06-13-2014, 01:29 AM
Juanito, racing towards the brouhaha in Valentine's slipstream, arrived with extreme prejudice and planted his right boot on the side of the prone Matthäus's torso. He performed a balletic 360-degree turn – not bad going seeing he was already in a flat spin – bent over the screaming Bayern midfielder to issue a few words of beneficial advice, then pushed his same foot down hard on his victim's jaw, in the manner of a frustrated motorcyclist trying to kickstart a broken-down steed. It was, quite literally, a jaw-dropping assault. Most of football's famous fouls or scraps – certainly the ones that don't result in serious or lasting injury to a player – retain an element of comedy to them, often a sizable one. Cameroon's collective assault on Claudio Caniggia at Italia 90, the comic-book dukes-up nonsense at the end of the Battle of Santiago, even Graeme Souness's egregious ball-crushing rake on Steaua Bucharest's Gheorghe Rotariu: all elicit involuntary laughter at the sheer audacity of the thuggery, even if common sense or guilt kicks in a few seconds later. But Juanito's vicious stamp on Matthäus works on a different plane, provoking instant recoil and a sharp intake of breath.