the beatles, the cure, the smiths and the who. freddie mercury and mick jagger and amy winehouse and doctor who. buckingham palace and princess diana and the english breakfast and the big ben.
billy shakes and charlie dickens. fish and tea and chips and scones. the bbc and monty python and the word twat. nando's and tesco and flight on ryanair. ibiza and magaluf and the knob that is tony blair.
west ham vs millwall and villa vs birmingham. gazza and wazza and becks of golden hair.
the nation of england has an upper lip so stiff it could break the cap off a dasani bottle if you asked it to. there is little to no charisma about england's green and pleasant land, and least of all is there any suggestion of restraint, or grace.
glenn hoddle was born in the london-adjacent county of middlesex; which was the worst decision he would ever take in his life.
in a country that — in the context of its national sport — held graft so sacred while desolating all traces of elegance, hoddle's recherché skillset did not fit the brittle mold that shaped the herd of english footballers far and near, a mold so barely softened by bobbies moore and charlton.
watching glenn hoddle play in the 80s football league first division was like watching a dove fly through the set of mad max. if you have ever wanted to watch 21 men be so threatened by their ungainliness next to one nimble man, watch any tottenham hotspur game of the 1984-85 season and you will be delighted. and if you, as we do, find good football pleasing and attractive to the point of nubile, focus on glenn hoddle and you will — also — be delighted.
there is no good way to outline or synopsize how hoddle played the game of football, and it is even harder to explain why he was practically shunned from the heights of english football in his playing days.
glenn hoddle was one of the first real two-footed players in the upper stratums of world football. he was obsessed with sailing in quiet balls over the top for the uncivilized persons near the box to run and jockey for, and he could do it with either one of his feet. defenders genuinely looked like they failed to grasp what hoddle was doing with the ball.
he had a gangly frame that allowed him to bounce off defenders and somehow deliver a perfect through ball in the midst of it. hoddle's majesty did not only befuddle those who lived under her majesty the queen, but even the most aesthetically rich sides of mediterranean kin found it hard to handle him.
watch hoddle blend up the great bernd schuster in a great fc barcelona kit in the great uefa cup, shifting left and forgetting his legs behind him, almost aggressively unscrewing his hips back to get free of his man. then, while falling on his back, sliding in a 35-yard through ball that is somehow behind everybody except his teammate who, inevitably, squanders his gift-wrapped chance.
even as the game tried to bring him down, hoddle shrugged off the rugged arms of english football. he eventually fell, leaving a beautiful opportunity for the game in his wake. yet still, misspent.
são paulo and cristo redentor and shores of copacabana. ipanema and the tall and tan and lovely girl from that one song. carnaval in rio and futsal in the favelas. bleached goatees and altinha and caipirinha and açaí.
adriana lima and gisele bündchen and anitta and ai seu te pego. havaianas and tangas and bartering mopeds. the lungs of the amazon and pilgrimage to maracanã and santos and flamengo.
ronaldo and rivaldo and clodoaldo. o rei and romario and zico and didi. ronaldinho and robinho and jairzinho and juninho.
the nation of brasil has a heart so jovial it makes us forget england exists. there is no restraint in the country's green-yellow soul, and least of all is there any suggestion that the smiles, the color, the joy, or the music will ever be turned down.
tiago augusto gonçalves is a result of the nation's penchant to ceaselessly release football players who make you feel like their birthday should be considered an international holiday.
find us another player with four panenkas in a 1-year-old corpus and we'll scrap this article and write you a mea culpa.
watching tiaguinho makes us feel like we're watching ralph fiennes cooking up a mean supporting role in some overbudget arthouse movie. the brazilian doesn't have the excessive physical presence of the modern midfielder, yet, through stillness, he finds a way to get the outcome of a game in his hands.
through balls so delicious they could have a michelin star and long balls soft enough they make the recipient forget how the ball got there. watch tiaguinho absorb contact from three different people and, not just keep the ball, but find a way to weave through them.
his transfermarkt profile reads "both" next to "preferred foot", so don't take it with any grains of salt when we tell you both of his feet are as good as hoddle's were, and it's evident across the eighty-five hundred yards of pitch he runs through.
tiaguinho can make a pass 15 yards behind the halfway line or just outside the box and have the same end result. it also makes him so hard to mark man-to-man — forcing him to either side is like telling a pickpocket all your pin numbers.
it is difficult to find a player who plays the same regardless of where he is on the pitch. watch him make the same outside-foot turn 50 yards apart and leave any trace of an opponent behind, somehow getting an assist out of both situations.
the most damning part of all this is he does it in a game that rewards the obvious. tiaguinho plays to raise questions out of things that should have had an answer.
glenn hoddle was born in a country of pugnacity, yet in an era that gave him enough freedom to allow some flowers to grow under the gravel. tiaguinho, born into a game so viscous it almost suffocated the imagination embedded into his passport.
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