The four-year cycle means World Cups form a natural end point. Eras end, sometimes for an entire team, often for individuals. We have surely already seen the final World Cup games of Diego Forlan, Andrea Pirlo, Gianluigi Buffon, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Iker Casillas, Xavi, Xabi Alonso, David Villa, Tim Cahill, Didier Drogba and Rafael Marquez.
Others don’t know it yet. Injury, poor form, the rise of younger rivals or managerial choice will deny them a starring role in Russia in 2018.
Sometimes the finality is apparent to everyone. This is not merely the end of a World Cup career, or an international career. It is the end of a career. Every game in the knockout stages has the potential to bring the curtain down.
In 2010, Giovanni van Bronckhorst took the unusual step of announcing that his playing days would conclude at the World Cup. He didn’t look for another contract. He captained Holland in the final, coming agonisingly close to the most perfect goodbye in the history.
Advance to the current day and, while we don’t know precisely what the future holds for most of the players and managers in Brazil, it is clear-cut for one man.
Ottmar Hitzfeld will retire. A managerial career spanning more than three decades entered sudden death when Switzerland lost 5-2 to France. Beating Honduras extended it. Defeat Argentina on Tuesday night and it goes on. Lose, as most expect his side will, and there will be a crushing finality. It is rarely as definitive as this.
“We are the clear outsiders, but we have nothing to lose and much to gain,” Hitzfeld said.
That is not strictly true. The game stands to lose Hitzfeld, a manager who isn’t mentioned as often as he should be when the legends are discussed.
Before the Bundesliga was as fashionable as it now is, the reality is that German football produced the European champions only twice between 1983 and 2012: Hitzfeld’s Borussia Dortmund in 1997 and Hitzfeld’s Bayern Munich in 2001. He was also just the second man to win the European Cup with different clubs, after Ernst Happel.
It gives him a cast-iron case for greatness, even before seven Bundesliga titles are factored in. Hitfzeld rejected the chance to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United in 2002 – the Scot revoked his decision to retire, anyway – which might have brought wider recognition for his achievements.
Instead, there has been a pleasingly cyclical nature to his football life. His managerial career, like his playing days, is starting and ending in Switzerland, sandwiching a peak in Germany.
His six years with Switzerland included a 2010 win over Spain, making them the only team to beat Spain in the three tournaments they won, and a defeat to Luxembourg. The landmark victory against Vicente del Bosque’s team wasn’t the breakthrough it seemed, and Switzerland failed to qualify for the last 16.
While they didn’t live up to their billing as top seeds this time and were thrashed by France – and when was a Hitzfeld team last 5-0 down? – managerial input accounts for their progress. Both goals in the 2-1 comeback win over Ecuador came from replacements, Ahmed Mehmedi and Haris Seferovic. Hitzfeld switched Xherdan Shaqiri from the right wing to the No 10 position against Honduras and saw him score three goals. “That paid off,” said the manager with a hint of understatement.
The old master, bowing out at 65, has illustrated his enduring skills. His young charges have rather fewer achievements to their name and are underdogs against Lionel Messi and company.
“We can make history,” Hitzfeld said.
He, of course, has already made it, time and again. But, probably, no more.
sports@thenational.ae
