fire to the powder-room of his own fortunes; and he who pries into others’ affairs is frequently a loser in his own; for generally he who digs holes to search for treasures, comes to a ditch into which he himself falls, as happened to the daughter of a gardener, Parmetella, the heroine of an old Italian tale. Giambattista Basile, the author of that story was a Neapolitan. Mostly people from Naples never peep into others’ affairs. They have a household to look after, and they are satisfied with protecting their kin. Another Neapolitan, who left the place to Parma, then shifted to Milan, and finally came to Turin, and took his horde to Germany just to defend his area. He never become over-curious and he will not dig any holes to search for treasures, but he goes searching for one fortune that has left his country for twenty-four years. His job is defending his fort, and there are not many other people who does that better than him. He is Fabio Cannavaro, captain of the Italian national team, and arguably world’s best central defender at present.

In the era of harsh tackling and player-acting defenders, Cannavaro’s art of defending is rather pure. It is rare to see a spectacular, last-ditch, sliding tackle from him because he hardly ever finds himself needing to take desperate measures. When you first see Fabio on the field, it is difficult to identify him as a defender. Just 5ft 9in tall (or short), he doesn’t possess the height to be a top marksman. To compensate, he has built up his upper body and arms. The only thing that gives you a hint is his broad chest which never drops. But he is quick, strong, intelligent and very rarely does he make a mistake. From an early age he refined an Italian aspiration: he wanted to be a defender. Cannavaro has a faint contempt for attackers, they can mess around with the ball, even lose it. Cannavaro found a role model in another Neapolitan defender, Ciro Ferrara. “He was and is my example,” says Cannavaro. He is in that long line of Italian defenders, encompassing legends like Oriali, Bergomi, Collovati and the filthy Claudio Gentile to contemporaries Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta. The one he can be compared to is Gaetano Scirea, who was a graceful defender of great skill and tactical ability. In contrast to the ruthless tactics often employed by defenders, Scirea was renowned for his fair play and sportsmanship. All these thought that defending is the greatest fine art. They would sing in the shower if they shut a striker out of the match, even if their team had lost. “The way the Italians do it, defending is indeed glorious, the most important thing in football,” says Cannavaro, “and it is beautiful as well”. In the days of blood, sweat and sniffles, and the pile-up of crunching tackles, beauty exists within their game of football. It may not always be apparent throughout the course of a match, but it is there, sparkling underneath the surface. In art, as in nature, balance and synchronised performance are seen as being possessed of beauty, of all things, an offside trap can be beautiful. Defending can be a lot of things: grainy, hideous, frantic, and crucial. But it is attractive in precision. That is what Cannavaro practices, he is much a perfectionist. In a dance, you can practice and perform. That is not the case with football. There match situations become totally different from that on a training ground. There you need improvising, and in inventing in synch is when it becomes an art-form. Defenders are, in average, mentally much stronger than strikers. A striker can rely on a couple of good moments during a match, while a defender has to be alert for the whole ninety minutes. He cannot afford to lose his concentration a single second, or he will be beaten by an expert striker. Strikers can make a lot of slip-ups and still win the game, and that is the way they mostly play. A defender can play a fantastic match, and still lose it by making one little mistake, and that takes a lot more mental toughness. And the good ones show it. Cannavaro is one such, a crafty defender who is seemingly flawless in one-on-one situations. A precise tackler with good aerial ability, despite his lack of height, can also play well the ball at his feet and often starts quick counter-attacking plays. At most of those occasions, he clears the ball quickly. But the ball will end up only in the feet of his team-mates. He has been playing for the Azzuri seemingly forever and will go down in history as one of the best defenders in the history of the Italian National team.

Cannavaro and the rest of Italy's defence have allowed only one goal in six games, and that was Zaccardo's own-goal in a 1-1 draw with the United States in the first round. Italy’s skipper and the most capped player among the current squad, Fabio Cannavaro is a stalwart of the ‘Azzurri’ side. He will be entering the century of caps, and what better an occasion to achieve it, the World Cup final. His performances, against Australia when they lost Materazzi, and then again in the semi-final with Germany, have been simply superb.

Together with goalkeeper Buffon, the friendship he had from their Parma days, which still continues now with Juventus, Cannavaro is the one who is responsible for the solidity of Italy. What he lacks in height, he makes up for with great anticipation, aggression and power. Now only one more step to glory, as in Marcelo Lippi’s own words, “to complete the opera”. Berlin waits, for the master of defense to deliver, and if he does, he can go down in history books as the one valiant who protected his kingdom, and never gave up.

Modesty, Thy Name is Torsten Frings

He grows long hair resembling a pop-artist who has just taken a day off from some music band. His name sounds like a character in a Coen brothers movie. He rides a Harley-Davidson to his club’s training sessions. There ends the acts of brazenness for Torsten Frings. He will never show a speck or smidgen of flamboyance once he is on the football field.

There he will station himself in front of the back four holding back the liberty of the rivals to instigate any attack. He tackles the ball away from his foes when he gets the slightest sniff of danger and safely doles outs it to his team-mates. Not only does he protect Germany’s inexperienced defence, but also give Schneider, Schweinsteiger and Ballack a license to play with more offensive flair without the worry of defensive work. He has tamed his entire natural penchant to blast forward, which was only rarely visible, but something of that sort resulted in a 25-yard stunner that he unleashed against Costa Rica in the opening match. When staying back he breaks up opposing attacks before they blossom, and wins the ball before releasing Klose or Podolski with a swift and effective pass. For France, Makelele does the job of the defensive midfielder and cuts out attacks and then provides the simple ball to the creative lot. Emerson does it for Brazil, Mascherano for Argentina; they do just the simple uncomplicated stuff, which is the most difficult one to perform. Andrea Pirlo’s role in Italy’s midfield is a bit different, as he is a defensive player who also has responsibility of being a playmaker from deep. Frings is much like that but still different as he organises the play from a bit more advanced area and Klinsmann calls his midfield as a flat four rather than a diamond where holding midfielder comes into play. But the Makeleles and the Mascheranos, and maybe Frings too, those are the men few fans will cheer for, only the coaches know their value, and true visionaries of the game have hailed their contributions. Much in the same mould as Nobby Stiles, Graeme Souness, Dunga and Roy Keane, Frings looks very cosy and comfy running deep on the field, and shifting from defence to attack in a split second.

This all-action, versatile midfielder, who has been employed in a multitude of positions by various trainers throughout his career, actually grew up as a child longing to be like Pele. As a young rookie for third division side TSV Alemannia Aachen, he played striker alongside veteran Marcus Feinbier. He made his move to Werder Bremen in 1996, helped the Weserstadion outfit to a German Cup final defeat of Bayern Munich in 1999 and tallying more than 160 Bundesliga appearances and 15 goals over six seasons. There he was played mostly as a right winger by Felix Magath. In 2002, a number of Europe's leading clubs were on Frings's trail but he opted for a deal with Borussia Dortmund. At Westfalenstadion, he played in all parts of the midfield. Starting the 2003/04 season late in the almanac after damaging his knee, he took over from Tomas Rosicky in the playmaking role and scored four times in 16 games before signing a three-year contract with Dortmund's chief rivals, Bayern Munich. Meanwhile in the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan, manager Rudi Voller played him as right full-back. Frings vindicated that decision by playing every minute of Germany's run to the final, where they lost to Brazil. Despite winning the domestic double with Bayern and making 29 Bundesliga and ten Champions League appearances, Frings never really enjoyed his football in Munich, and was played in numerous positions by coach Felix Magath. In June he rejoined Bremen, his Ruhr derby comeback against Schalke in January 2004 was watched by a Bundesliga record crowd of 83,000. His partnerships with Ballack during his spell at Bayern, and then with Klose at Bremen have all now come good for Germany. He combines well with all the players in which his link-up play with explosive left-back Phillip Lahm has been excellent so far, leading up to comparisons with the deadly Brehme-Matthaus dynamic duo.

German coach Jurgen Klinsmann has been quoted as saying that “a lot of the pieces of the puzzle have suddenly fallen into place”. While Michael Ballack, Miroslav Klose, Lukas Podolski and Jens Lehmann have grabbed all the headlines in the German press, Frings has been an unsung hero. He asked Frings to hold the play when he gave the permission for all the other players in the side to attack. Frings took his coach’s orders with open hands and suddenly Germany looked a much organised side. The axis that Klinsmann has been stressing on consists of Lehmann- Metzelder and Ballack-Klose on either side and Frings at its focal point. Against Argentina he made Riquelme look so shady, and that virtually put an end to the orchestra the Latin Americans were used to play.

Every team needs the grafter, the player who puts the foot into the 50/50 tackle or plays the sagacious square pass rather than the buoyant bomb, the one who keeps the discipline and the shape of the team. Germany has rediscovered Frings to act out that role. Sometimes when the team faces a defeat, he is criticised for not having the imagination to change the course of the game. But we need to remember his job is not to change games, their trade in time is to create the environment whereby the flair players have the opportunity to express themselves without needing to worry too much about what is going on behind them. That is why Ballack rates Frings high, Klinsmann consider him as his idea’s heart. As a whole nation experiences that Euphoria, if somebody can do the job every time for them, it is none other than Torsten Frings.