Who Really Deserved to Win the Secret Nike Cage-Soccer Tournament in 2002? Pt. 2
Thierry Henry, the original Ronaldo, and the universal importance of a big backside
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In case you missed part one, here is part one! And before we get to part two, I encourage you to heed Mundial mag’s call for suggestions for modern-day Secret Tournament teams. Frankly, all of the suggested names are more creative and pun-y than the ones Nike ended up using. This is my favorite:
OK! Please refresh yourself with this video; it cannot be watched too many times. The semifinals begin right around the 1:40 mark:
Semifinal 1
Triple Espresso: Thierry Henry, Francesco Totti, and Hidetoshi Nakata (team-wide average of 0.49 non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes)
Cerberus: Edgar Davids, Lillian Thuram, Sylvain Wiltord (0.28 NPG+A/90)
This is the Edgar Davids show. It begins with him just kind of axe-kicking the ball as it drops out of the little opening in the ceiling of the cage. I don’t know what an axe-kick is, but it sounds right. It also reminds me of this iconic incident -- just with a mysteriously metallic (and in my experience, very hard to control!) ball instead of another man’s helmeted cranium.
Later, Davids is juggling by his own goal and then does a mid-air snake -- when you quickly touch the ball with the outside-then-inside of your foot -- and then he rolls the ball through Nakata’s legs. Are we sure that a meg shouldn’t count for a goal or at least half a goal here? Do we actually have any idea what the rules are? Are there fouls? Call your own fouls? The only rule I’ve seen enforced is when Davids is hanging from the top of the cage and then somehow also kicking the ball. Cantona raps my guy’s knuckles with his cane and then wags a finger:
As you’ll see above, Davids committed the unfortunate error of breaking the tournament’s one actual (unwritten) rule. So far in the tournament, every time someone has tried to complete a slide-tackle, his team has lost. Soon after the slide, Henry is sprinting down the sideline and -- like he did in the quarterfinals -- banking the ball off the cage to set up a teammate. Nakata brings it down on his chest, and this is my favorite part: despite there not being a defender in sight and despite his back being to the goal, he just blindly flicks the ball with his heel and it ends up in the net.
Before we move on, let’s pour one out -- virtually, of course; this is not a time to be wasting rations, people -- for Davids. He would’ve been an incredibly valuable player in today’s press-heavy game, more so than he was during his actual playing days. There aren’t many people in the world who can earn the nickname “The Pitbull” and also be worthy of an eight-minute YouTube video titled “Legendary Skills Show”:
Davids would’ve been one of the best pressing midfielders in the world in 2020, and he also would’ve been one of those rare players who could break a press on his own by dribbling out of high pressure in his own half. Unfortunately, none of that matters in the cage.
Semifinal 2
Equipo del Fuego: Claudio Lopez, Gaizka Mendieta, Hernan Crespo (0.46 NPG+A/90)
Os Tornados: Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo (0.56 NPG+A/90)
This was a blowout -- insofar as a game that, by rule, can only contain one goal can be a blowout. EdF has the ball for maybe two seconds -- a little heel flick off the side of the cage by, I think, Crespo. But that’s it.
Really, this matchup was all about butts. One of my college coaches once yelled at me, saying, “You ain’t got no ass.” Despite being a lanky Irish-American white dude, I take issue with that statement. My ass: it exists! I’m absolutely outperforming my Expected Ass (xAss). The Unified Theory of Ass is that there are no good soccer players sans ass. Find me a great player with no ass, and I will either A) show you someone who isn’t actually great, or B) find you his ass. Larry Fitzgerald is the one athlete for whom I will not immediately shut down the “what if our best athletes played soccer?” conversation, and that is because Larry Fitzgerald has an incredible ass.
What the fuck am I talking about? See here:
One butt, two butt, three butt, goal.
Final
Triple Espresso: Thierry Henry, Francesco Totti, and Hidetoshi Nakata (0.49 NPG+A/90)
Os Tornados: Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo (0.56 NPG+A/90)
Obviously, Os Tornados came into this match as the favorites. They have the better players -- sorry, Nakata -- and they have the Invisible Hand of Nike’s marketing department nudging them toward success. I also wonder if they get some joy from parading around three players from Real Madrid -- an Adidas club -- in all Nike gear. On top of that, Figo and los dos Brazilians played on national teams sponsored by Nike. Meanwhile, none of the other trio were wearing Nike kits at the 2002 World Cup.
Play the game straight up, and Triple Espresso loses. Os Tornados know this; just admire this rank disrespect from Roberto Carlos, who absolutely does look like Joe Pesci. Dissent regarding that opinion will be met with a spam button:
However, I’m not sure that Triple Espresso are aware that they probably needed to do something weird to increase their win probability. How else to explain Henry whispering into Totti’s ear right before the ball gets dropped into the cage? Maybe they had a bunch of so-called “David” strategies in mind and they were waiting to see how the other team would align themselves? Or maybe this is just a bit of Henry’s on-the-fly brilliance shining through in a new way?
Totti bends down to tie his shoe, the ball is dropped, Henry climbs up Totti’s back and heads the ball over Roberto Carlos’s head and into the goal. I once got called for “trickery” in a high school soccer game. I threw the ball off a teammate’s back in order to quickly re-give myself possession. Would that same ref have done the same thing here? He probably would’ve just blown his whistle out of confusion. I can’t find the video, but I promise you it’s real: Peyton Manning once did a fake-spike against the Saints and acted out some hysterical anger directed at his teammates for not being ready fast enough. Everyone on the field stopped playing, and then he ran the ball in for a TD. One official wrongly blew his whistle, so it didn’t count. Thank God he wasn’t involved in the filming of this scripted match.
Figo and Co., of course, complain about the goal, and this is what they’re met with:
Now, I have some issues with the physics of the goal. Given that the ball was dropping straight down when Henry headed it, I’m not sure he could’ve realistically gotten enough power on it to launch the ball what looks like about 30 yards. However, this game took place at sea, so who knows how level the playing field actually was, in literal terms. Maybe the boat was moving, maybe there was a large swell; there’s enough nautical uncertainty for me to drop this line of inquiry. Perhaps less realistic than the science was the player who scored it. According to the official Premier League website, Henry only scored two headed goals in domestic play for Arsenal. He scored 173 non-headed goals in domestic play for Arsenal. But hey, maybe that’s why it ended up working: no one was expecting Thierry Henry to win the game with his head.
Rematch
“Where is the cage?”
“The rematch doesn’t need a cage.”
I could watch Eric Cantona throw a paint brush every day for the rest of my life. He is truly one of our great physical actors. I am retroactively embarrassed for Adam Driver’s career. He should pivot to voice-over work for small rodents.
Of course there was going to be a rematch; the previous final satisfied no one. What made these commercials so great was seeing the best soccer players in the world do cool shit in an environment that, despite being literally inside a cage, was way less structured than the outlines of a full-size soccer field. Plus, this isn’t Mad Men. There’s barely a coherent narrative, so who cares if there’s a sequel that steps all over everything that came before it. I mean, here’s an idea, Nike: reignite this ad campaign right now and run it back with new players. Hell, if the pandemic starts to subside, you could do an actual 3-on-3 tournament, instead of a made-up one. Find a massive empty ship! Raise money for charity!
Somehow, there’s just a full, hollowed-out stadium inside this tanker. Based on Figo’s initial comment about the cage, I’m guessing this is where the cage used to be. The game is to 100. Henry is the MVP, regardless of the outcome. His combination of smooth creativity and explosive athleticism doesn’t have many predecessors or comparisons. Survive falling out of a building by loosening up your entire body; same goes for becoming one of the best goal-scorers of your generation.
I spent my entire teenagerdom trying to figure out how to look this smooth:
After this happens, Cantona sings, “Who’s on fire? Henry’s on fire!” Cantona is French, and yet he pronounces the “h”, as if the man’s surname were the same as the first name of former New York Giants fullback Henry Hynoski. Unforgivable.
At one point, Totti frog-hops into the ball with his back, bounces it to Nakata, who bicycle kicks the ball into the rectangular target one must hit in order to earn a point. Somehow, the Japanese star doesn’t end up in a full-body cast. They look like they’re playing the game on a dried-out prehistoric waterbed. Athletes: they’re nothing like us!
As we went over in Part One, Figo wins the game with a half-volley that busts the hull of the ship and causes it to sink. In the first tournament, players stuck around and watched the matches. Rio Ferdinand is there, complaining about everything that happens. And there are a bunch of guys in hard hats, too. The fact that Cantona is the only one left to watch the rematch makes me think that this ship had already been condemned by the Coast Guard. Otherwise, why wouldn’t some of the sea-hands have stuck around for the final? Is this boat just floating out there, empty? Is this where Cantona lives now?
Whatever the explanation, the ending is nice and tidy: the favorites end up winning but it leads to our destruction. Henry is the star of the commercials, but his World Cup ended in disappointment: no goals in two matches, plus a red card. Ronaldo, meanwhile, was almost a secondary figure to Figo in the commercials, but he was the singular superstar at the World Cup. He scored eight goals (no penalties) and averaged 1.30 goals per 90 minutes -- both tops at the tournament. Plus, there was this:
This man is a complete doofus, and he won the 2002 World Cup -- in more ways than one.