Can. You. Feel. The. Tek?
So here it is then, that quintessentially British reminder that absolutely nobody, not a single person on this godforsaken, rain-soaked island has even the slightest bit of flair or flamboyance, the tiniest hint of je ne sais quoi whilst playing football.
Gazza had a bit about him, sure, and that’s why we loved him. But so did Ravel Morrison, and he was last seen playing in central Mexico.
Chris Waddle did too, but then there was the hair. Oh god. The hair. It ruined everything.
The player with the most ridiculous ‘tek’ of them all, Matt Le Tissier, made only eight appearances for England and spent almost the entirety of his career on the south coast flicking the ball of people’s heads repeatedly and walloping in volleys from anywhere and everywhere.
It just seems that due to the boggy pitches, the rain, the inherent British need to fly into tackles as hard as possible, we will never produce the kind of players that play with the uninhibited freedom of the Brazilians, the razor-sharp technical ability of the Japanese, the fiery joy and emotion of the French.
And now this, the Matrix bullet-time sorcery of these Myanmarese Muay Thai fighters, playing football tennis/volleyball with more tekkers than you’ve ever seen.
Feast your eyes, and your souls:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bnhb3yfBNbU/?taken-by=kings_mma
Some of those moves are – let’s be honest – ridiculous.
How do they get their feet so high? How do they levitate for so long? You get Daveo, or The Wedge, or Big Steve to try that on a Sunday morning after 10 pints the night before and their leg will literally just snap off. They would probably die. I am not joking here: they would probably die. The first touches are exquisite, too.
In fact, the only thing that is barely recognisable for us clunky British footballers is the lad throwing himself at the net in a hopeless attempt to block the returning volley that eventually wins the point.
That’s the sort of thing we love over here: trying, and coming up just short. Truly, that is English football, and truly that is the British way of life. Cherish it forever.
