Football’s coming home …in Belgium
Four seconds to retrieve possession? A wayward shot can end a street football contest Photograph: Jamie Fahey
“EXCUSE ME mate, can we have our ball back…”
That was the formal way. Alternatively, we’d just hop over the garden fence. A well-drilled, instant ball-retrieval strategy was as important to street footballers of yesteryear as it is today for Jürgen Klopp’s high-press gang of demon speedsters seeking to suffocate opponents in a frenetic bout of counter-counter fizzball.
A whole four seconds to retrieve possession? Slowcoaches. That was playing in slo-mo in my street. The snarling feral dogs patrolling the gardens of Liverpool 6 didn’t hang around for an invitation to play, that’s for sure.
Alas, street football is but a distant folk tale for children of the Fifa screen generation in Liverpool as it is in most cities in developed nations around the world.
At their leisure
But in Belgium, things are stirring. From September 1 a new law gives redoubtable street footballers an edge in their quest to regain possession of the ball swiftly after a shanked shot ends up ruffling a neighbour’s bed of tulips.
Up until now the ball was firmly in the garden owner’s court.
They had to return it – but only at their leisure. Eden Hazard-style ball-hogging was firmly within the law. Meanwhile the youngster desperate to resume a match with his team 43-40 down and just four hours of daylight to play would be left kicking their heels in frustration.
“You have to ring the bell of the neighbour and ask first,” explained Prof Vincent Sagaert, who helped write the new law. “But if they refuse or are not at home, you can still enter the garden to quickly get it back.”
The new freedom applies to stray pets too. Not pets playing, it must be said. Or pets busy rescuing balls. No, it’s an affordance granted to pet owners rescuing their animals somehow marooned in next door’s shrubbery.
But, according to the Guardian, there are concerns about potential abuse of the rule.
The wayward effort has to be “an accident”, warned Prof Sagaert.
“Just kicking the ball over the hedge to look around is not allowed,” he explained. And you walking off with anything other than a pet or stray ball is a no-no. “Because that is still just called theft.”
“Golden generation”
It’s nice to think lawmakers in Belgium can see the many health and wellbeing merits of encouraging children to indulge in a long-lost creative art of street football. Instead of Dutch-speaking Belgians being forced to wait for an absent neighbour to return before asking “pardon maat, mogen we onze bal terug?”, they can simply hop over the fence and regain possession.
It’s unclear whether this is an intentional assist to the Royal Belgian FA’s bid to hone another “golden generation” of men’s footballers to continue the progress made by Everton coach Roberto Martínez, who has helped lift Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku, Kevin de Bruyne and co to No1 in the Fifa rankings.
But even if it’s entirely accidental – just like a wayward street punt flying into a neighbour’s garden – the freedom can perhaps yield vital marginal long-term gains, enhancing the cultural vision for success for the Red Devils national teams in football and futsal.
At the time of writing, however, there was no sign of a related law introducing mandatory training on how to dislodge a ball stuck hard under the rusting chassis of a parked car without tearing a lump of flesh from the hips.
But watch this space.
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