The Tao of Jeff Strasser, by Robert 'Roger Milla' Bashford

Standing beside a big wooden bear in the Stade Rénert in Berbourg, watching the Luxembourg national team go down 2-0 to the 3rd Bundesligists Eintracht Trier, I might have been forgiven for the intimation to my friends that I didn’t fancy Luxembourg’s chances in the next game against Azerbaijan. In fact you might have forgiven me for giving the next game a miss completely. But I am a supporter of international football above all the other competitions which the beautiful game has to offer.  In the modern gladiatorial and commercial arena that sport has become I see it as the purest form of football at the highest level.  Seeing the same club teams duke it out every year for the premier league or the champions league is fine for the supporters of those clubs and it presents the fans of the sport an opportunity to see the best players in the world week in week out, but please allow me to present a comparison.  Since I started watching world cups in 1982 France and Brazil have met only three times  in all that time, a classic in Guadalajara in 86,  the final in Paris in 98 and a tough game in Frankfurt in 2006. International football gives us games to savour, not a glut of fixtures to sate the advertisers.

Sepp Blatter recently pontificated that he wanted to make the world cup a biennial event so perhaps we will see this purity diluted but as it stands the best you can hope is to see these former World, European and South American champions face off for glory every four years. Jeff Strasser the Luxembourg captain never played in a top international competition and it is unlikely any of his compatriots ever will. That hasn’t stopped him having a successful career in Germany and France, from captaining his country or from playing at the age of 35.  He was not present in Berbourg but he was out warming up his players before the kick off against Azerbaijan. He later cracked a free kick in to the top corner from distance to draw his country level and then when they trailed again he moved up the park just like Beckenbauer  in that famous game in León in  1970 against England when his skills were needed closer to the business end.  Unfortunately although they forced numerous corners they were unable to equalise but that 2-1 loss for his team certainly hasn’t dimmed my admiration for the man. Jeff Strasser, athlete, patriot, footballer, national Icon, I salute you.  Hopefully I will get a ticket and be free to attend when they play France at the Josy Barthel. Perhaps the best to hope for that night is that Ireland’s nemesis Thierry Henry will have a nightmare. If Jeff Strasser is marking him then I wouldn’t bet against it.