World Cup Diary July 1: In praise of cool guy Carlos

World Cup Diary / Dave Farrar / 01 July 2010 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet

A haircut - and a man - few will forget

One of the highlights of working at a World Cup is how close you can get to former superstars. Some let you down but others, like Carlos Valderrama, are everything you want them to be, says Dave Farrar

"I’d no sooner ask a lion to share its antelope than I would ask Stoichkov for a picture, but Valderrama has proved an exception. He poses happily, delighted and surprised that he’s still remembered so fondly by so many."

I was hoping to decorate this column with a very special photograph, but it's not going to happen. Plenty of World Cup legends have been strutting their stuff in various guises at the IBC, and as well as Enzo Francescoli at the salad bar, I've had close canteen encounters with Rainer Bonhof, Hristo Stocihkov and, ahem, Martin Keown.

Stoichkov is exactly as you'd want him. He looks like a low level bruiser: a permanent scowl and a snort for anyone who requests a photo. If only he, and not Springsteen's guitarist Steven Van Zandt had got the part of Silvio Dante in The Sopranos. Hristo would have lit up the screen, mugged and murdered with the best of them.

But there's one photo that everyone here wants. And the other day my mate Robbie came back with the dream picture, beaming from ear to ear. Robbie's an Australian who lives in France, one who cheers the Socceroos but is suitably ambivalent, as is any ex-pat, about Les Bleus. But his heart beats for a certain kind of football. The Mexicans are his great love, with all of their lightweight artistry, and he watched ruefully at Soccer City as they met their near inevitable fate in the last 16. I'm sure that bumping into Hugo Sanchez would have been a thrill for him, but the shot that he got was the one that we all wanted.

Because there's a man working here as a journalist who lit up our childhoods. Who any fan from every country in the world would still recognize instantly, and yet who never really achieved much at a World Cup, for all his fame. His glory night came at the Monumental in Bueno Aires in a World Cup qualifier in 1993. Diego Maradona was at the game, but was injured, and an Argentina side led by Gabriel Batistuta needed a win over one of their South American neighbours to guarantee a place at the 1994 World Cup. The 11 men who stood in their way were the Coffee Growers, the Cafeteros of Colombia, and what followed would be one of football's most famous nights.

Colombia had a serious team back then. Tino Asprilla and Freddy Rincon up front, and the brilliant goalkeeper Oscar Cordoba, who was often picked ahead of, but never achieved the fame of, Rene Higuita. And then there was the man who loped around the midfield, who told his teammates before every game that "everything is cool, todo bien", and whose gait and hairstyle are both unmistakeable as he saunters through the corridors of the IBC. His name is Carlos Valderrama, and he ran the midfield that night at the Monumental, as Colombia won by five goals to nil, and produced a performance that led Pele to tip them to win the 1994 World Cup. And even as a 13-year-old who was managing to put the odd 50p on a horse here and there, I'm sure that I can remember them being backed in to 10-1 to win USA 94.

They flopped. Of course they did. They lost to Romania and the USA, and it was Hagi and Stoichkov, the Eastern European bruisers, who would be the stars of that tournament. Valderrama's hairstyle gained him instant celebrity, but he looked slow at the top level, and was all elegance and grace, but no end product. That's why people like Robbie and me loved him. He gave the impression that it was the playing of the game, and not the winning, that mattered. He must have smiled wistfully as the Mexicans and the Chileans failed this time. Splendidly gifted, but both stylish fighters without a punch.

We're not really supposed to ask for photos with ex-players, as we're all here working and it's not the most professional thing to do. That's fair enough, and I'd no sooner ask a lion to share its antelope than I would ask Stoichkov for a picture, but Valderrama has proved an exception. He poses happily, delighted and surprised that he's still remembered so fondly by so many. And I've been reduced to wandering around in my lunch break, clutching my camera and hoping that I come across him. And still I haven't: every time I see him I have something else to do or my camera is locked in my top drawer.

Whenever I see him I also realise how much I want to ask him. What was it like to be a player like him in a country like that? How much did the pressure of the cartels in Medellin ruin that brilliant squad of 1994? How many times a day does he think of Andres Escobar and Alberto Usuriaga, one gunned down because of an infamous own goal, the other because of his infuriatingly unfulfilled talent. He knew both men very well, and as he strolls and lopes and smiles for the camera, as people everywhere he goes point at his hairstyle and smile, I wonder how tight the knot in his stomach is, how much darkness he carries around with him. It must be great to be Carlos Valderrama, but it must be agony too. In my dreams, he finds the time to have a coffee with me, and I can ask him what I want to. But in broad daylight and reality, I'll leave my camera at home, and revel in the fact that I was in the same room as him once. He's done enough for us all, and he must have a lot to think about. Todo bien, Carlos, todo bien.

Tags: Alberto Usuriaga, Andres Escobar, Carlos Valderrama, Colombia, Enzo Francescoli, Hristo Stocihkov, Hugo Sanchez, Martin Keown, Rainer Bonhof, The Sopranos, USA 94