There’s a moment from the most recent Amazon Sports documentary where legendary football manager Pep Guardiola is delivering a team address. It’s after full-time in Turin following a two-nil Champions League defeat to Juventus, and Manchester City are in a bad slump. As part of his impassioned speech to the players, Guardiola includes news that he has recently divorced from “the most beautiful woman on your planet”. He gesticulates in a wide-eyed frenzy, desperately trying to elicit feeling from his charges, who look vacant.
It’s the great pathology of modern sport: as game after game bookends airports, hotels, practice, promotion, meetings and – if you’ve been on the circuit long enough – family duties, a natural hollowness can appear behind players’ eyes, with a premium placed on economising finite energy.
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