John Terry cried.
Now, he wasn’t the only one crying at the Luzhnki Stadium in the twilight hours of the late Moscow night. Cristiano Ronaldo cried, Nicholas Anelka showed a few tears, and Salome Kalou rushed off the pitch to not display his rush of demoralized emotion.
And you can bet, some fans inside the stadium, whether they wore red or blue, cried as well.
But the focus was consistently on Terry. The cameras continued to target him. And he still was crying.
John Terry continued to cry, and the agony on his face was there to stay for a long, long time.
He isn’t the first professional sports athlete to cry (whether in defeat or victory), and he won’t be the last. But witnessing a grown man, in an occasion such as this one, show this rush of unwavering sullenness in a sporting event is touching to anyone’s soul. And these sights of a usually stoic figure down on the ground in torture was the fitting imagine of this Champions League final, the first one ever between two English clubs.
It wasn’t Edwin van der Saar’s save on Anelka to give Manchester United their third European title in a 6-5 penalty duel for the ages. It wasn’t Ryan Giggs hitting the penalty before that save. And it wasn’t the stupidity of Didier Drogba slapping Nemanja Vidic in the waning moments of regular time, leading him to possible end his Chelsea career in such an ignominious fashion. And not Ronaldo’s moment of despair, because you know that was clearly the image everyone would have taken from this final, this dramatic event, if Terry didn’t slip and have his penalty be a few inches inside the bar instead of right on it.
Everybody’s Player of the Year had eviscerated his wonderful header in the first half, and revitalized the claims of him coming up small again on the biggest of stages.
But John Terry’s crying has nullified that opportunity.
Those bereaving sights of #26 have placed in the background (for the moment) Avram Grant’s future with Chelsea, and obvious dismay at this crushing loss. The Israelites bitterness was apparent, as well as his support for his devastated captain. "He is very sad and has cried but he is the main reason we are here," said Grant, denied a trophy for the third time and second in a cup final in just over four months.
Terry’s tears have pushed Sir Alex Ferguson’s elation as the second photo on most Internet and newspaper pages (or it should). The Scots man is now a perfect 4 for 4 in these European show piece events, and he knew that his team and his star man had destiny on their sides. "When we missed the penalty kick (from Ronaldo) I thought we were in trouble but overall I thought we deserved the win.”
But Terry didn’t deserve that moment. No one in sports does. The feeling of hopelessness and loneliness, a combination that strikes at your heart just as hard as a dysfunctional artery. The lingering thought that it was your fault, that you caused your own team’s demise and no one else did. No one can console you; no one can ease the pain in the slightest bit of what you are enduring. Not even a gracious “enemy” such as Paul Scholes, who received redemption for his own self-nightmare of missing United’s 1999 Champions league title in Barcelona because of suspension, could make Terry hold his head up high.
If John Terry was in a colorless vortex instead of the Luzhnki Stadium, you would have thought that he was in total lament over a lost one in his family like Frank Lampard was with his mother. Or you would have figure that Terry was witnessing the recent disasters in Myanmar and China in person. It was never any attention of his to try and rival the clouds as spewing out the most liquid on the night, but simultaneously, he was attempting at doing just that without even caring about such a silly thing.
There will be some out there that will sympathize deeply with Terry, and they won’t only be Chelsea fans mourning this defeat just as hard as he did, is, and will further do. It will be those sensitive to another’s sadness, as Scholes displayed with his attempts at getting Terry out of his misery. It will be those who understand when a man is down, and feels that he is stricken forever with a sickening repetition of “It’s my fault” taking domicile in his cerebral. They will try their hardest to lend a hand to him, to say that we love you and that you will get through this. You will be stronger; we will be there for you.
And then, there are the others in this world that will condemn Terry to the lowest low, forgetting that he already checked himself into the place long before they even attempt to. Despite Terry’s obvious moment of fragility, there will be a few insensitive fools that will cast Terry as a “choke artist” and a loser. Acerbic, irrational fans of Chelsea or the most hated foes of the club will feel no remorse for what condescending things they will say about Terry and his colossal miss. Those so called fans will forget the myriad of great displays he has had for the club. And they will even forget that if it wasn’t for him on his night’s performance alone (where he prevented Giggs’ certain go-ahead goal in extra time with his headed clearance off the line), there wouldn’t have been a chance for him to take the potential winning penalty.
A penalty that he missed, and cried about when Chelsea’s runner-up fate was sealed for the third time this season. A moment of crying that personifies how much, even in the world of sports, something can mean to someone, and how it can devastate him or her in just a quick instance.
That instance in this situation being a penalty kick off the crossbar. And leading for the world to see how John Terry’s crying was the indelible moment in a match full of them.
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