And on the eighth day… God created football | Hillary Tagliaferro

Football is not just a game for Father Hilary. For him football is a lesson for life imbued with deep spiritual meaning and he goes as far as attributing divine origins to the beautiful game.

“I believe in football because I think it comes directly from God who created the world in the shape of a ball… Perhaps this was God’s way of telling us that we should play and the ball is perfectly shaped for playing….even babies cannot resist playing with their first ball.”

And he even claims that the rules of the game are based on the gospel.

“Fair play is the basic rule of both football and Christianity. Football is based on mutual respect in victory and defeat as well as friendship, honesty and joy…”

What irked Father Hilary most in this world cup is Fifa’s lack of zeal in defending fair play. One incident which has tainted fair play in this world cup according to Father Hilary was that involving German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer who publicly admitted he conned Uruguayan referee Jorge Larrionda into ruling out Frank Lampard’s ghost goal.

“He knew that the ball had passed the line. But instead of informing the referee that this was the case he misled him. That is clear lack of fair play.”

Father Hilary compares this incident to one of the greatest examples of fair play in the history of football. When Liverpool player Robert Fowler won the UEFA Fair Play award for admitting that he had not been fouled by, Arsenal goalkeeper, David Seaman at Highbury after a penalty had been given by the referee.

After unsuccessfully trying to convince the referee to change his decision about the penalty Fowler took it tamely and Seaman saved it. However, Seaman failed to hold on to the ball and Jason McAteer scored from the rebound.

“It is useless for FIFA to make adverts on the value of respect when players do not give an example on the ground.”

Shouldn’t modern technology be used to ensure that mistakes like the disallowed English goal are avoided? Father Hilary is wary of the use of technology in football.

“I was always against moviola to come in the game as I want the world cup to played on the same conditions that any local football can be played. In Malta we cannot afford to have 35 cameras for one match as happens in the world cup and I strongly believe that all games should be played under the same rules. ”

According to Father Hilary this was the principle guiding FIFA until it decided to use moviola in incidents involving disciplinary actions against players as was the case of the incident in the 2006 world cup final involving Marco Materazzi and Zinedine Zidane.

“So if technology is being used to discipline players, should it not be used to determine whether a goal is a goal or not?” He also condemns Fifa for using technology to condemn Zidane but not taking any steps against the German goalkeeper for misleading the referee.

Father Hilary now contends that technology should only be used in extreme cases such as determining whether a ball crossed the line or not but he is wary of extending the use of technology to determine fouls, off-sides and other decisions taken by officials during the game where an element of human judgement exists.

“We should not remove the human element from football.”

Unlike sports journalists who comment on the games from the comfort of the studio, Father Hilary was physically present as a sports journalist in eight world cups.

But Father Hilary admits that the whole atmosphere has changed for journalists present at the world-cup.

“Today to talk to a player you need special permits. At my time we used to meet players at the hotel lobby where you could approach them and have a normal conversation. I was lucky that in my first world cup I used to talk to the Pele as am now talking to you. I lived very close to the hotel and I knew when they had their breaks and I used to go there and talk to them while having a coffee”

All this changed after the Munich terrorist attack on Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympic games, after which security around athletes was tightened. But the inaccessibility of players could also be a symptom of soccer players becoming demi-gods.

“This is the other side of the coin of the big money involved in television rights. While it is positive that television has put so much money in football, the mega salaries given to players have turned some of them in to demi gods.”

Father Hilary does not dismiss the positive side of commercialisation which has pumped so much money in to sports infrastructure.

“Football today has improved tremendously…Even poor countries in Africa are benefiting from this. Just look at the vast sums of money brought in to South Africa… It is true that a lot of money goes in to the pockets of a few rich people, players included, but this is inevitable.”

For Father Hilary the greatest satisfaction of this world cup was the success of the South African organisers.

“I was in South Africa in the apartheid days. I saw with my own eyes the injustices of this system. Seeing for the first time that the African continent was given the great chance to demonstrate to the world that they are civilised people and that they can organise as much as any other country in the world is my greatest joy.”

He attributes this great success to Nelson Mandela, the architect of the peaceful transformation of post apartheid South Africa.

“I have great respect for this person who spent long years in prison because of his sound principles.”

One sure African flavour to the world cup was the vuvuzela buzzing noise. “I am glad that it was not banned because when a country is a host to a world cup one has to respect their traditions. Why should they not use it in their moment of glory?”

Yet wasn’t it a great disappointment that of six competing African nations, only Ghana managed to make it past the first round and eventually to the quarter finals?

“I had predicted that an African nation would make it to the last four”.

Father Hilary’s prediction would have come through had it not been for the hands of Luis Saurez which blocked a sure goal for Ghana, thus saving his team from last minute defeat at the death of extra time. The handball preceded a missed penalty kick from Ghana's Asamoah Gyan and Uruguay’s eventual shootout victory.

For Father Hilary the handball is a minor example of the lack of fair play in the world-cup even if he somewhat absolves Saurez due to the instinctiveness of his action.

“I would not condemn Suarez so much. When you see a ball coming towards the line, your hands come out. Anyone who has played football knows this.

But he would still given Suarez a greater sanction than the one match ban he received.

But still he disagrees with anyone suggesting that Ghana should have been given the goal.

“You cannot give a goal if its not a goal. They were given the penalty. It was too bad for them that they lost. But that’s the game. There is no other way”

I express my disappointment at the lack of excitement and flare in matches like the semi final between Germany and Spain in which both sides played a highly tactical game.

“When a match is too tactical, it is less spectacular. Obviously since I am a connoisseur of football, I like tactical matches,” Father Hilary replied.

He also praises Spain for “having played to perfection” in their match against Germany seeing this as a clear sign that they had studied their opponents well.

Technology has surely helped in the tactical preparation of the teams.

“Today there are computer programmes which can analyze each player and predict their moves. Today there are no secrets.”

“Lionel Messi is a great player but his movements can be analyzed and studied.”

Will this tactical approach make it more difficult for players to achieve the glory of a Pele or Maradona?

“I do not think so….There is a pattern in football that every ten years a great player comes out but today they have a harder task because their rivals are getting better at predicting their movements and controlling them.”
In fact Father Hilary is more forthcoming in mentioning a list of players who failed to impress than in mentioning players which did impress.

“Those players like Cristaino Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Kaka, Diego Melito Wayne Rooney who were expected to impress failed to do so.”

It was the goalkeepers who impressed Father Hilary most especially in view of the difficulties posed to them by the jubulani goal.

“I was mostly impressed by the goalkeepers especially the African ones.”

While attention throughout a world cup tends to focus on individual players, coaches have a very important role in tournaments like the world cup.

“It is very moment when you have players spending a long time together sometimes for the very first time without their family and without their normal way of living, sometimes coming from different countries, with their difficult characters.”

“The coach’s role is to get them together, keep them together and make them live together as team for a whole month. They way you treat players is reflected on the ground”

The coach which impressed Father Hilary most was German coach Joachim Loew.

“Although young and with little experience he managed to get a very young team together…He showed that he has a team not just one player.”

The most disappointing coach was French coach Raymond Domenech.

“He was a disaster….when you have players boycott a training session it is a clear sign that the coach has lost the respect of his players and for a coach the respect of his players is the most important thing.”

What about England coach Fabio Capello. “He is a great coach but he relied too much on the performance of one player Wayne Rooney who never recovered from his injury…That was his greatest mistake.”

One major difficulty for Capello was the lack of quality players.

“He could not work miracles. He did not have the quality players that Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Germany had.”

He also dismisses Diego Armando Maradona’s attempt to leave a mark in world cup history as a coach.

“He was a great player but he is not a great coach…Luckily he had two good mentors who helped him and he almost made it but he needs to learn a lot because one cannot become a coach overnight.”

Father Hilary’s greatest disappointment was the performance of Brazil, the team he supports. “I wanted Brazil to perform till the very end cause I love watching them play.” He attributes Brazil’s demise in the second half of their quarter final game against the Netherlands to arrogance.

“Brazil had a great team and played well but they were arrogant...They thought they were going to win simply because they led by a single goal against Holland. They ended up conceding two Dutch goals in the second half.”

For Father Hilary this is one of the “lessons for life” which make football a great sports..

“You cannot ever be sure of yourself. If Brazil were humble enough to keep fighting till the end to get a result, they would have probably made it. But they thought they were Gods, able to score whenever they like only to find out that they had no time left to do this.”

Father Hilary expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the world cup which has produced two finalists who have never won the cup before even if he never expected them to make it this far.

He also thinks they deserved it.

“For Holland beating Brazil was no joke. That was a great feat especially when considering that they were one goal down. As regards Spain they showed that have great talent.”

What is Father Hilary’s prediction?

“I think Holland will make it. Although Spain might have the best talent, Holland have that edge for practicality more than Spain.”

Will he fare better than Paul the octopus which has predicted a Spanish victory? Well even Father Hilary is impressed by the psychic mollusc.

“Surely this octopus is a phenomenon…It seems to be guessing all the matches,” Father Hilary says with a smile.