I was talking to a great follower on Twitter yesterday about the then-prospective Wesley Sneijder transfer.
In case you missed it, Sneijder moved from Real Madrid to Internazionale this morning.
Because of the 140 character limit of Twitter, things kept getting lost in the translation with me and my follower. Whenever I would say that I suspected Sneijder was holding up the deal for personal reasons, my counterpart read that I felt Sneijder had some kind of personality problem or was a bad guy. Quite the contrary, I’ve always suspected Wesley Sneijder was quite a good guy. But then how the hell would I know. Sneijder’s never invited me over for a Grolsch.
I strongly suspect Sneijder’s want to wait out the situation at Real Madrid was a lifestyle preference. I don’t know if he’s married. I don’t know if he has family situated around Madrid, but everything he did was indicative of somebody who had more than one priority in his life. It’s easiest for fans to think of footballers as single-minded, but they rarely are, and Sneijder’s actions spoke as somebody who was balancing his career as one of many parts of his life.
That was one reason that I was rooting for Wesley through this ordeal, and remember – this has been going on for three months. Today represented a defeat for Sneijder. He had fought all summer to stay in Madrid and to be given a fair shot to earn his place in the team. Ultimately, he may have gotten that and lost out. He may also have never been a viable candidate. Regardless, today Sneijder is being assuaged with money and a new city.
Coming off of last year’s Euros, Sneijder was one of the most highly regarded wide players in the game. We forget, but the Dutch were the toast of that tournament. At least, they were before the Russians usurped them (and the Spanish then usurped them). The footballing world was ablaze with the remembrances of Giovanni van Bronkhorst, the discovery of John Heitinga, and the blossoming of Wesley Sneijder. His two goals in the competition’s group stage made him the pick to emerge as a star in the next club season. He had the buzz Andres Iniesta has since inherited.
Then came the Emirates Cup, an exhibition in London that changed the course of Sneijder’s career. In that tournament, Sneijder was taken out by Arsenal defensive midfielder Abu Diaby in what I remember as a very tough tackle for a friendly. More than tough, it was inelegant and created more damage than Diaby could have ever intended. Sniejder would tear up a cruciate ligament, and although the initial prognosis said he would miss six months, he would miss only three.
That’s not to say he came back in full form. His recovery was seen as miraculous but in hindsight was probably rushed. He would score only two goals in 27 appearances for Madrid, the exact number he had scored in three appearances for the Dutch at Euro 2008.
Reports from Madrid’s locker room at the Emirates told of a distraught Sneijder in the moments after his injury. He was told to be in tears. In the days that followed, teammates would cite him as very depressed before he soon got a relatively positive assessment of the damage. Still, at twenty-four years old, he had crashed from the apex of his young career to a depth that had to include thoughts like “will I ever be able to do the same things again?” I think we always underestimate how much injuries like these effect young athletes.
If Sneijder had suffered that injury at 29 as opposed to 24, he may have reacted better. Tears aside, he may not have rushed back in an effort to prove that his career was not over. He would have come back later but stronger, probably have scored more than two goals, and would have left a better memory of his play before the club’s summer upheaval. But because the last memory of Sneijder was of a player clearly inferior to opposite wing Arjen Robben, he was probably made surplus before reporting to training. One year ago, almost everybody I talked to would have taken Sneijder over Robben.
Today Sneijder gets a new start, whether he likes it or not, but I have to wonder whether he would have needed one if he stayed healthy last year. I strongly suspect he wouldn’t have. In the European Championships, he showed every indication of a player with whom something had “just clicked.” He was at the age, at the level, and with the skill set to make us think we was going to make the leap. It all added up, but then Abu Diaby happened.
If Wesley Sneijder doesn’t meet Abu Diaby, he’s still at Real Madrid. Arjen Robben would have moved back to the Premiership. Sneijder would be a star and the reason why people would be picking the Dutch to surprise the Spanish and Brazilians in next year’s World Cup.
But we knew Milan was a long way from Johannesburg.
