WSC Logo



SEARCH  

Advanced search

dig
ROB

Weekly Howl

A mixture of comment, fact and captivating trivia via email

Sign up

Follow WSC

 twitter

NEWSFEEDS

sstore

 

HOME arrow THE ARCHIVE arrow Webwatch arrow Opening up online
Opening up online

Ian Plenderleith looks at players  who reveal a small insight into their lives on the web

I’ve always had a bit of a thing about Bixente Lizarazu, and not just because of his qualities as an attacking full-back. There’s something boyish and innocent about his face, as if he would never, ever stamp on an opponent or sign for a new club because they were offering him an extra ten grand a week. Even when he moved to the hated Bayern Munich, I couldn’t help but want him to do well.

With some trepidation I approached his website, ready to have all my illusions glassed. But no, Bixente can stay my hero. On nicely designed pages he says he cares about the pollution of the seas (though he cites as his No 1 reason that it’s very dangerous for the health of surfers, among whose number we can count the diminutive defender), and he names Françoise Hardy and Mano Negra among his fave pop acts.

Even his dislikes – impolite people and cats, for example – merely serve to confirm the impression of football’s most mild and malleable good guy. Now, if only he would leave Bayern. The thought of him sharing a pint with Stefan Effenberg, one of the impolitest people in Europe, just doesn’t seem right.

Bixente’s international team-mate Zinedine Zidane broke the news of his transfer  to Real Madrid on his own website, and was wonderfully evasive when it came to discussing the financial aspect of the deal. “A while back, I had said that the amount of money was enormous and that I was not worth that much,” he wrote on the day of the transfer. “It is indeed a lot of money. I am fully aware of that and my thoughts on the matter have not changed. But, on the other hand, Real Madrid did it.” Poor lad, just a helpless pawn in the international footballer slave trade.

That’s about as controversial as Zizou’s site gets, unless you count his view that Formula 1 motor racing is a bit less interesting than it used to be. The poll on what visitors thought of the Juve move left little option for dissent (“It won’t be easy,” was the nearest), so I decided to abstain on the grounds that there was no box marked: “Obscene waste of cash motivated by excess of greed on the part of all concerned.”

The charming Ronald De Boer uses his personal diary to attack Patrick Vieira for describing former team-mate Giovanni van Bronckhorst as merely a “hopeful”, although the tone of his own earlier column entitled “Bronckhorst Is Better Than Lampard” is scarcely more polite.

More intriguingly, he casts a peculiar slant on the Scottish and Dutch psyches. “I didn’t know what Scottish people were like before I came to Rangers, but I like them,” he opines. “They seem a bit like Dutch people in that they seem well brought-up, friendly and are very respectful towards their fellow human beings. I like that a lot.” Yes, you’d never catch a Scotsman or a Dutchman going so low as to describe someone as merely a hopeful.

Directory
Bixente Lizarazu
www.bixentelizarazu.com
Zinedine Zidane www.zidane.fr
Ronald de Boer www.icons.com/RdB/home.html

From WSC 175 September 2001. What was happening this month

Share this article:
Delicious
Furl it!
Spurl
NewsVine
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Technorati
Mister.Wong
Comments (0)
Comment
You must be logged in to comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.

busy
 

Today's most read WSC articles

No love, no joy Tim Lovejoy’s rubbish autobiography   

Taylor Parkes   

WSC 250 Dec 07

WSC digital edition & apps    

   

 

Stares from tattooed men Leeds trial: Asian fans   

Soheb Panja   

WSC 180 Feb 02

Barnet 4 York City 0 Match of the month   

Taylor Parkes   

WSC 214 Dec 04

The first time Going to a live match   

Josh Widdicombe   

WSC 270 Aug 09

Welcome mats Slough-addicted Swede   

Ian Plenderleith   

WSC 185 Jul 02

Culture vultures A DVD about global terrace culture   

Al Needham   

WSC 248 Oct 07

Another one bites the dust Websites forced to merge or die   

Ian Plenderleith   

WSC 187 Sep 02

Amateur dramatics Trouble in the Northern League   

Harry Pearson   

WSC 121 Mar 97

Crimes and misdemeanours Match-fixing across Europe   

Paul Joyce   

WSC 283 Sep 10