masies-artien is an Armenian born in Bagdad and works as a caregiver for the elderly in a retirement home in the Dutch province of Utrecht. Tonight he will take the field against Psv Eindhoven and will have to score one of the great emerging talents of Dutch football, Xavi Simons (in the picture). In team with him there will be a financial advisor, Floris van der Lindena purchasing clerk in the family clothing business, Vincent Gino Coversand other players for whom football is, at best, a part time profession to which to add another job. Some youngsters are hoping for a leap forward, others started from the top but didn’t make it – like the aforementioned Dekkerformer Ajax nursery.
Spakenburg-Psv is the first semifinal of Holland cupwhose program also includes the big match between Feyenoord e Ajax. Three battleships and one outsider absolutewho photograph as best as possible the sense of a coppa national. A cup of, and for, everyonewhere obviously the strongest clubs have a better chance of dominating – and the golden register of the competition proves it – but where there is also room for stories of common people capable of slipping, for once in their lives, among the great ones, in spaces and contexts that no one could ever have imagined. In the case of Spakenburg, this amateur club from Bunschotencitizen of 25mila anime in the province of Utrecht about 20 kilometers away from the capital, it went through five rounds, eliminating as many Eredivisie companies in two of these: Groningen e Utrecht. The latter was defeated 4-1 at home in the quarter-finals and, given the proximity between the two cities and the size of the two teams, it is a bit as if the Prato had overwhelmed the Fiorentina at the Artemio Franchi.
The Dutch one is not a particularly considered competition, if not by insiders. Far away, by necessity and virtue, give them economic excesses of top-level football, it’s sort of lecture for the growth of young talents, produced by local nurseries or hunted down through the scouting. But the competitive level is good and cases like Spakenburg are not on the agenda, any more than can happen in French Cup or in English FA Cup. In the history of the Dutch cup only two amateur clubs reached the cup semi-finalIJsselmeer birds in 1975 and the VVSB in 2016. In the first case, a former sailor stationed in Curacao, the goalkeeper Down by Feyterwhich turned out to be an excellent penalty saver, while in the second the moment of glory fell to one intern at the household store chain Hema, Maikey Paremiwho the following season attempted the leap into professional football without however obtaining appreciable results, ending up as one of many king for one night destined to remain so.
Stories like this crop up in many countries. England is one minealthough in recent years the trend of giant killing it has dried up a bit; in Francewhich years ago saw an amateur club, the Calaiseven in the cup final, last season there was the ride of Fc Versailles 78, the team of the town where the famous Reggia is located; in Spain they still remember banking Pablo Infante and its Mirandes semifinalist of Copa del Rey; as well as cases of amateurs in jeopardy (but not too much) have also occurred in Germania and Portugal. Only in Italyamong the countries with the most valuable competitions, these tales are prohibited, because choked at the root from a format not only thought about the use and consumption of bigbut which does not even include the realities – at least the best, given the large number – of serie minors. Question of money: final stages with first-level teams mean higher receipts, and for many Series A debt mills that’s all that matters. It’s a matter of mentality e culture sportyas in the case of the final four of Super cup in Saudi Arabia, idea copied from Spain. A country which, however, has reformed its cup in the last few years more inclusive. But our Federation seems interested only in bad guys examples.