The 2019/2020 season of the Hungary’s National Football League (NB1) – being one of the first leagues to restart play - came to an end on 27 June. If a casual observer (for whatever reason) decides to check out the final standings, he would be not surprised at the first two positions: record-champion Ferencváros defended their title, while regional powerhouse Fehérvár (Videoton) came in second. However, the third place team, Puskás Akadémia FC might seem unusual and one could think that there is a story behind that. Is there a team named after Ferenc Puskás? Did some academy youths make an incredible run for the Europa League qualification? Well, the observer is right, there is a story behind all this, but it’s absolutely not a fun story. It’s a story about how one powerful man’s obsession with football stole a legend, misused state funds and killed the spirit of Hungarian football. (Warning: this is a long story, feel free to scroll down for a tl;dr. Also, I strongly advise checking out the links, those images are worth seeing).
Naturally, political influence in football has been present ever since the dawn of the sport and we know of numerous state leaders who felt confident enough to use their influence to ensure the successful development of their favored clubs – Caucescu’s FC Olt Scornicesti and Erdogan’s Basaksehir are well-known examples of such attempts. However, I fear that very few of the readers are aware of the fact that Puskás Akadémia FC is nothing but Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s grandiose project for establishing his hometown’s club as one of the country’s top teams. Considering that Orbán managed to achieve this goal using state funds in an EU member democracy in the 2000s, one might even say that it might be one of the most impressive attempts of cheating your way through Football Manager in real life. Now that Puskás Akadémia FC escaped the desolate football scene of Hungary and is getting ready for the European takeover, I feel that it’s high time to tell its true story.

Part 1: Part time striker, part time PM

Our story begins in 1999 when the 36-year-old striker Viktor Orbán (recently elected as the country’s Prime Minister) was signed by the sixth-tier side of Felcsút FC residing in rural Fejér County. It might sound surprising that an active politician would consider such a side job, but given that Orbán has been playing competitive low-level football throughout his whole life and has always been known as a keen football enthusiast, people seemed to be okay with his choice for a hobby. Orbán spent most of his childhood in the village of Felcsút (population: 1,800), so it seemed only natural that he would join the team after one of his old-time acquaintances became team president there.
Orbán’s arrival to the club seemed to work like a charm as Felcsút FC immediately earned a promotion to the fifth league. The Prime Minister’s busy program did not allow him to attend every training session and game but Orbán did make an effort to contribute as much as possible on the field – there is a report of a government meeting being postponed as Orbán was unavailable due to attending Felcsút FC’s spring training camp. The 2001/2002 season brought another breakthrough for the side as Felcsút was promoted to the national level of the football pyramid after being crowned the champion of Fejér County. Sadly enough for Orbán, he suffered a defeat on another pitch – his party lost the 2002 election and Orbán was forced to move to an opposition role.
No matter what happened on the political playing field, Orbán would not abandon his club. Just before the 2002 elections, Felcsút was surprisingly appointed as one of the regional youth development centers by the Hungarian FA. Orbán continued contributing on the field as well (he had more spare time after all) but his off-the-field efforts provided much more value for the team as he used his political influence to convince right-wing businessmen that they should definitely get sponsorship deals done with the fourth-division village team.
Club management was able to transform the influx of funds into on-field success: Felcsút FC was promoted to the third division in 2004 and achieved promotion to the second division in 2005. Although these new horizons required a skill level that an aging ex-PM is not likely to possess, Orbán regularly played as a late game sub and even appeared in cup games against actual professional opponents. The now-42-year old Orbán did not want to face the challenge of the second division, so he retired in 2005 – but this did not stop him from temping as an assistant coach when the head coach was sacked in the middle of the 2005-2006 season.
Success on the playing field did not translate to political success: Orbán lost the elections once again in 2006. However, this was only a temporary loss: the ruling party committed blunder after blunder and by early 2007 it became absolutely obvious that Orbán would be able return to power in 2010. Now confident in his political future, Orbán opted for the acceleration of football development in Felcsút – by late 2007 he took over the presidency of the club to take matters in his own hands. Sponsors seeking to gain favor with the soon-to-be PM were swarming Felcsút FC, so the club was able to stand very strong in an era where financial stability was a very rare sight in the Hungarian football scene, accumulating three medals (but no promotion) between 2007 and 2009.
On the other hand, Orbán realized the value of youth development as well, and started a local foundation for this purpose back in 2004 that gathered funds for the establishment a boarding school-like football academy. The academy opened its doors in September 2006 (only the second of such institutions in the country) and Orbán immediately took upon the challenge of finding an appropriate name for the academy.
He went on to visit the now very sick Ferenc Puskás in the hospital to discuss using his name, but as Puskás’ medical situation was deteriorating rapidly, communication attempts were futile. Luckily enough Puskás’ wife (and soon to be widow) was able to act on his incapable husband’s behalf and approved the naming deal in a contract. According to the statement, naming rights were granted without compensation, as “Puskás would have certainly loved what’s happening down in Felcsút”. However, there was much more to the contract: Puskás’ trademark was handed to a sports journalist friend of Orbán (György Szöllősi, also acting communications director of the academy) who promised a hefty annual return for the family (and also a 45% share of the revenue for himself). Ferenc Puskás eventually died on 17 November 2006 and on 26 November 2006 the football academy was named after him: Puskás Academy was born.
Orbán shared his vision of the whole organization after the opening ceremony: “It’s unreasonable to think that Felcsút should have a team in the top division. We should not flatter ourselves, our players and our supporters with this dream. Our long term ambition is the creation of a stable second division team that excels in youth development and provides opportunity for the talents of the future.” Let’s leave that there.

Part 2: No stadium left behind

Orbán became PM once again in April 2010 after a landslide victory that pretty much granted him unlimited power. He chased lots of political agendas but one of his policies was rock solid: he would revive sports (and especially football) that was left to bleed out by the previous governments. The football situation in 2010 was quite dire: while the national team has actually made some progress in the recent years and has reached the 42nd position in the world rankings, football infrastructure was in a catastrophic state. Teams were playing in rusty stadiums built in the communist era, club finances were a mess, youth teams couldn’t find training grounds and the league was plagued by violent fan groups and lackluster attendance figures (3100 average spectators per game in the 2009/2010 season).
Orbán – aided by the FA backed by business actors very interested in making him happy – saw the future in the total rebuild of the football infrastructure. Vast amounts of state development funds were invested into the football construction industry that warmly welcomed corruption, cost escalation and shady procurement deals. In the end, money triumphed: over the last decade, new stadiums sprung out from nothing all over the country, dozens of new academies opened and pitches for youth development appeared on practically every corner. The final piece of the stadium renovation program was the completion of the new national stadium, Puskás Aréna in 2019 (estimated cost: 575 million EUR). Orbán commemorated this historic moment with a celebratory video on his social media that features a majestic shot of Orbán modestly kicking a CGI ball from his office to the new stadium.
Obviously, Orbán understood that infrastructure alone won’t suffice. He believed in the idea that successful clubs are the cornerstone of a strong national side as these clubs would compete in a high quality national league (and in international tournaments) that would require a constant influx of youth players developed by the clubs themselves. However, Orbán was not really keen on sharing the state’s infinite wealth with private club owners who failed to invest in their clubs between 2002 and 2010. The club ownership takeover was not that challenging as previous owners were usually happy to cut their losses, and soon enough most clubs came under Orbán’s influence. Some clubs were integrated deep into Orbán’s reach (Ferencváros and MTK Budapest club presidents are high ranking officials of Orbán’s party) while in other cases, indirect control was deemed sufficient (Diósgyőri VTK was purchased by a businessman as an attempt to display loyalty to Orbán).
Pouring taxpayer money into infrastructure (stadium) projects is relatively easy: after all, we are basically talking about overpriced government construction projects, there’s nothing new there. On the other hand, allocating funds to clubs that should be operating on a competitive market is certainly a tougher nut to crack. The obvious solutions were implemented: the state media massively overpaid for broadcasting rights and the national sports betting agency also pays a hefty sum to the FA, allowing for a redistribution of considerable amounts. However, given that the income side of Hungarian clubs was basically non-existent (match day income is negligible, the failed youth development system does not sell players), an even more radical solution was desperately needed. Also, there was definite interest in the development of a tool that would allow for differentiation between clubs (as in the few remaining non-government affiliated clubs should not receive extra money).
The solution came in 2011: the so-called TAO (“társasági adó” = corporate tax) system was introduced, granting significant tax deductions for companies if they offered a portion of their profits to sports clubs – however, in theory, funds acquired through TAO can be only used for youth development and infrastructure purposes. Soon enough, it became apparent that state authorities were not exactly interested in the enforcement of these restrictions, so some very basic creative accounting measures enabled clubs to use this income for anything they wanted to. Companies were naturally keen on cutting their tax burdens and scoring goodwill with the government, so TAO money immediately skyrocketed. Opportunistic party strongmen used their influence to convince local business groups to invest in the local clubs, enabling for the meteoric rise of multiple unknown provincial teams (Mezőkövesd [pop: 16,000], Kisvárda [pop: 16,000], Balmazújváros [pop: 17,000]) into the first division.
Although it’s not the main subject of this piece, I feel inclined to show you the actual results of Orbán’s grandiose football reform. While we do have our beautiful stadiums, we don’t exactly get them filled – league attendance has stagnated around 3000 spectators per game throughout the whole decade. We couldn’t really move forward with our national team either: Hungary lost 10 positions in the FIFA World Rankings throughout Orbán’s ten years. On the other hand, the level of league has somewhat improved – Videoton and Ferencváros reached the Europa League group stage in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Too bad that the Instat-based top team of 2019/2020 Hungarian league consists of 10 foreigners and only 1 Hungarian: the goalkeeper.

Part 3: Small place, big game!

As seen in the previous chapter, Orbán did have a strong interest in the improvement of the football situation Hungary, but we shouldn’t forget that his deepest interest and true loyalty laid in the wellbeing of Felcsút and its academy. Now that Orbán had limitless means to see to the advancement of his beloved club, he got to work immediately. Orbán handed over formal club management duties to his friend / protégé / middleman / businessman Lőrinc Mészáros in 2010, but no questions would ever arise of who is actually calling the shots.
First of all, no club can exist without a proper stadium. Although in 2011 Orbán explicitly stated that “Felcsút does not need a stadium as stadiums belong to cities”, no one was really surprised in 2012 when the construction of the Felcsút stadium was announced. Orbán was generous enough to donate the lands just in front of his summer home in the village for the project, locating the entrance a mere ten meters away from his residence. Construction works for the stunningly aesthetic 3,800-seater arena (in a village of 1,800 people) started in April 2012 and were completed in April 2014, making Felcsút’s arena the second new stadium of Orbán’s gigantic stadium revival program.
The estimated budget of the construction was 120 million EUR (31,500 EUR / seat) was financed by the Puskás Academy who explicitly stated that they did not use government funds for the project. Technically, this statement is absolutely true as the construction was financed through the TAO money offered by the numerous companies looking for tax deduction and Orbán’s goodwill. However, technically, this means that the country’s budget was decreased by 120 million EUR unrealized tax revenue. Naturally, the gargantuan football stadium looks ridiculously out of place in the small village, but there’s really no other way to ensure that your favorite team’s stadium is within 20 seconds of walking distance from your home.
Obviously, a proper club should also have some glorious history. Felcsút was seriously lagging behind on this matter as though Felcsút FC was founded in 1931, it spent its pre-Orbán history in the uninspiring world of the 5th-7th leagues of the country. Luckily enough, Orbán had already secured Puskás’ naming rights and they were not afraid to use it, so Felcsút FC was renamed to Puskás Academy FC in 2009. The stadium name was a little bit problematic as the Hungarian national stadium in Budapest had sadly had the dibs on Puskás’ name, so they had to settle with Puskás’ Spanish nickname, resulting in the inauguration of the Pancho Arena. But why stop here? Orbán’s sports media strongman György Szöllősi acted upon the contract with Puskás’ widow and transferred all Puskás’ personal memorabilia (medals, jerseys, correspondence) to the most suitable place of all: a remote village in which Puskás never even set foot in.
While the off-field issues were getting resolved, Orbán’s attention shifted to another important area: the actual game of football. Although academy players started to graduate from 2008 on, it very soon became painfully obvious that the academy program couldn’t really maintain even a second division side for now. In 2009, Orbán reached an agreement with nearby Videoton’s owner that effectively transformed Felcsút FC into Videoton’s second team under the name of Videoton – Puskás Akadémia FC. The mutually beneficent agreement would allow Videoton to give valuable playing time to squad players while it could also serve as a skipping step for Puskás Academy’s fresh graduates to a first league team. The collaboration resulted in two mid-table finishes and a bronze medal in the second division in the following three seasons that wasn’t really impressive compared to Felcsút FC’s standalone seasons.
It seemed that the mixture of reserve Videoton players and academy youth was simply not enough for promotion, and although Orbán had assured the public multiple times that his Felcsút project was not aiming for the top flight, very telling changes arose after the 2011/2012 season. Felcsút terminated the Videoton cooperation deal and used the rapidly accumulating TAO funds to recruit experienced players for the now independently operating Puskás Academy FC (PAFC). The new directive worked almost too well: PAFC won its division with a 10 point lead in its first standalone year which meant that they would have to appear in the first league prior to the completion of their brand-new Pancho Arena. Too bad that this glorious result had almost nothing to do with the academy - only two players were academy graduates of the side’s regular starting XI.
Orbán did not let himself bothered with the ridiculousness of an academy team with virtually no academy players being promoted to the first division as he stated that “a marathon runner shouldn’t need to explain why the other runners were much slower than him”. Orbán also displayed a rare burst of modesty as he added that “his team’s right place is not in the first league, and they will soon be overtaken by other, better sides”.
The promotion of PAFC to the first division made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Supporter groups were united in hatred all along the league and not surprisingly, away fans almost always outnumbered the home side at PAFC’s temporary home at Videoton’s Sóstói Stadium (demolished and rebuilt in its full glory since then). One of the teams, however, possessed an extraordinary degree of anger against PAFC: supporters of Budapest Honvéd – the only Hungarian team in which Ferenc Puskás played – felt especially awkward about the transfer of their club legend’s heritage to Felcsút. Tensions spiked at the PAFC – Honvéd game when home security forced Honvéd supporters to remove the “Puskás” part of their traditional “Puskás – Kispest – Hungary” banner – the team answered the insult with style as they secured a 4-0 victory supported by fans chanting “you can’t buy legends”.
Despite Orbán’s prognosis, other better sides did not rush to overtake his team, so PAFC, now residing in their brand new Pancho Arena, came through with a 14th and a 10th place in their first two seasons. Naturally, conspiracy theories began to formulate, speculating that government-friendly owners would certainly not be motivated to give their best against PAFC. However, as the league size was reduced to 12 for the 2015/2016 season, PAFC found themselves in a dire situation just before the final round: they needed a win and needed rival Vasas to lose against MTK in order to avoid relegation. PAFC’s draw seemed to be unlucky as they faced their arch-enemy Honvéd at home, but Honvéd displayed an absolute lackluster effort – fueling conspiracy theories – and lost the fixture 2 to 1 against a home side featuring four academy players. Vasas, however, did not disappoint, their 2-0 victory resulted in PAFC’s elimination and a very relaxed sigh all over the football community.
PAFC’s relegation seemed to be in accordance with Orbán’s 2013 statement, so public opinion supposed for a while that Orbán’s project came to a halting point and the Academy would go on to actually field academy players in the second division (especially as rostering foreign players was prohibited in the lower leagues). However, if you have read through this point, you know better than to expect Orbán to retreat – obviously, PAFC came back with a bang. With a ballsy move, PAFC didn’t even sell their foreign players, they just loaned them across the league, promising them that they would be able to return next year to the newly promoted team. The promise was kept as PAFC went into another shopping spree of experienced players (easily convincing lots of them to choose the second division instead of the first) and easily won the second league.
Orbán – now aware of his negligence – opted for the doubling the team’s budget, making PAFC the third most well-founded club in the whole country (only coming short to his friend’s Videoton and his party minion’s Ferencváros). With an actual yearly influx from TAO money in the ballpark of 30-40 million EUR, PAFC management had to really work wonders in creative accounting in order to make their money look somewhat legitimate. The books were now full of ridiculous items like:

• Construction of a new tea kitchen for youth players for 650,000 EUR
• Construction of a new “sports and conference center” for 40 million EUR
• Employment of a 45 person “cleaning and maintenance staff” for the academy.

Naturally, in the country of no consequences, absolutely nothing happened: PAFC went on with its spending and signed 35 foreigners between 2017 and 2020. They did so because they could not hope to field a winning team in the first league consisting of academy players, despite the fact that Puskás Academy has been literally drowning in money since 2007. This seems to somewhat contradict Orbán’s 2013 promise, stating that “Puskás Academy will graduate two or three players to major European leagues each year”. To be fair, there have been players who managed to emerge to Europe (well, exactly two of them: Roland Sallai plays at Freiburg, László Kleinheisler played at Werder Bremen) but most academy graduates don’t even have the slightest the chance to make their own academy’s pro team as it’s full of foreigners and more experienced players drawn for other teams’ programs.
Despite their unlimited funding, PAFC could not put up a top-tier performance in their first two years back in the first division, finishing 6th and 7th in the 12-team league. Many speculated that the lack of support, motivation and even a clear team mission did not allow for chemistry to develop within the multinational and multi-generational locker room. Consistency was also a rare sight on the coaching side: club management was absolutely impatient with coaches who were very easily released after a single bad spell and there were talks of on-field micromanagement request coming from as high as Orbán.
Even so, their breakthrough came dangerously close in 2018 as PAFC performed consistently well in the cup fixtures and managed to reach the final. Their opponent, Újpest played an incredibly fierce game and after a 2-2 draw, they managed to defeat PAFC in the shootout. Football fans sighed in relief throughout the country as ecstatic Újpest supporters verbally teased a visibly upset Orbán in his VIP lounge about his loss.
Obviously, we could only delay the inevitable. While this year’s PAFC side seemed to be more consistent than its predecessors, it seemed that they won’t be able to get close to the podium - they were far behind the obvious league winner duo of Ferencváros and Videoton and were trailing third-place Mezőkövesd 6 points just before the pandemic break. However, both Mezőkövesd and PAFC’s close rivals DVTK and Honvéd fall flat after the restart while PAFC was able to maintain its good form due to its quality roster depth. PAFC overtook Mezőkövesd after the second-to-last round as Mezőkövesd lost to the later relegated Debrecen side. (Mezőkövesd coach Attila Kuttor was fined harshly because of his post-game comments on how the FA wants PAFC to finish third.)
PAFC faced Honvéd in the last round once again, and as Honvéd came up with its usual lackluster effort, PAFC secured an effortless win, confidently claiming the third place. PAFC celebrated their success in a nearly empty stadium, however neither Orbán, nor Mészáros (club owner, Orbán’s protégé, now 4th richest man of Hungary) seemed to worry about that. While Orbán high-fived with his peers in the VIP lounge, Mészáros was given the opportunity to award the bronze medals (and for some reason, a trophy) to the players dressed up in the incredibly cringe worthy T-shirts that say “Small place, big game!”. Big game, indeed: in the 2019/2020 season, foreign players’ share of the teams playing time was 43.6% while academy graduates contributed only 17.9%.
On Sunday evening, less than 24 hours after PAFC’s glorious success, György Szöllősi, now editor-in-chief of Hungary’s only sports newspaper (purchased by Orbán’s affiliates a few years back) published an editorial on the site, stating that “the soccer rebuild in Felcsút became the motor and symbol of the revitalization of sport throughout the whole country”. Well, Szöllősi is exactly right: Felcsút did became a symbol, but a symbol of something entirely different. Felcsút became a symbol of corruption, inefficiency, lies and the colossal waste of money. But, hey, at least we know now: you only need to spend 200 million EUR (total budget of PAFC and its academy in the 2011-2020 period) if you want to have a Europa League team in your backyard. Good to know!

Epilogue: What's in the future?

As there is no foreseeable chance for political change to happen Hungary (Orbán effortlessly secured qualified majority in 2014 and 2018, and is projected to do so in 2022 as well), PAFC’s future seems to be as bright as it gets. Although consensus opinion now seems to assume that Orbán does not intend to interfere with the Ferencváros – Videoton hegemony, we can never be really sure about the exact limits of his greed. One could also argue that entering the European theater serves as a prime opportunity for making splashy transfers who could be the cornerstones of a side challenging the league title.
However, as all political systems are deemed to fall, eventually Orbán’s regime will come apart. Whoever will take upon the helm after Orbán, they will certainly begin with cutting back on the one item on Orbán’s agenda that never had popular support: limitless football spending. Puskás Academy, having next to zero market revenue, will not be able to survive without the state’s life support, so the club will fold very shortly. The abandoned, rotting stadium in Felcsút will serve as a memento of a powerful man who could not understand the true spirit of football.
But let’s get back to present day, as we have more pressing issues coming up soon: PAFC will play their first European match in the First qualifying round of the Europa League on 27 August. We don’t have a date for the draw yet, but soon enough, a team unaware of the whole situation will be selected to face the beast. I hope that maybe one of their players does some research and maybe reads this very article for inspiration. I hope that the supporters of this club get in touch with Honvéd fans who would be eager to provide them with some tips on appropriate chants. I hope that other teams gets drawn as the home team so Orbán wouldn’t get the pleasure of walking to his stadium for an international match. But most importantly, I very much hope that this team obliterates PAFC and wipes them off the face of the earth. 5-0 will suffice, thank you.
And if this team fails to do that, we don’t have to worry yet. Due to our shitty league coefficient, PAFC would need to win four fixtures in a row. And that – if there’s any justice in this world – is a thing that can’t, that won’t happen. Ball don’t lie – if I may say.
TL,DR
Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán redirected some 200 million EUR of taxpayer money over 10 years to fuel his ambition of raising a competitive football team in his hometown of 1,800 people. He built a 3,800-seater stadium in his backyard, expropriated football legend Ferenc Puskás’ trademarks and heritage and built up a football league where almost all clubs are owned by his trustees. His team, Puskás Akadémia FC was originally intended to be a development ground for youth players graduating from Orbán’s football academy, but eventually the team became more and more result-orianted. Finally, a roster full of foreign and non-academy players came through and finished third in the league, releasing this abomination of a team to the European football theatre. Please, knock them out asap!

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update August 10, 2020
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Note: We may need to paraphrase, but the notes are accurate
Watch here:

• Youtube: Update (YT Channel)
• Facebook: Update (FB Page)

Headlines

• 35,254 Cases (+275), 775 Deaths (+2) ** Due to a computer glitch the cases numbers is low
• New Cases by County: 105x Jefferson, 35x Fayette, 14x Warren, 13x Franklin, 11x Madison, 11x Pulaski, 9x Hardin, 6x Powell, 6x Taylor, 5x Kenton, 4x Adair, 4x Breckinridge, 4x Clinton, 4x Grant, 4x Marion, 3x Jessamine, 3x Knott, 3x Russell, 2x Bourbon, 2x Calloway, 2x Campbell, 2x Larue, 2x Nelson, 2x Perry, 1x Boyd, 1x Casey, 1x Christian, 1x Graves, 1x Grayson, 1x Green, 1x Hart, 1x Hickman, 1x Leslie, 1x Lincoln, 1x Marshall, 1x McCracken, 1x McCreary, 1x Shelby, 1x Spencer, 1x Washington, 1x Wayne, 1x Webster, 1x Woodford
• New deaths by county: 98 F Lincoln, 60 F Graves
• Our recommendation today is that schools wait to begin in-person classes until September 28th, yes that’s 6 weeks from now, but it’s also 6 weeks from what I hope is the peak of this virus. 6 weeks from the last three weeks where we have been at pretty much all time high, week in and week out, 6 weeks from a time where we had a 6% positivity rate. Let’s face it, we are trying really hard and we have good steps we’ve taken, masks are working, but we do not have control over this virus, and to send tens of thousands of our kids back into in-person classes when we don’t have control of this virus isn’t the right thing to do for our kids.
• On a conference call with Governor Cuomo today and through this week I’m going to advocate for, first, the simplest solution: reup that $600 UI benefit, we know how to administer it though we have had some hiccups, it will not create another delay in getting dollars out to people. It will also continue to impact our economy and budget in a positive way. If the federal government is going to do less than that, then we need it, one, to be fully funded by the federal government, if they are going to choose $400 then it needs to all come from there, it needs to be in the same form that the $600 is currently coming from.
• Again today our numbers are artificially low due to that computer glitch which is not requiring our epidemiologists to go through duplicate after duplicate after duplicate that have populated our system that we have to get through to provide additional numbers.
• La Tasha Buckner: Good afternoon, As the governor said, we are issuing a new order today, effective tomorrow, that will allow bars to reopen and restaurants to reopen at 50% of their capacity. Both bars and restaurants will operate at 50% inside and we want to promote people using that outdoor space and maximizing it. We want to hit a few really important requirements, to keep bars and restaurants open at this capacity and all of these details can be found at our Healthy at Work site, https://healthyatwork.ky.gov. Some of the big points are we want everyone to stay seated, whether in a restaurant or a bar, you should get a table with your group or household, and there should be 6 ft of space between each of those tables. The governor has put up pictures before where we have seen bars shoulder-to-shoulder, that’s exactly what we don’t want to happen again. Plenty of people did it right but we want to make sure that with this fresh start that everyone gets off to the best start and we can keep things open. There’s no congregating at the bar so if a bar or restaurant has a bar-area, service should still be at the tables, no one should be sitting there congregating. The mask order is still in effect for bars and restaurants which means if you are not actively eating or drinking at your table then you should be masked. If you are going to the bathroom, entry, exit, otherwise you should be at your table and enjoying your friends, beverage, and food. All food and drink service should be stopped at 10pm local time and after, the bar and restaurant should close at 11pm. All staff and customers need to wear masks as indicated in our other guidance. By following this we hope that everyone can stay open, and we can all enjoy these great restaurants and bars we have in KY.
• What do you expect to get out of the curfew for bars? --- What we see is as the night goes longer, as people have been out longer, that they are less likely to follow the rules and restrictions that that bar is trying to impose. Another thing that we are seeing on the restaurant side is their folks get off and then potentially go to a bar and then bring the virus back to the restaurant. So what we are trying to do is to create 1 time where hopefully people are at their most responsible that folks can get out and enjoy while at the same time can then go home safely. We believe with the rules we have in place that there is an opportunity for our bars to operate responsibly and to try to give them that opportunity of operating responsibly. It’s going to look very different.
• Go back to what you mentioned early, when you mentioned double digit counties, there were quite a few unusual ones in there. Why are they suddenly becoming hotspots? -- That’s what we’re seeing nationwide, that we’re seeing more spread in rural America, and rural KY than ever before. We see many cities plateauing, not all of our cities, some of them are rising, and that’s probably because of the number of people that have been exposed to it thus far. Sadly that’s one of the reasons that the virus comes down, not the one that we want here in KY, we want to keep it down. But we are seeing it spread across rural America at a much more significant rate. We are also seeing what you might say are explosions of cases in different areas, a couple of things that we know are contributing: Travel, we’re seeing that especially in rural KY. and then sometimes failure to follow some of the social distancing, and masking. We think we are getting better at that.
• Sports are still happening? -- KHSAA is still meeting tomorrow and it looks like the Big 10 might even cancel their season. I do want to not make a false equivalency between a whole school full of kids hours upon end and a one hour tennis match where people are separated. We will learn more from KHSAA, I certainly think there are some fall sports that will be a challenge to hold. I think there should be some consideration with moving them to the spring, that creates some differences, but we may see that on the college level too.
• Slides from Update

Summarized (Full) Notes

• Alright, it’s 4 o’clock,
• Hello everybody it’s Monday afternoon, we’re going to have our update on COVID, we’re going to talk about schools, our recommendations, and how we move forward. We will talk about some good news, at least on the budget front for this month, but some tough news coming up with we don’t have some action out of DC, talk about guidelines for bars and restaurants where we are going to attempt to provide the types of rules where we can have people coming together safely at one of those places instead of gathering somewhere else, and then Eric Friedlander has a couple of really positive awards from the federal government that have come our way that are going to help us out.
• Let me first start by reiterating that we’re still in a really difficult, dangerous place with the virus that is spreading so significantly right now. One of the foremost experts this morning on one of the cable news shows, talking about it raging in the United States. While I believe we have stopped the exponential growth in KY, that these masks are working, we are in, at-best, what I pray is the apex where will be in this virus. In other words if we are doing really well, we are still in one of the most difficult times. And the good news that we reported yesterday was a little more complicated. Yesterday we reported that our total number of cases for last week was almost 300 and a little more than the week before. But today we learned that our IT provider for that system had been updating the way it works over the weekends, and not all the reports had gotten in. This is unacceptable and we will be addressing it with that provider. What it’s going to mean this week is that we will be reporting some numbers that are artificially low. So M, T, W, I will be reporting the numbers as they come in but we will have to revise some of the previous days as more information comes in. What I believe it means is that last week's numbers were closer to the week before. I don't think they were significantly higher, but there weren't 300 lower. So where I believe we are is we have stopped that growth, month after month, but it's something we have to fight for, we have to continue to use the best practices, and ultimately we can’t just stay where we are, we’ve got to start decreasing our cases because otherwise, we are in a place where it could skyrocket again very quickly.
• This brings me to a tough, but necessary, recommendation that I made today to our public school systems and I think our private schools were there, too. The reasoning behind our recommendation is important, too. Let me start with, it’s a recommendation that I am having to make as a governor, and as a dad. My son is supposed to start sixth grade, and they would have already started in the district that he’s in here in Frankfort and my daughter needs to get back to in-person classes too. In my very core I want us to get back to in-personal instruction but to ask our teachers, students, and faculty to go in at a time when it’s not safe is something we can’t ask of them and I’m not willing to. I want to go over 4 reasons for the recommendation we are making.
• One is, this is where KY is right now, in the past 5-6 weeks we have seen an increase in that plateau that we were at to where we are now with July being our most difficult month. Even if last week’s numbers stay right, 3,797 we think they’re a little more, last week before that 4,106, the week before that high-3,000’s. That means that we have been at a place and time where we’ve almost had 12,000 cases in 3 weeks. That we right now, I pray, will be the highest area that we are ever in in KY. The concept that we would try to resume in-person classes at our peak, instead of during a decline, it’s something that would defy logic. It wouldn’t be safe to do
• Second piece is what we're seeing in KY and across the country, an increase in infections in our kids. We have seen it here in KY where I read the kids 5 and under and it’s heartbreaking how much those numbers are increasing, and then I hope you saw this news nationally, 100K kids tested positive in the US in just the last 2 weeks of July. It is a myth that kids can’t get the virus or that they can't spread it. What we’re seeing is an increasing infection rate of our young people and understanding that when they go back into school they can spread this, not only to each other, but also the faculty and other members of the building. And let’s also remember that while there are significantly fewer bad outcomes with kids, there are still bad outcomes. The more we create a situation where it can spread can increase even more than it is right now with our children, is when we expose more children to that risk,
• Another thing that we’re seeing is what we’re also seeing is the experience in other states, the same states that rushed to open really fast, and went through some of the largest surges, are also reopening their schools, too, the fastest. Whether it’s a couple of schools in IN, or GA, they’re opening them up for a couple of days, for one week, then shutting them down. That’s something that we can’t walk into, expecting or hoping for. We have to have a plan, and I have to make a recommendation that gives us a real chance of success that you don’t send your kids to school for three days, school shuts down, it takes another week and a half to get distance learning up, you do distance learning for a certain period of time, never knowing when you might get back to in-person classes. This is more disruptive, in our opinion, starting and stopping, than a plan that can have an opportunity for success
• Then the last reason, and it’s one that we begged and pleaded on, but continues to be a challenge and that’s that through the week through the month of August- our families continue to go on vacations, to places where the virus is so hot, and while we have put our travel advisory up, and we’ve got those states, we continue to see those families go to the beach, whether it’s in Myrtle Beach or in the Destin area, and every time that happens, you can bring it back to your workplace, which is trying hard to keep it out, your church, or Heaven help us, a school.
• So because of that, plus conversations with superintendents who have said that they need to go ahead and make a plan for whether they start with distance learning or whether they alter their calendar, we are making what we believe is a realistic recommendation, which is a tough one, but one that we believe can give us some success. It is one where we won't simply say 2 weeks from now, then delay it 2 weeks from then, and then delay it 2 weeks from then. This would potentially prevent school districts from taking some steps that they can to do the best they can to educate our kids even if it’s remotely during that period.
• Our recommendation today is that schools wait to begin in-person classes until September 28th, yes that’s 6 weeks from now, but it’s also 6 weeks from what I hope is the peak of this virus. 6 weeks from the last three weeks where we have been at pretty much all time high, week in and week out, 6 weeks from a time where we had a 6% positivity rate. Let’s face it, we are trying really hard and we have good steps we’ve taken, masks are working, but we do not have control over this virus, and to send tens of thousands of our kids back into in-person classes when we don’t have control of this virus isn’t the right thing to do for our kids. It’s not the right thing to do for that faculty, and it’s not the right thing to recommend as governor. There are some that will, I know that will, say, it’s a decision made by the Governor, it’s a decision being made by the virus. We are living through our pandemic, whether this is our version of the Spanish Flu, or of the plague, if you think about it that way we are pretty blessed compared to what happened then. It’s not going to be easy, lots of sacrifices will be made, and yes, our kids are falling behind. My kids are in that developmental time where they need to be in school. But their overall health and safety, along with that of their teachers and others has to be paramount. We have to have a plan that has an opportunity of working. We are working very closely with the DOE, with our superintendents. I’m trying to provide all the flexibility that I can with the ability for them to bring in small groups of kids in, whether to get chromebooks, or give them instruction on how to use them, to get an idea of what the schedule moving forward if they choose to do that. Flexibility in, they already have this, maybe changing some of the days of the calendar. Right now it would be better if our families did not take vacations during a semester of our school year. That is one where we can eat at certain days that are out there. I’m pretty sure our kids would go to school any day that we asked them right now. So, a tough but necessary step, but I believe we're going to be through this, beginning of next year when the vaccine gets out but until then we’re going to have to make difficult choice after difficult choice to survive. Surviving and protecting each other is what we’re trying to do.
• So that is the recommendation being made today, I believe it is the right recommendation, everyone won’t agree with it but my job here is to make the tough calls. To move any politics out of it and just make the right call, as the governor and as a dad.
• Slightly better news: our general fund and road fund receipts. The budget of our state is how we pay for our teachers, how we provide those dollars, and how we provide healthcare and that safety net which is so critically needed right now. So in some good news today the state budget director announced KY’s General Fund receipts for July, we run a July 1st- June 30th fiscal year, a total of $905.1M a 7% increase compared to last year when we weren’t dealing with this virus. Collections for the month were surprisingly strong given the slowdown in consumer spending arising from the coronavirus. That is really good news, it suggests that our economy is still afloat but we know what it’s taken to keep it afloat. The first was an investment in the state to respond to the virus, the CARES ACT, while not giving us a lot of flexibility it helped us defray and pay for the new costs. The other is the additional $600 in UI that was provided to the people of Kentucky. All the data that we’ve had shows that the people of KY are doing what we need them to do with those dollars, they are spending them. They are ensuring that they are meeting their families needs, they are providing for themselves, they are helping our economy in so many different areas. And so the federal government is going to have to come to some compromise, and/or the E.O. that the president signed is going to have to be changed in a way that continues some level of that support. Without it, every state is going to be faced with incredible difficulty. The E.O. that was put out by the president, I believe, was an attempt to move forwards. But I will say from a state standpoint that it’s not workable in its current form and hopefully either it will be revised or even better congress will actually come to an agreement.
• The first challenge with it is there is only enough money set aside to last for 5 weeks. And states are being asked to enter into agreements that may have to run through the end of the year. The second is there is no guidance on it. We’ll be asked to enter into an agreement where we don’t know what the federal government is going to do because they haven’t given us the full guidance on how it will work. The third is, states are expected to chip in 25% at a time when our budgets are already struggling and if we have to cover the remainder of it through December, we’re looking at a $5B. It would be a much smaller amount for the 5 weeks that the federal government would help and then after that it would become absolutely unsustainable. And the last, is the concern about state laws across the country and what it would take to put something like this in place. If we have to make any changes to our computer system, that was put in 2000, “how things are calculated”, “where dollars are coming from”, it will cause delay in all of it.
• On a conference call with Governor Cuomo today and through this week I’m going to advocate for, first, the simplest solution: reup that $600 UI benefit, we know how to administer it though we have had some hiccups, it will not create another delay in getting dollars out to people. It will also continue to impact our economy and budget in a positive way. If the federal government is going to do less than that, then we need it, one, to be fully funded by the federal government, if they are going to choose $400 then it needs to all come from there, it needs to be in the same form that the $600 is currently coming from. If we have to change that system of administration then it’s going to keep people from getting those funds. Listen, when the federal government made the decision earlier it did the right thing and has us in a place where when rebound and our recession doesn’t turn into a long term recession or even depression They’ve created a positive environment that would allow us to bounce back and we cannot abandon that right now. So good news, in this last month of the budget but we need congressional action or a change in that E.O. to move forward. Our future economy absolutely depends on it.
• Again today our numbers are artificially low due to that computer glitch which is not requiring our epidemiologists to go through duplicate after duplicate after duplicate that have populated our system that we have to get through to provide additional numbers.
• Positive cases today: 275 - This will be revised tomorrow
• Probable cases: 2,313
• Total confirmed cases: 35,254 - we know that numbers are higher and will change. We know our numbers will be artificially low for the first half of this week.
• Children Under 5: 13 Kids. Again, that’s sadly impacted by how the numbers are coming in as well. We probably have more in addition to that.
• New cases by county: 105x Jefferson, 35x Fayette, 14x Warren, 13x Franklin, 11x Madison, 11x Pulaski, 9x Hardin, 6x Powell, 6x Taylor, 5x Kenton, 4x Adair, 4x Breckinridge, 4x Clinton, 4x Grant, 4x Marion, 3x Jessamine, 3x Knott, 3x Russell, 2x Bourbon, 2x Calloway, 2x Campbell, 2x Larue, 2x Nelson, 2x Perry, 1x Boyd, 1x Casey, 1x Christian, 1x Graves, 1x Grayson, 1x Green, 1x Hart, 1x Hickman, 1x Leslie, 1x Lincoln, 1x Marshall, 1x McCracken, 1x McCreary, 1x Shelby, 1x Spencer, 1x Washington, 1x Wayne, 1x Webster, 1x Woodford
• We are seeing more and more counties that haven’t that many cases
• Total tests conducted: 700,417 (PCR: 655,494 , Serology: 44,407)
• Positivity Rate: 5.71%
• Total hospitalized: 4,024
• Currently hospitalized: 641
• Total in ICU: 1,267
• Currently in ICU: 155
• Total recovered: 8,738
• New deaths today: 2 - Thankfully these numbers have stayed low and we hope we are getting even better at treating this virus.
• Total Deaths: 775
• New deaths by county: 98 F Lincoln, 60 F Graves
• All losses are a loss for Kentucky. Let’s light those houses up green and let’s ring those bells at 10am. This is a reminder that we are thinking of the Kentuckians we’ve lost, their families, and their communities. It’s the color of compassion and renewal as their souls move from their bodies to a better place.
• Racial breakdown of all cases: 77.27% Caucasian, 13.23% Black or African-American, 2.47% Asian, 6.38% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all cases: 86.87% non-Hispanic and 13.13% Hispanic
• Racial breakdown of all deaths: 81.15% Caucasian, 14.66% Black or African-American, 1.54% Asian, 2.65% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all deaths: 96.05% non-Hispanic and 3.95% Hispanic
• Long Term Care Facilities: 4 new residents and 5 new staff positive from yesterday, and 5 more deaths, 5 new facilities
  • Total facilities: 277
  • Total deaths: 492
  • Total recovered: 3,270
  • Active cases: 372 residents, 229 staff
  • Total cases: 2,777 residents, 1,586 staff
• Day Care Facilities: 9 new facilities, 7 new staff, 5 new children. 123 facilities, 96 staff, 82 children.
• Our Lt Gov will talk about education, then Dr. Stack will speak.
• Lt. Gov.:
• I’m going to be brave because I have a sleeping baby so I was trying not to wake her up, but nope, she’s waking up! It’s appropriate to have her here with me today because most of you know me as lieutenant governor and the Secretary of Education because that’s my role here in this building, but the important thing is I've spent much more of my career as a teacher and as a school administrator. Remember that I’ve spent much more of my career as a school administrator and as a mom, so the decision today to postpone in-person classes and begin virtually is one that’s not made lightly, and it’s one made as a governor and as a lieutenant governor have made to recommend to superintendents but you’re also talking about parents and you’re talking about someone who’s worked in a school building and who knows what it’s like when the rubber meets the road. More than anything, our educators deserve to return to a place of work that is healthy and safe. It is not fair for all of the requirements that have been placed on our schools, for our teachers to be doing the bulk of that work, in a situation where they could be putting their health at risk. So the responsible thing to do is respect our school employees, our faculty and the families that they go home to every night. I appreciate the fact that our superintendents have been willing to be innovative and respond in a responsible, smart way. We are asking our kids to be innovative so certainly our schools can be as well. As a school administrator, I think about the implementation of the guidelines, and I think about what they looks like for buildings full of 850 kids like mine and what hallways would look like and how we can make that happen, and the truth of the matter is, right now, our best bet, is to give our schools time to prepare, give the virus time to die down a little bit and to make sure again that we respect the folks that wake up every morning to go to work to serve our kids every day and the families that they go home to every night. I want to thank you, Governor, and to all of the superintendents and the teachers who have been a part of this decision making as we’ve taken your advice. We appreciate it, and we will continue to seek it.
• Dr. Stack Takes over:
• Thank you Governor, Lieutenant Governor. So I've said this before, and I said a couple of weeks ago, I never liked the days we have to tell people what we recommend you don’t do. We really look forward to the days that we can tell you the things you can do. As you've seen me hold up before, and you’ve seen me show some reporter who asked for this from ORR, we don’t get it to them by the morning on Monday, so the request doesn’t have to come through Sunday. In the report here today, they still list (it’s actually dates yesterday but we get it today), we still show 53 of our counties either in the red or yellow zone for the last week, so that means nearly half of the counties in Kentucky are identified as “increased concern” for the federal government. If you’re red, they’re raising an alarm bell and they still recommend substantial intervention steps and so, of course, we have other steps that we have taken here recently. I signed one of those orders today, for the mask mandate, that continues, and the gatherings at less than 10 people, of course there are restrictions on the hospitality industry - restaurants and bars. On that point, people might say, “well, why are you letting them happen?” You know, it’s difficult. Where states haven’t allowed those activities in some measure, people engage in bad behaviors in their own backyards, where tons of people pile in and they’re in an unsupervised environment. Again, it’s a difficult balancing act. We’re trying to balance these things by trying to provide outlets where people can follow these guidelines, the mask requirement, the social distancing, the proper surface and hand hygiene, where people can lower the risk, as much as we reasonably can while allowing people to engage in activities we know are important and that leads to schools. Today, the governor has recommended and Lt. Gov has commented on it, recommending a delayed start to in-person instruction using NTI to start the school year. I was on a call with the Governor, Lt. Governor, and the superintendents, and you know this is tough. We get messages every which direction about teachers who are concerned with going back to school, parents who want their children in school, parents who are concerned about their children going back to school because of the concern of infection that the child may get or bring home. This is really tough but what we have seen has happened when the students come together, athletics, camps, or in school you start to see positivity rates go up very quickly. I think what we have shown in KY and what the Governor showed on the line graph earlier, we’ve had good success so far, interrupting these exponential climbs. So far KY has been hit by this virus, it’s been hit economically, and socially, but as far as loss of life we have done a really fantastic job, all of us, following the guidance, keeping people away from each other, and doing the things we need to do to reduce the risk of the spread of this infection in an unmitigated, uncontrolled manner which cascades out of control alarmingly quickly and creates all sorts of problems that we, thankfully, have not had to experience yet in the state of KY. We will continue to try, I’ll continue to try to find recommendations for the Governor where we can titrate and calibrate these steps. I am very grateful to the Governor, this is not easy, they weigh heavily on myself, I expect on the Governor as well, it’s very very difficult. Our job is to try to mitigate these other damages while still keeping people safe, healthy, well, and alive. For the people most vulnerable in society they have paid, some of them, and others will pay a steep price in terms of loss of life. Thank you for all you do Team KY. This is not an uplifting message from me today but I’m optimistic that we can navigate our way through this, and we’ll be stronger for it in the end. This is our generational challenge. When the plague went through Europe, in the middle ages, it took out 30-50% of all Eurpoeans. Thank goodness we are nowhere near that with this. It is in no small part because we are trying to learn from history and trying to do things today that can have a positive impact and keep people safe.
• Gov takes over: we’ll move next to hospitality, restaurants and bars.
• For restaurants we really need our institutions to continue to push people outside, maximize your outdoor seating, we’re increasing the capacity again, with a curfew that will be talked about. Please, make sure you are putting as many people outside as you can. And on the bars, there’s gonna be questions on reopening. If we don't, people are pushed towards large house parties, as we have seen in other states, where no rules are followed. Our goal is to have the right, structured rules, where people can have that outlet if they are looking for it but to be in a safe place, and for it to be done in a safe manner. Again this is something that if folks can’t follow then we’ll have to take other steps.
• La Tasha Buckner takes over:
• Good afternoon, As the governor said, we are issuing a new order today, effective tomorrow, that will allow bars to reopen and restaurants to reopen at 50% of their capacity. Both bars and restaurants will operate at 50% inside and we want to promote people using that outdoor space and maximizing it. We want to hit a few really important requirements, to keep bars and restaurants open at this capacity and all of these details can be found at our Healthy at Work site, https://healthyatwork.ky.gov. Some of the big points are we want everyone to stay seated, whether in a restaurant or a bar, you should get a table with your group or household, and there should be 6 ft of space between each of those tables. The governor has put up pictures before where we have seen bars shoulder-to-shoulder, that’s exactly what we don’t want to happen again. Plenty of people did it right but we want to make sure that with this fresh start that everyone gets off to the best start and we can keep things open. There’s no congregating at the bar so if a bar or restaurant has a bar-area, service should still be at the tables, no one should be sitting there congregating. The mask order is still in effect for bars and restaurants which means if you are not actively eating or drinking at your table then you should be masked. If you are going to the bathroom, entry, exit, otherwise you should be at your table and enjoying your friends, beverage, and food. All food and drink service should be stopped at 10pm local time and after, the bar and restaurant should close at 11pm. All staff and customers need to wear masks as indicated in our other guidance. By following this we hope that everyone can stay open, and we can all enjoy these great restaurants and bars we have in KY thank you.

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The year is 2017. Top scientists have finally cracked the ability to stop ageing, and the world rejoices. The discovery prompts an immediate FIFA investigation into exactly what this means for world football from now on. How will the careers come and go when every team can just preserve their best stars? How will the next Messi break through? The Qatar FA suggest restricting it to only Qatari players, a motion that's only narrowly defeated. In unrelated news, a bunch of mysterious Qatari bank accounts are seized the day before the vote. Eventually, a compromise is decided upon between. Only those players who’ve proven themselves to be in it for the sport, and their team, can use it. The players who have stuck with their team through thick and thin, who’ve turned down bigger money offers to stay where they are. One-Club Men. However, should their loyalty ever waiver, and they choose to leave, those players will lose their right to an everlasting career, and have to face the advance years once again. Who will remain loyal the longest? Who will ride out the lowest of lows to stay at their lifelong club?
Unfortunately for those of you hoping I’ve found a secret miracle, that’s just the best nonsense I could come up with to frame this scenario. In less dramatic terms, using FM 2017, I'm going to select 50 one-club men from the top 5 leagues and de-age them to around 22. Every 5 years I'll de-age them down to 22 again, unless they abandon their loyalty. I'll also be adjusting everyone's contract to expire in 2020 to make it equal, and undoing international retirements where necessary. Nothing overly complicated, but I’m expecting this one to run a long long time if I’m going to have everyone leave, so I’m good with it not being too complicated.
^{Reddit side note! It's me again. Some may remember my experiments from ages ago. I'm back and writing again, but as you can probably tell, with a new name and website. If you want to see this post with much better formatting, all the images, and everyone's profile at the end, go here to read it in full: link You can stay here if you prefer though!}
So who actually qualifies for this? I've restricted it to players from the Top 5 leagues of England, Italy, Spain, Germany and France, and only included those that have been at their clubs the longest. As well as the genuine candidates like Messi and Totti, loaned out players like Lahm qualify, as do those like Iniesta who haven't left in FM 2017, and even those that have left in-game, but are known for their careers at one club. Buffon is a good example of the latter. I've included a link to an image with all 5 players here: link
With all this loyalty around, I wanted to mix it up a bit by adding in one final player. Someone completely opposite to everyone picked so far, the anti-one-club man, the journeyman of all journeymen. And after some research, I came up with the perfect candidate. Sebastián Abreu, a man who in his career has played at an impressive 29 different teams in 11 different countries, setting a Guinness world record along the way. Abreu will receive the same treatment as the loyal players, except it won’t stop when he moves team. I want him to move around more, spread his wings, see how many teams he can collect over an illustrious career.
That’s enough explaining for now. Should be pretty clear what’s going on, just a bunch of footballers never getting old. Time to get things rolling and see who eliminates themselves. Who can stick it out the longest, who will become THE one-club man?

2016/17

With our younger one club men unleashed on the world, many of them attract instant attention from new clubs. For a while it stays quiet and looks like the first transfer window may pass without incident. Only a few loans crop up... until Javi López because the first man to fall. With Espanyol not meeting his standards, he makes a £2.4M trip down the coast to join Valencia. He proves to be the only summer casualty by the time the window slams shut.
January brings the winter window, and the Premier League clubs start to sniff around, ready to throw bags of cash at unsuspecting players. It doesn’t take long before the next two players are reeled in by money and lose their eternal youth. First Marcel Schmelzer in a £20.5M move to Liverpool, followed by Bruno joining moneybags Man City. By the end of the window, Nacho also heads to the north of England, joining rivals Man United. I’m not sure if any of them have realised how damn cold it is up there. That window swiftly ends, settling the bottom 4 finishers in the competition.
Returning to the world of actual football results briefly, and there aren’t many shocks to be seen. Man City finish 6th, Everton get relegated and Borussia Mönchengladbach reach the Champions League Semi-Finals. A few players see their team relegated, as Werder Bremen, Caen and Freiburg go down, so there could be a few casualties once that disappointment has set in. But all in all, the footballing world has coped just fine.
Loyal Players Remaining: 46
Abreu Club Count: 23 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: None

2017/18

With everyone’s transfer budgets warmed up, it doesn’t take long for the action to get back underway. The previous season has barely finished before Chris Solly trades in his morals for a Premier League move to Norwich. Sergio Álvarez joins him in England, making the slightly odd move to Bournemouth before a big £52M move sees Koke trade loyalty for a big move to Man City. That’s the most surprising move so far, as I expected many of the players at top clubs to stick around. The final two transfers of the window take us to sunny Spain, where both Xabi Prieto and Mario become massive glory hunters, trading in their life long clubs for Atletico Madrid and Barcelona respectively. Javi López, having left Espanyol to join Valencia last year, immediately realises his mistake and rejoins Espanyol. It’s too little too late though, his status as a one-club man is already ruined.
The winter window comes and goes without even a hint of action, so things may already be starting to quieten down. Over in Brazil, Sebastián Abreu has his contract with Bangu come to an end after a good season but fails to attract any new suitors before the European season ends.
Around the world, things keep ticking on relatively normally. Watford take a surprising FA Cup win despite finishing rock bottom of the league, meaning they’ll have European nights alongside their Championship campaign. The loyalty of Seube, Höfler and Bargfrede is rewarded, as Caen, Bremen and Freiburg are immediately promoted back to the top tier. Las Palmas head in the opposite direction, which causes David García to hand in an immediate transfer request. The Spaniard could very well be the next player to go.
Loyal Players Remaining: 41
Abreu Club Count: 23 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: Watford (FA Cup)

2018/19

My suggestion that things may be quietening down is immediately disproved by the biggest move so far. Bayern Munich legend Philipp Lahm makes a huge £82M transfer to Manchester City, throwing away all he’d built up at Bayern so far. But it doesn't end there, as 2 more huge transfers are finalised right after. First Claudio Marchisio drops Juventus, clearly not happy with them losing the title to AC Milan, and moves to Real Madrid. Then Daniele De Rossi trades in Roma for Barcelona. Whilst both have moved in real life, I didn’t expect either to fall so early in this, being icons at such huge clubs. A little later, David García makes his predicted move away from relegated Las Palmas, opting to stay in Spain with Osasuna. And then on the final day of the window, one last move. David Zurutuza decides the Premier League is more to his taste and joins Noble at West Ham. Javi López continues his tour of Spain, realising rejoining Espanyol doesn’t earn him back everlasting youth, and so heads to Sevilla instead. Currently, he’s moved around more than the specific journeyman player I chose to actually move around. Talking of, Abreu does find a new contract, heading back to Uruguay to join River Plate Montevideo.
The winter transfer window is again mostly quiet, with very little potential action. There are still some transfers though, as Robin Knoche becomes the 15th person out, heading to Borussia Dortmund. Then a legend moves on, as Iker Casillas decides that barely getting any game time behind Keylor Navas isn’t worth it, and so joins Monaco for a mere £11M. I guess you can't escape the real world after all.
The summer of 2018 means a World Cup, a tournament which regularly creates bizarre results in Football Manager. This year is no exception, as the likes of Italy, Belgium and Argentina fall in the group stages, before South Korea beat both Germany and France in the knockouts. The final between Brazil and Croatia proves 100% less heartbreaking than the real 2018 final for the Croatians, as they become champions of the world. In domestic football, Man United take all the English trophies on offer in a Quadruple, whilst Freiburg find themselves relegated yet again, as do Montpellier.
Loyal Players Remaining: 34
Abreu Club Count: 24 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: Croatia (World Cup)

2019/20

Another season, another transfer window, another set of swirling rumours around our one-club men. Borussia Dortmund manage to steal away another of our competitors from a German rival, taking Timo Horn early in the window. Having been relegated yet again last season, Nicolas Höfler decides enough is enough and leaves Freiburg for Hertha Berlin. Over in Italy, and Chievo Legend Sergio Pellissier finally caves, leaving his relegation-threatened lifelong team for European battlers Fiorentina. But that's all the entertainment I can offer, no big signings this time around I’m afraid. Let's go see what Javi López is up to instead. His merry-go-round of clubs continues yet again, moving over to Deportivo de La Coruña in the latest of his ever-decreasing value of transfers.
January retains its typical bleak and dull atmosphere, with no sign of action whatsoever until the final day of the window. Hugo Mallo decides to try and add to his trophy cabinet and heads to Man United. Not the worst career move to throw away eternal life for considering their dominance right now. And with his departure, the total number of players that we've lost hits a nice round 20.
In the Premier League, Man United claim their 4th title in a row, exerting total dominance over everyone. But where one dominance rises, another falls, with Dortmund claiming the Bundesliga to knock Bayern off their perch. The shock of the season comes in the Coupe de France, where 3rd tier LB Châteauroux knock out Lyon, Auxerre and PSG before falling to Caen in the semi-finals. With Monaco having fallen to 4th tier SA Spinalien, Caen beat an easier opposition of RC Lens in the final, leading to Seube lifting the teams first-ever Coupe de France. Not bad for a player I expected to never lift a trophy. On a less joyous note, Höfler having left relegated Freiburg, sees his new team Hertha relegated immediately too. It seems there is no escaping the 2. Bundesliga!
On the record front, Gianluigi Buffon sets a huge benchmark, breaking the 200 cap mark for Italy. With no-one else close to him, he’ll stay the leader for a long time. Messi also breaks a boundary, climbing through 400 league goals during his career at Barcelona. Like Buffon, he’s way clear of any competitor, and unless a miracle happens that sees him abandon Barcelona, I can’t see anyone catching him soon.
Loyal Players Remaining: 30
Abreu Club Count: 24 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: Caen (Coupe de France)

2020/21

2020 arrives, and with it, two important points arrive too. Firstly, everyone gets de-aged for the first time in this experiment. The 20 that have left get to watch from a distance thinking about what could have been. Second, the initial contracts are set to expire, so anyone that hasn’t re-signed will out the door. Which is exactly what happens to Víctor Valdés. Having barely appeared for Barcelona since his return, he leaves the club on a free and heads to the southern French coast to join Marseille. A day later and someone else leaves France, as Romain Danzé who decides one de-ageing is enough and moves to Schalke. Tony Hibbert also struggled for games at Everton despite his new youthful look, and so he walks out the door. He opts for Aston Villa, who to my great surprise have sunk to a mid-table League 1 team. Feeling left out, Spain joins in, with Oier Sanjurjo departing Osasuna and moving to Villarreal. The window is then capped by a bizarre final free transfer. Despite appearing regularly, Xavi isn’t offered a new contract by Barcelona. Man City can’t quite believe their luck and snap up the Spanish wizard a few days before the window shuts.
Winter brings with it just one transfer in its usual action-heavy way. Roberto Torres leaves Osasuna, making a £35.5M switch to Atletico. I’m not sure whether Atletico thought they were getting a different de-aged Torres because that can only be described as an overpayment. Either way, that means we've now lost over half the competitors.
Euro 2020 passes, and Croatia prove their World Cup victory was no fluke, becoming both champions of the World, and champions of Europe. On the Continental front, things have been fairly predictable so far, at least until this years Europa League. Hoffenheim escape a tough group and go all the way to win the entire thing. Not bad for a team that barely qualified in the first place. Oh, and Messi wins a little thing called the Ballon d’Or for the 10th time. I think he’s only just getting started.
Loyal Players Remaining: 24
Abreu Club Count: 24 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: Hoffenheim (Europa League)

2021/22

The 21/22 season begins with two transfers on the first day. Loïc Perrin makes his way to the Premier League to join Leicester. But that's a minor splash compared to the other move, as after 768 appearances and 302 goals, Francesco Totti leaves Roma. It seems wrong to see it, but he’ll now be wearing a Man United kit. Dortmund continue their run of stealing loyalty, this time bringing Tony Jantschke into the fold. Another contract is run to the end, forcing Álex Bergantiños out of Deportivo without much choice, before being picked up by Cagliari. Mikel González opts to end his time at Real Sociedad, joining Pellissier over at Fiorentina. And as August comes to a close, it looks like Totti may be the only big departure. That is until Gianluigi Buffon decides to call time on his Juventus career. It’s an odd move, with the legend going sorta sideways from a regular starting Juventus spot to Bayern Munich. But there’s no going back now, as his 636 league appearance career with the Italians comes to a close. Two legends down in one window.
No season is complete without a single winter signing to warrant an entire separate paragraph, and this season is no different. Sergi Roberto moves away from Barcelona, in a £24M move to French giants PSG. A good way to guarantee yourself plenty of titles I guess. Abreu also makes a winter move, adding Guarani in the Brasilian second tier to his collection.
Roberto’s decision proves to be a good one, as PSG go on to claim their 10th one in a row. Not many surprises elsewhere, although Real Oviedo get close to pulling off a shock in the Copa del Rey. The second tier team beat Osasuna, Barcelona and Sevilla on the way to the final, but ultimately Real Madrid prove a step too far. Elsewhere everything is won by a team you’d probably expect. Exciting stuff.
Loyal Players Remaining: 17
Abreu Club Count: 25 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: None

2022/23

With the pool of players rapidly decreasing, very few of the crew are even wanted by other clubs anymore. Perhaps deterred by their steadfast loyalty? A few moves do still happen though, so we’re not dead yet. Firstly Anthony Lopes gets fed up of PSG dominating his league and moves to AC Milan for a better shot at a trophy. It’s not long before that story is forgotten, as the biggest transfer fee in the competition so far is dropped. Andrés Iniesta is stolen away from Barcelona, in a huge £86M move to Man United. The midfield maestro fell 2 appearances short of 600 league games for Barcelona, but with his new £300K per-week contract it’s not hard to guess why. That proves to be all the action for the summer window, with no-one willing to top that huge move.
After half a season of hearing their noisy neighbours gloating about their star signing, Man City snap. And if there’s one thing City are good at, it’s splashing the cash. In probably the easiest negotiation over fee Barcelona has ever had, Sergio Busquets makes a £95M move to the sky blues. Yeh, that’ll show United. Once again no-one wants to get in the middle of the awkward Manchester squabble, and the winter transfer closes with a whimper.
The second World Cup of this experiment comes and goes. This time all the giants make it safely through the Group Stages, but it’s Africa that really excels. Morocco make the knockouts, Egypt battle through to the Quarter Finals, but Nigeria come out best. They beat South Korea and Argentina before falling valiantly to France in the Semi-Finals. A 1-0 victory of Italy does see them finish in an impressive 3rd place, becoming the first African team to finish in the top 3 of the World Cup. France win the title on penalties after a deceivingly action-filled 0-0 draw with Spain. The domestic scene follows that with a similar lack of real shocks. In the Carabao Cup, Bournemouth beat Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United on the way to lifting the trophy. But it’s the lesser Cup, so outside of Bournemouth no-one really cares. PSG finally have their grip on the Ligue 1 broken, as Casillas leads Monaco to a fantastic title. Otherwise, all the league titles and cups fall to teams you’d expect them too. Another thrilling year.
Loyal Players Remaining: 14
Abreu Club Count: 25 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: Bournemouth (Carabao Cup)

2023/24

Literally nothing happens. Thomas Kessler decides that no team can ignore his existence for 20 seasons in a row and get away with it, leaving Köln to join Trabzonspor. So as I said, literally nothing happens. Even Javi López moving to yet another club would be more interesting than that.
The same applies to the footballing season. Asides from Casillas captaining Monaco to a Champions League title, or Atletico winning the title again, exactly 10 years after their last win, everything is frustratingly normal. And even those two events are hardly shocks.
Before I start to lose hope, there are a few interesting moves over the last few years from the losing group that are worth highlighting. First season mover Bruno didn’t make the impact he hoped and found himself moving to the lovely Stoke. Robin Knoche barely received any playtime at Dortmund and found himself cast out to Dinamo Zagreb. Even in League 1, Tony Hibbert could barely get any game time at Villa and so moved on the Scunthorpe in League 2. But the winner of the oddest move has to be Zurutuza, who somehow manage to pull off a move to Liverpool after West Ham found themselves relegated, only make a few disappointing performances, before being released on a free to join Al-Arabi in Qatar. Not quite the career he was anticipating when joining the Premier League I bet.
Loyal Players Remaining: 13
Abreu Club Count: 25 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: None

2024/25

The summer transfer window arrives for another season, and with it finally comes a huge deal! Javi López has found yet another club! Hooray! As for actual competitors, absolutely no movement whatsoever. Even from Abreu, who’s been at Guarani for 2.5 years now. Manceau, Lewington and Seube complain to their managers about playing time or relegation, but none of them actually make a move anywhere. So our final 13 will add another 5 years onto their career length.
There are some fun statistics from our 51 worth mentioning at this point. Buffon leads the way with both total league appearances (935) and international caps (259). His caps are at a point where they’re too high for the game to display, as the value is stored as an unsigned 8-bit integer, and so has rolled over to just show 3. Most appearances for a single club goes to Dean Lewington however, who thanks to being a regular sits at 857 league appearances for the MK Dons (or 889 if you include Wimbledon). In the goals department, the winner is obvious. With almost 500 league goals, 100 international goals and 14 Ballon d’Or awards, Messi sits on top of everyone. On the international scene, he’s run close by Müller and the fast-approaching Kane, but for league goals, it’s not even close.
2024 brings with it a Euro tournament, which doesn’t provide much in the way of surprises, but brings with it some exciting high scoring matches. All ending in a 4-3 victory for a Thomas Müller led Germany over neighbours Netherlands. Which I’m sure went down very well. The domestic scene decides to spring a few shocks though. In Serie A, Roma claim an impressive title thanks to main striker Iheanacho, their first since 2001. The German and French cups provide surprise winners, in the form of Hertha Berlin and Dijon. Both cap an impressive run by beating their respective league winners, Bayern and Monaco. Even the continental tournaments turn up too. First Monaco cement their place as a top power in football by winning their second Champions League in a row. That coming a week after the best win there could possibly be. Tottenham win the Europa League! Screw the other stuff, that last part is all I need!
Loyal Players Remaining: 13
Abreu Club Count: 25 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: Dijon (Coupe de France), Hertha Berlin (DFB Pokal)

At this point though it’s fair to say that the competition results are more interesting than the movements of the players. Which is the perfect signal that things need to speed up a little bit. So from now on, updates will be every 5 years, which lines up perfectly with player age resets, letting us see who has made it to the next checkpoint.

2025-2030

Another round of de-ageing hits, and you’d think that would incite some interest in our final 13. Instead, it’s a ghost town. We do have an immediate dropout though, as Nicolas Seube finally gets fed up with his lack of playtime at Caen and heads for Panionios in Greece. A year later the situation is repeated. I’m not entirely sure what his unhappiness was about, but Iker Muniain decides he’s had enough of Athletic Club and moves to Hamburger SV. At least he left on exactly 100 goals for Athletic though, a nice round number. With 11 left, a standoff to reach the top 10 ensues. For 3 years no-one budges in their show of loyalty, until in 2029… Dean Lewington leaves for Derby County on a free. It’s a huge move, with Lewington becoming the first man to break through 1000 league appearances for a single club before leaving. But he’s moved on now, and it won’t be long before that record is broken. That move means we’re left with our final 10 contestants. Terry, Iraola, Messi, Susaeta, Noble, Jourdren, Müller, Kane, Manceau and Bargfrede have secured a top 10 spot, and now all that’s left to do is fight it out for number 1.
Over in Brazil, our anti-one-club man continues his journey, although it remains in Brazil for the moment. Only 2 clubs are added to his count, with a long stay at Atletico Goianiense followed by a £2M move to top tier Coritiba. I’m kind of hoping he starts to make enough waves in the Brazilian league to move to Europe and add some new countries to his history.
Those that fell before the first de-ageing are retiring, finishing off their magnificent, or in some cases very un-magnificent, careers (as losers). Javi López finishes his fine anti-loyalty tour around Spain with 7 transfers to his name. Schmelzer, Nacho, Solly, Álvarez, Koke, Mario, Prieto, Marchisio, De Rossi, David García, Zurutuza, Knoche, Höfler, Pellissier, Mallo, Horn and Hibbert end their careers. Many, such as Nacho, Horn and De Rossi stay just as committed to their new clubs as they did their old, finishing out their careers after just a single transfer. Of the pensioners, Sergio Pellissier manages to rack up the most career league appearances and goals, at 894 and 246, although that’s largely thanks to a huge head start. De Rossi dominates on the international scene, earning a whopping 197 caps over his 30-year career. Naturally, all those records will be blown out the water once the next group start retiring, but it’s nice to have some benchmarks.
Around the world, plenty has gone on worth hearing about. The Netherlands claim their first-ever World Cup win, beating Brazil in the final, whilst in the Euro’s Germany win their second tournament in a row. The Gold Cup throws up a few interesting results too, as first, the Mexico B team win it, with their A team tied up in the Confederations Cup. Then 4 years later Canada take the title, only the second time in their history. Over in Italy, Lazio find themselves relegated as the league starts to shake itself up a bit. But other than that, domestic football remains relatively unspectacular. Oh except… TOTTENHAM WINNING THE LEAGUE. Didn’t even have to reset it and we won it before Arsenal did. North London is very much Lilywhite now, suck it Gooners!
Loyal Players Remaining: 10
Abreu Club Count: 27 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: Tottenham (Premier League)

2030-2035

Another 5 years pass and to start with it looks like the top 10 are going to hold firm. Eventually though, the temptation of money proves too much for one man. That man is Geoffrey Jourdren who trades in his starting slot at Montpellier for a cosy backup contract at PSG. Then comes… dead silence. Not even a rumour, or an unhappy player. No-one even hints at leaving for the next 4 years, which means we end the period with nine players on the books. The real waiting game has begun. Even our journeyman Abreu is moving in a very slow way, as a five year Coritiba stint finishes with a free transfer to Red Bull Brasil. I think my hopes for a European move have died.
At least there are a lot of retirements to run through. Bruno, Lahm, Casillas, Valdés, Danzé, Oier, Xavi, Torres, Perrin, Jantschke, Bergantiños, González, Roberto, Iniesta and Busquets hang up their playing boots. That does leave us without some noted legends, with Lahm, Casillas, Iniesta and Busquets reaching 200 caps for their country. You’d think Spain would have won more with that golden generation. Casillas and Xavi also both hit 1000 league appearances thanks to a strong head start before the experiment. But it’s Andrés Iniesta who is the most loyal of the bunch, racking up nearly 600 appearances for his original club before departing.
Five years leaves plenty of time for interesting results once again. England take a World Cup win, which is always a sign of the apocalypse, only made more bizarre by Scotland making the semi-finals in the same competition. Portugal take the other title in that period, whilst the Euros also see a surprise winner in Switzerland. France provides the biggest shock at club level, as Lille come from nowhere to win Ligue 1, and then immediately revert back to mid-table once again. Otherwise, the time belongs to Manchester City. The oil bar… sky blues take 4 out of 5 titles in both the Premier League and Champions League, with all that cash flinging finally paying off.
Loyal Players Remaining: 9
Abreu Club Count: 28 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: England (World Cup), Lille (Ligue 1)

2035-40

With just nine players left, once again we get a transfer fairly early on in the period. Early as in the first transfer window, which makes me wonder why they waited so long. Anyway, Mark Noble has had his patience tested by West Ham’s yoyoing between the Premier League and Championship a bit too much and finally caves. He makes a £20M move to Burnley, who… are doing the exact same thing. Not sure that was the brightest idea. Like the previous 5 years though, one transfer is all we get. None of the others move, despite some pretty heavy unhappiness from Bargfrede and Manceau. Abreu keeps up his trail, running out his contract with Red Bull Brasil and opting for Chapecoense to reach 29 clubs in his career.
With very few moving recently, that also means less and less are retiring, as just 7 ex-competitors leave the game. Totti, Buffon, Lopes, Kessler, Seube, Muniain and Lewington call time on their football life. The fact they all stuck with it for so long means there’s so impressive stats between them. Totti racked up 1154 league appearances, with 768 at Roma. Dean Lewington, after leaving MK Dons with 1003 appearances finished with a total of 1287. Italian legend Gianluigi Buffon finished with a whopping 1307 league appearances, but perhaps more impressively, 334 international caps. But the single most surprising statistic goes to Thomas Kessler. Despite barely playing in Germany he manages to notch a grand total of 7 goals after his move to Turkey. Maybe if he’d been a striker he’d have actually played at Koln. Oh and Seube ends his career Greek. Because why not.
As per every time, a quick look around the world’s results is needed. Spain win back the World Cup titles, whilst Italy take a Euro win. Argentina, Mexico and Australia claim all their continents international trophies in the window, so no massive surprises there. The domestic world isn’t exactly littered with shocks either. Brescia win a Coppa Italia, and Nîmes Olympique grab 4 top 5 finishes in a row in France, but there’s not really much to shout about. I think it’s best to just get on with the next de-ageing.
Loyal Players Remaining: 8
Abreu Club Count: 29 clubs in 10 countries
Odd Winners: Brescia (Coppa Italia)

2040-45

Down to 8 now, so it’s getting tougher. And a lot slower, so slow in fact that not a single transfer in our group happens in five years. For a moment I was excited to see Manceau at Recreativo de Huelva, but that was just a loan. So I was back to being crushed. On the plus side, Abreu makes some huge steps. He adds not just 1, but 2 new countries to his history! The first is Portugal, in a huge step up to join Braga. As usual, it’s just until his contract ends, before he moves on to Frankfurt in the Bundesliga. He’s hardly setting Europe alight but I don’t care, he’s actually moving!
There’s only one retiree to talk about too, as pretty much everyone has already gone. Geoffrey Jourdren finishes up with 925 total league appearances. It probably could have been a bit more, if he’d not spent 10 years of his career being a backup at PSG and Bayern. On a far more interesting note, Terry breaks through 1500 career league appearances. Kane also hits 256 international goals, which results in the number resetting to 0 just like caps. So the game has him on 96 caps with 11 goals, when the actual numbers are a stunning 352 caps with 267 goals.
Having seen my disappointment last time around, the world decides to liven things up. Denmark become both Champions of the World and Champions of Europe in 2042 and 2040, although they lose the European title to Germany 4 years later. At the continental level, the Champions League stays on track, but the Europa League brings some bizarre winners into the mix. Nîmes Olympique, Real Sociedad, Leicester and Bristol City all win a trophy. It seems Mark Noble finally made a right move transferring to Bristol City, as the club is now a strong top 6 Premier League side. Manceau wins a Coupe de France at Angers, but it’s still Nîmes making waves, forming a big three with PSG and Monaco. It may not be long before either Nîmes or Bristol City win their league, which is not something I expected to be saying.
Loyal Players Remaining: 8
Abreu Club Count: 31 clubs in 12 countries
Odd Winners: Nîmes Olympique/Bristol City (Europa League), Angers (Coupe de France)

2045-50

2045 kicks off and once again Manceau deceives me. This time it’s a loan spell in Denmark with Brøndby that had me thinking he was gone. Well you know what they say, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice… I’m probably gonna fall for it. It looks like there’s going to be no moves whatsoever once again, until June 2047 arrives and I notice a contract is set to expire. Imagine my shock when Lionel Messi is not offered a contract by Barcelona and is let go. It’s made doubly worse by the fact that of all teams to pick him up, it's Atletico Madrid. Apparently, 37 Ballon d’Or awards aren’t good enough for Barcelona anymore. I don’t even care that nothing else happens. That’s enough to stun me.
Over in the retirement home, Mark Noble moves into a room. After an up and down career, the Englishman did manage some silverware with Bristol City and ended his career with 1317 league appearances. He even earned not just 1, but 90 England caps across his 44-year career.
Around the world, interesting results are still cropping up. England grab their third World Cup win beating Colombia, whilst Honduras win their first-ever Gold Cup. Much to my bitter disappointment, Arsenal win 4 of the 5 Champions Leagues on offer, as well as 3 Premier League titles. Chelsea have a period of bottom 10 finishes which deeply upsets Terry, whilst over in France, Chamois Niortais begin to try and join the top 3. Don’t worry I’ve never heard of them either.
Loyal Players Remaining: 7
Abreu Club Count: 32 clubs in 12 countries
Odd Winners: Honduras (Gold Cup)

2050-55

With the world still reeling at the fact the Messi has moved from Barcelona, everyone kinda forgets to make any moves. In fact, Messi is the first person to move yet again, leaving Atletico in a very cheap 34.5M move to Man City. Which is more in line with where I originally expected him to go. Abreu finishes one contract, at Hapoel Be’er Sheva, and moves onto the next, but it’s with Monterrey so doesn’t count. Sebastian, it has to be new clubs. John Terry is starting to get frustrated with a Chelsea team that has really fallen from grace. The Londoners barely survive relegation in 2052/53, so Terry may be the next to go. Or maybe I know nothing and it’s completely random.
No-one retires this year, so let’s take a brief look at some statistics of our remaining 7 + Messi. All our players have now reached 1000 appearances, with Bargfrede in last at 1173. Messi has crossed 1000 league goals, now a full 300 clear of the chasing pack of Abreu and Kane. On the international level, Thomas Müller becomes the first player to need a rollover of caps twice, moving on to a massive 524 international caps. But it’s Kane who still leads the international goal stat, nearly breaking 350, a full 50 ahead of the German.
Müller does, however, grab a World Cup win for Germany so I’m sure he won’t be too upset. At least until they’re deposed by Holland 4 years later. On the continental level, Bristol City win another Europa League title beating previous champions Espanyol. Middlesbrough also nearly earn a trophy, having joined Bristol as a top 6 team. But the winner of the biggest shock, although I did say this might happen, goes to Chamois Niortais, who topple the dominance of PSG and Monaco to capture a miraculous Ligue 1 title in the last season of the period.
Loyal Players Remaining: 7
Abreu Club Count: 32 clubs in 12 countries
Odd Winners: Chamois Niortais (Ligue 1), Bristol City/Espanyol (Europa League)

2055-60

The summer window of 2055 opens and as I warned may happen, there’s an almost immediate transfer. Fed up with Chelsea’s mediocre finishes, John Terry decides to move on. Unfortunately for Chelsea fans, Arsenal is his next club, which I’m sure will cause a few shudders. A year later and another move comes around, once again due to unhappiness over the club’s performance. Surprisingly it's Thomas Müller,who's annoyed by the fact that Bayern haven’t won a Bundesliga title since 2048, and so runs down his contract. Leverkusen almost earn his signature, but eventually its the glory of PSG that proves too much to resist. But we’re not done there! Another player runs down their contract, opting to move to Vitoria de Setubal in Portugal. Vincent Manceau finally makes a real move rather than constantly faking me out. So with another 3 players down, we’re left with our final 4. The race for the top 3 is hotting up now!
We do have a retirement this time thanks to the transfer window livening up. The world's best-ever player, Lionel Messi, retires from football. He ends up on a total of 1858 league appearances, scoring a massive 1068 goals in this time. 1430 appearances and 895 goals of those belonging to his 45-year career at Barcelona. On the international scene, he earned an impressive 505 caps and 276 goals. But it’s the awards where he shines. 279 individual awards, 82 team titles, 22 league titles, 6 Champions League titles, 45 Ballon d’Or awards. What makes it even crazier is 41 of those Ballon d’Or awards were in a row, as he earned every single one from 2015 to 2056. I don’t think I’ll see another player like that crop up in any save, truly the world’s best player.
Looking out on the world, I can say that it’s a Chamois Niortais player that breaks Messi’s streak, as the French team claim another two Ligue 1 titles. It’s hard to say they’re a “surprise winner” at this point. Bristol City finally make the full step up to join the big guns, winning 3 Carabao Cups, 1 FA Cup, 2 Premier League titles and even a Champions League trophy. If any Bristol City fans want this save to give themselves hope over the future, I can send it over. Internationally it's the era of Portugal, as they claim both the Euro and World Cup trophies.
Loyal Players Remaining: 4
Abreu Club Count: 32 clubs in 12 countries
Odd Winners: Bristol City (Premier League/Champions League), Lyon (Relegation)

With so few players left, now is probably a good time to speed it up once again. The final four will be tough to budge, so how about we move to 10-year intervals to try and cut down on dead years. And I'll be moving to the comments, because I've hit reddits character limit.

Banff Mountain Film Festival Films Online for Free
List curated by Lianne Caron
RJ Ripper
(2018, 20 min)
Kids and bikes; wherever you are in the world, they go together. The chaotic streets of
Kathmandu may not seem like a typical breeding ground for world-class mountain bikers, but
then again nothing is typical about Rajesh (RJ) Magar. Since learning to ride on a beat-up
clunker, to becoming the four-time National Champion at age 21, RJ’s story is one of boundless
childhood dreaming and unstoppable determination, forged from junkyard scraps and tested
on the rugged trails of the mighty Himalaya.
https://vimeo.com/275506930
BAWLI BOOCH - Downhill Biking India
(2017, 5 min)
4Play is India’s first adventure film company. A fun short film with a catchy song that will make
you smile. Downhill Mountain Biking in Manali (India), Himalayan cultural nuances and a
catchy Bollywood song that will make your foot tap and keep your eyes glued to the screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvExzRrB9Fg
Speak To Me Softly
(2019, 6 min)
Experience fear and emotion alongside climber Jenny Abegg as she ascends Moonlight
Buttress while fighting the self-criticism and doubt from that little voice we all have in the back
of our heads.
https://rockandice.com/videos/climbing/speak-to-me-softly/?cn-reloaded=1
Life of Pie | Pizza and Bikes Can Fix Anything
(2019, 11 min)
In 2002, mountain bikers and entrepreneurs Jen Zeuner and Anne Keller moved to Fruita,
Colorado, in search of cheap rent, world-class single track, and free time to ride. Over 15 years
later, the two unconventional women have helped reshape one of the state’s most
conservative towns, uniting the community through advocacy, inclusivity, and damn good
pizza.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7yg2PO07u8
Loved By All: The Story of Apa Sherpa
(2018, 14 min)
Every spring the summit of Mount Everest drews people from around the world. But in its
shadow live the Sherpa, a resilient, religious people, who, despite the riches surrounding the
highest peak on earth, are still quite poor and uneducated. A child of the Khumbu, Apa Sherpa
climbed Everest 21 times. Pulled away at the age of 12 to work as a high altitude porter, like so
many others, he would leave his family for months, risking his life on the mountain. Through
his work at the Apa Sherpa Foundation, he aims to create a different future for his people.
https://vimeo.com/270499256
Curated by Lianne Caron
Shepherdess of The Glaciers
(2016, 74 min)
A beautiful cultural film that will sweep you away to an exotic far away location. Way up in
Ladakh—at 16,500 feet, somewhere in the Gya-Miru Valley—lives a shepherdess with a flock of
250 sheep and pashmina goats on a huge deserted rock-strewn mountain. They are her only
companions, except for the troubling presence of wolves and a snow leopard; her only link
with the outside world is a little transistor...
https://vimeo.com/channels/lesfilmsdeladecouverte/147091400
Artifishal | The Fight to Save Wild Salmon
(2019, 80 min)
​
Artifishal is a film about people, rivers, and the fight for the future of wild fish and the
environment that supports them. It explores wild salmon’s slide toward extinction, threats
posed by fish hatcheries and fish farms, and our continued loss of faith in nature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdNJ0JAwT7I
The Last Honey Hunter
(2017, 36 min)
In the steep mountain jungles of Nepal’s Hongu river valley, members of the isolated Kulung
culture have risked their lives for generations scaling dangerous cliffs to collect wild and
toxic honey. Deep and dark, the film glides through a misty world of forest spirits, dreams,
and woodsmoke to share the story of the leader of the harvest and his final journey.
https://vimeo.com/201695311
The Frozen Road
(2018, 25 min)
Self-shot and edited whilst cycling around the world, this short film charts my winter journey
into the Canadian Arctic as I completed my bike ride up the American continent. Compelled by
Jack London’s assertion, that ‘any man who is a man can travel alone’, I sought an adventure of
perfect solitude. Yet, as I came to realise, the harsh truths of travelling in such a formidable
environment were a long way from the romantic images I’d held of this land. The Frozen Road
is an honest reflection on my solo trip; of the wonder, terror and frustration I experienced when
riding through the unforgiving emptiness of one of the world's 'last great wildernesses'.
https://vimeo.com/252863313
Blood Road
(2017, 92 min)
Rebecca Rusch’s search for connection. In this award-winning film, Rebecca Rusche cycles
1,930km along the Ho Chi Minh Trail through the jungles of Vietnam. The goal is to reach the
site where her father, a US Air Force pilot, was shot down in Laos more than 40 years ago.
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/films/blood-road
Curated by Lianne Caron
Billder
(2018, 6 min)
Bill McLane is a trail builder. What started as a hobby between forest firefighting seasons
became a career which has helped shape the mountain bike scene on Vancouver Island. Billder
takes a closer look at the craft and dedication behind the trails we sometimes take for granted.
It shows that when people pursue their passion, we're all better for it
https://vimeo.com/378218839
Up To Speed
(2018, 20 min)
Some climbers perceive speed climbing as a fringe activity, but its inclusion in the 2020
Olympics means it’s now being taken seriously. Film-maker Zachary Barr takes an in-depth
look into the sport.
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/up-to-speed-reel-rock-s05-e01
Okpilik - Inuit Nunangat Taimaannganit
(2019, 4 min)
Mary Kudlak talks about fishing in Okpilik lake near Ulukhaktok as part of the Inuit
Nunangat Taimannganit video project.
https://www.itk.ca/inuit-nunangat-taimannganit/video_archive/okpilik/
Dark Peak Fell Runners
(2019, 17 min)
The Dark Peak Fell Runners base themselves in Sheffield, but their playground is the Peak
District National Park where they weave tracks through the fields, peat bogs and rocky
outcrops to create a tapestry of eccentricity, endeavour and endurance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwTp28jbTP8
​
Chasing a Trace
(2019, 21 min)
This is a love story between a badass woman scientist and one of the most elusive wild
animals on earth set in the snowy high mountains of Western Canada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQN16cJ4mLk
Climb Your Dreams
(2019, 2 min)
The rush of life in the city inspires a dream for an escape. The nature of reality is questioned
by the contrast of what we do for a living.
https://vimeo.com/362028659
Curated by Lianne Caron
Full Moon
(2019, 6 min)
Closing lifts and the setting sun mark the end of the action for most skiers. But not for Max
Kronech and Jochen Mesle. While ski towns fall asleep they head into the mountains to
see them in a new light.
https://vimeo.com/362028659
Good Morning
(2018, 4 min)
Every day, skier Richard Permin falls into his mundane morning routine. Right after getting out
of bed, he clicks on his skis and rides down the snow covered rooftops of Avoriaz.
https://vimeo.com/305915054
The Imaginary Line
(2019, 10 min)
In an act of political solidarity, a team from Mexico and the U.S.A assemble with the sole
purpose of establishing a slackline that crosses the border between them. In a world that is
constantly tearing us apart, they come together to cross an imaginary line and tell a
different story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkG7koiNiq4
Age of Ondra
(2018, 47 min)
On the heels of a historic 5.15d ascent, we follow climber Adam Ondra from his home in the
Czech Republic, across Europe to North America, as he innovates new training methods,
establishes upper echelon first ascents, and attempts to be the first person to send 5.15 on
the first try.
Part one: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/age-of-ondra-part-1-reel-rock-s5-e2
Part two: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/age-of-ondra-part-2-reel-rock-s5-e3
Part three: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/age-of-ondra-part-3
Thabang
(2019, 13 min)
Thabang Madiba somehow found his way into the world of trail running and in the last few
years has become everyone’s favourite in the South African trail scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0NR4Qqje4A
The Redstone Pack
(2018, 5 min)
What began as an impromptu leap into the world of dog sledding, Aaron Natoniewski’s
methodical approach to the sport and understanding of his dogs has inspired a team of
sled hounds unlike any other.
https://vimeo.com/293860988
Curated by Lianne Caron
​
We Are Abel
(2018, 8 min)
We Are Abel features the story of a Gwich’in father who is standing against reckless plans
to industrialize the Arctic Refuge and not only fight for his culture’s existence, but also for
his son’s ability to know that culture fully.
https://vimeo.com/341401643
The River’s Call
(2019, 8 min)
The River’s Call follows seven kayakers through the deep canyons and challenging whitewater
of the Rio Apurimac the farthest source of the Amazon in the heart of the Andes.
https://vimeo.com/325319778
The Ladakh Project
(2019, 13 min)
Seven days, three rivers, one woman. This is the story of Nouria Newman’s solo kayak
adventure in the Indian Himalaya.
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/ladakh-project-nouria-newman-kayaks-india-rivers-interactive-s
t ory
The Flip
(2019, 3 min)
French skydiver Remi Angeli must face his fears in order to explore new expressions of
movement while BASE jumping in Mexico. On the other side of his fear he discovers life in
its purest form.
https://vimeo.com/390490875
Kai Jones - Far Out
(2018, 6 min)
Eleven-year-old Kai Jones isn’t old enough to go to the movies alone or order a sandwich at the
pub, but in the mountains age doesn’t matter. He is following in his family’s ski tracks...right
into backflips and tricks off of cliffs.
https://www.tetongravity.com/video/ski/11-year-old-skis-jackson-holes-gnarliest-terrain
Every Mystery I’ve Lived
(2019, 24 min)
At the end of 2017, rookie slopestyle MTB rider Emil Johansson was on top of the world. In his
first full season, he was crowned FMB World Tour champion as a teenager only for his world
to crumble around him with a mystery illness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnicW-F52n4
Eclipse
(2015, 32 min)
Photographer Reuben Krabbe is someone captivated by the solar eclipse, and so in March 2015
he set out to take a photo of a skier during this infrequent occurrence in the northern
Curated by Lianne Caron
archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. The story of this demanding expedition was documented by
Salomon in partnership with Switchback Entertainment and won Best Film: Snow Sports at the
Banff Mountain Film Festival.
http://tv.salomon.com/story/eclipse#overlay
Charge
(2019, 5 min)
Four top freeskiers and a world champion drone pilot are dropped at Chatter Creek, BC for
one week. Their instructions: charge as hard as you can every day.
http://tv.salomon.com/story/charge#overlay
​
Liv Along the Way
(2018, 23 min)
Since she first summited Mont Blanc as a teen, Liv Sansoz knew she would make her life in the
mountains. She was twice crowned World Champion in sport climbing, and eventually
expanded her professional horizons to mixed climbing, ski mountaineering, and base jumping.
In 2017, at 40 years old, Liv set out from her base in Chamonix, France to attempt to climb all
82 4000m peaks in the European Alps in a single year. As she’s learned several times
throughout her life, things don’t always go as planned.
http://tv.salomon.com/channel/hiking-mountaineering#overlay/livalongtheway
Frozen Mind
(2018, 33 min)
Together with his old friend Pierre Hourticq, snowboarder Victor de le Rue tries to write a new
story in the iconic mountains near Chamonix. Frozen Mind is not just a freeride film, it is a
story of friendship and a journey of discovery as the two men take unique paths in order to
conquer the same objectives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axNnKy-jfWw
The 7 Stages of Blank
(2019, 42 min)
Blank Collective films takes you on a journey through The 7 Stages of Blank, a lighthearted
look into the bond that develops around the sport of skiing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSK-f5ES0i4
Circle of the Sun
(2019, 5 min)
Steep mountains, the ocean, the sun, and the aurora borealis. One rotation of the sun high in
the Arctic on skis equals one day of magic.
https://vimeo.com/344890300
Curated by Lianne Caron
Safe Haven
(2018, 8 min)
Founded on the belief that everyone is welcome, Memphis Rox opened a climbing gym to be
at the center of the city's revitalization. Watch and if you are interested to learn more about
Memphis Rox.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYjVzoxIkdI
Camel Finds Water
(2019, 8 min)
Trevor found the hull of an abandoned fishing boat in a field. He brought it home and built it
back to a sea-worthy state over the course of a summer. Then, he took it on its maiden voyage
to British Columbia in search of waves.
https://vimeo.com/328771728
This Land
(2019, 10 min)
Runner and advocate Faith E. Briggs used to run through the streets of Brooklyn every morning.
Now, she’s running 150 miles through three U.S. National Monuments that lay in the thick of the
controversy around public lands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3dxCJK5BaQ&list=RDCMUC4qZJvaF8JKHFJzC_6lXWbg
& start_radio=1&t=5
Beneath the Ice
(2019, 16 min)
Canadian Will Gadd uses his unparalleled ice climbing skills and knowledge to lead a
scientific exploration into uncharted territory inside of the Greenland ice sheet.
https://www.redbull.com/ca-en/films/beneath-the-ice
​
Aziza
(2018, 6 min)
Set in the streets of Bou Tharar and the wide, craggy valleys of the lower Atlas mountains,
Aziza is the story of a young woman who has thrived in the world of ultra-running and how she
has become a role model for other up-and-coming athletes in Morocco.
https://vimeo.com/286846186
Standing Man
(2019, 13 min)
Cyclist Payson McElveen attempts to break the current fastest known time on the grueling
160 km White Rim Road in Canyonlands National Park.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La8-Qqio0rU
Curated by Lianne Caron
Eli
(2019, 5 min)
As a rancher growing up in the rugged northeast corner of the Navajo Nation with no electricity
or running water, Eli Neztsosie learned through years of work what it meant to rely on
discipline and endurance. Now he relies on these same skills, running long distances— striving
every day, in his words, to be better than he was the day before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l16tuTE99vA
A Nordic Skater
(2018, 5 min)
A Nordic Skater is the very first film about this little known sport. It features Per Sollerman, a
photographer who has been skating on frozen lakes and fjords for the past 10 years. During 6
captivating minutes, the viewer is transported to the region of Oslo to have a peek at a story of
a man who uses every sense he has to travel on thin ice.
https://vimeo.com/297673643
Out on a Limb
(2019, 21 min)
Engineer Kai Lin teams up with climber Craig DeMartino to design a badass prosthetic foot,
which if they succeed won’t just level the playing field, but will dish up, if not superpowers, then
a real sense of empowerment, which is almost the same thing.
https://mojagear.com/videos/2019/08/16/limb-prosthetic-climbing-craig-demartino/
Spirit
(2019, 20 min)
An intimate story of longing and belonging in India’s sacred mountains. Spirit explores what
it takes to make a home in a remote community in the thralls of change.
https://vimeo.com/369505425
Solstice
(2019, 4 min)
A skier’s tribute to the shortest day of the year when the sun arcs low over the horizon and
the ice crystals linger in the air. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTPovRc6OoM
Narics
(2019, 19 min)
In the midst of Kosovo, an area that’s been haunted by war and ethical conflicts, Elias Elhardt
discovers the small ski resort Brezovica.Snowboard enthusiast Hamdi is one of the locals
that now wants to breathe new life into this special place. He guides Elias through this
forgotten world and reflects on the question, how a future can be built if the past still weighs
so heavily.
https://vimeo.com/383514704
Curated by Lianne Caron
​
Valley of the Moon
(2018, 21 min)
Valley of the Moon explores the importance of climbing as a way to cross cultural barriers,
build friendship and chase adventure in one of the most breathtaking regions of the earth.
https://vimeo.com/299057800
The Legend of Rafael
(2019, 7 min)
A beautiful story about the power of two wheels and a community built through bicycling. After
a devastating breakup, Rafael finds solitude and restoration on the open road, pedaling his way
to emotional health from Mexico City to northern Colorado. With just $500 to his name, he
spearheads a revolution to help the underprivileged members of his new neighborhood the best
way he knows how—repairing their bicycles. https://vimeo.com/333580941
Over Time - Sammy C
(2019, 7 min)
Filmed purley in the heart of the BC backcountry, Over Time - Sammy C features the best
shots from a full winter with pro skier Sammy Carlson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVXJ2E41_xE
Wallmapu
(2018, 6 min)
The Pehuenche people of present-day Chile speak Mapudungun: ‘the language of the land.’
This land, their universe, is known as Wallmapu. Two skiers enter, into a breathtaking creation
of ancient Araucaria trees, looming volcanoes, and windblown snow.
https://vimeo.com/306295979
Chasing the Sublime
(2018, 6 min)
Why do we put ourselves into the path of discomfort and risk? What drives us to get too cold
and too tired, to battle with fear, in the name of adventure? Follow the originators of The
Outdoor Swimming Society, ‘swim twins’ Kate Rew and Kari Furre, in this hauntingly beautiful
glimpse at the physicality of UK cold water swimming, as two friends set out to chase the
sublime. https://vimeo.com/292071219
The Running Pastor
(2019, 8 min)
Sverri is a local Pastor and avid runner who uses his time on the trails to work through not
only his own personal conflicts, but the conflicts of others he often is burdened with.
https://vimeo.com/340472874
Curated by Lianne Caron
BMX Nigeria
(2019, 13 min)
BMX street is one of the most frequently evolving sports in the world and, in Nigeria, a group
of local riders are reinventing riding at a grassroots level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDZpsjtfYuY
The Shepherdess
(2018, 6 min)
A brutal drought is gripping the Southwest and the Navajo reservation especially hard,
threatening traditional shepherds and a way of life going back generations.
https://www.katiefalkenberg.com/#/shepherdess/
Silence
(2018, 18 min)
What does it take to climb the world’s first 9c? Let’s find out in Silence, a movie by Bernardo
Giménez. It shows what preceded the afternoon of September 3, 2017 when Adam Ondra, a
professional rock climber and currently one of the best climbers in the world, made a little piece
​
of climbing history when he climbed his project in the spectacular Hanshelleren Cave in
Norway. The route, later named Silence, received a new grade of 9c and became the hardest
route in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRTNHDd0gL8
Ice & Palms
(2018, 32 min)
The documentary follows skiers Jochen Mesle and Max Kroneck on their most ambitious
ski tour yet. A 100% self powered adventure from southern Germany all the way to the
mediterranean sea.
https://vimeo.com/319200353
Sacred Strides
(2018, 12 min)
Bears Ears National Monument is a public land under threat. In 2018, a group of Native
American tribes put their differences aside and ran 1280 km to Bears Ears to send a message
of unity.
https://vimeo.com/283490560
Hourya
(2018, 10 min)
Fly Above the ancient sands of the Moroccan coastline. Let your spirit soar with lightness
and the feeling of Hourya.
https://vimeo.com/289029793
Curated by Lianne Caron
FAST HORSE
(2018, 14 min)
FAST HORSE follows the return of the Blackfoot bareback horse racing tradition in a new form:
the Indian Relay. Siksika horseman Allison Red Crow struggles to build a team with
second-hand horses and a new jockey, Cody Big Tobacco, to take on the best riders in the
Blackfoot Confederacy at the Calgary Stampede.
https://vimeo.com/358170802
The Moment
(2017, 74 min)
In the backwoods of British Columbia, three small but dedicated crews of adventure
seekers were quietly changing the course of a sport and carving their paths in history. The
Moment captures the birth and success of the original freeride mountain bike movement.
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/films/the-moment
For the Love of Mary
(2018, 6 min)
When 97-year-old runner George Etzweiler dons his lucky ancient green running shorts, he’s
not just running to the summit of Mt Washington, he carries something special with him: the
memory of his late wife of 68 years.
https://vimeo.com/273611679
Break on Through
(2017, 26 min)
Margo Hayes, a little-known 19 year old from Boulder Colorado, has moved to Europe to train
and climb with the goal of succeeding on two of the most iconic 5.15s in France and Spain. But
by pushing her body and mind to the absolute limit, she risks injury and failure in her quest to
be the first.
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/break-on-through-reel-rock-s04-e01
Life of Glide
(2017, 16 min)
Big Mountain rider Jeremy Jones dissects his lifelong passion for the simple sacred feeling
​
he calls “The Glide.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edYSL913rHI
Brothers of Climbing
(2017, 7 min)
How can you be what you can’t see? Mikhail Martin, co-founder of Brothers of Climbing said, “I
literally typed, ‘Are there black climbers?’ in Google ... someone said, ‘black people don’t
climb.'”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LWq5s-s4pY
Curated by Lianne Caron
Ride of the Dead
(2017, 12 min)
Enter into the world of Oaxacan mountain bike culture during Mexico’s famous annual
celebration known as Dia De Los Muertos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXR86vHUNU
Holocene
(2018, 12 min)
Join two riders from Japan as they dive into the cultural history of the dolomites clattering
up Via Ferratas and shredding down couloirs along the way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Yqf9Mn_ZY
Beautiful Idiot
(2018, 15 min)
Beautiful Idiot takes you on a ride through the mindset and motivations of those who feel
driven to pursue greatness, how it can feel to fall short, and the consequences of reaching a
lofty goal when the struggle to get there has defined you for so long. Featuring professional
freeride mountain bike rider Brett Rheeder.
https://vimeo.com/282402702
Perspectives | India
(2018, 5 min)
Professional mountain bike athlete and artist Micayla Gatto adventures to the Indian
Himalayas to experience the culture with her unique artistic perception.
https://freehubmag.com/videos/perspectives-india
Inside the Indus - A Pakistani Odyssey
(2017, 27 min)
An international team of kayakers heads to Pakistan to attempt a descent of the fabled Rondu
Gorge, on the Indus river. Hidden behind a wall of political and security factors meant it had
been eight years since the last expedition had ventured into the gorge.
https://www.facebook.com/twelveproductions/videos/inside-the-indus-a-pakistani-odyssey/22
4 8154562075004/
Skier Vs Drone
(2018, 4 min)
2018 Olympic Bronze Medalist skier racer, Victor Muffat-Jeandet, faces off against 2x World
Drone Racing Champion, Jordan Temkin, in a dual GS race to see who is the fastest down
the mountain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_Fx2MwCB0
Curated by Lianne Caron
The Faction Collective Presents: La Grave
(2018, 17 min)
Sam Anthamatten and Johnny Collinson travel to La Grave to push the limits of steep skiing
and discover what makes La Grave so unique - a mythic freeride location where time stops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkinG08IoKk
​
Children of the Columbia: A Skier’s Odyssey
(2018, 20 min)
A cultural ski journey up the historically-charged waters of the Columbia River in interior
British Columbia.
https://vimeo.com/330851467
The Sky Piercer
(2018, 44 min)
Snow athletes Sam Smoothy, Xavier De Le Rue, Nadine Wallner and Fraser McDougall take
on the challenge of skiing down New Zealand’s highest mountain, the notorious Mount Cook
(Aoraki). Will extreme weather and icy conditions defeat them?
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/films/the-sky-piercer-2019-23-10
The Lorax Project
(2018, 35 min)
Six friends embark on a determined quest to climb and then BASE jump ‘The Lorax’, a
formidable climb in remote western Tasmania. Surrounded by some of the most pristine
wilderness in all of Australia, they contend with extreme weather and rugged terrain, relying on
each other’s skills and a bit of humour to reach their goal. https://vimeo.com/310331133
Escape
(2018, 8 min)
JaBig, a Montreal-based DJ, buys a bike on a whim and decides to attempt to beat the record
for the longest continuous bike ride in a single country. What’s more, he’ll ride a single-speed,
fixed-gear bicycle and finish in the winter, approaching the Arctic Ocean by way of Canada’s
northernmost continental hamlet, Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories.
https://www.mec.ca/en/explore/mec-documentary-escape
Facing Sunrise
(2017, 8 min)
While dealing with one of the darkest times of her life, processing family trauma and recovering
from injury, Azzah overhears a conversation around the question, “what do you want to do
before you die?” Inspired and energized, she rushes home and begins her bucket list. Although
she has never seen herself as much of an adventurer, she realizes she’s capable of more than
she ever imagined.
https://www.mec.ca/en/explore/facing-sunrise
Curated by Lianne Caron
Ascending Afghanistan *warning graphic content
(2016, 44 min)
Follow the first female Afghan mountaineering team as they navigate their first expedition and
fight for recognition as athletes amongst their country, culture, and families.
https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/vice-impact-ascending-afghanistan-rising-women/587674b
f f0d3f0d206a3cec6?latest=1
Brotherhood of Skiing
(2018, 10 min)
Since 1973, the National Brotherhood of Skiers has overcome barriers by bringing soul,
smiles and a party to the mountain.
https://vimeo.com/318824416
How to Run 100 Miles
(2018, 28 min)
The odds were stacked against Jayson Sime early in life: poverty, homelessness, dyslexia,
bullying. But he learned to fight. In 2017, he entered his first 100-mile mountain
ultramarathon, betting on his lifelong resilience to carry him to the finish line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC7Lh4opLsc
​
Blue Heart
(2018, 44 min)
The Balkan Peninsula is home to the last wild rivers in Europe. However, a deluge of more
than 3,000 proposed hydropower developments threaten to destroy the culture and ecology of
this forgotten region. Blue Heart, now in its first digital release, documents the battle for the
largest undammed river in Europe, Albania’s Vjosa, the effort to save the endangered Balkan
lynx in Macedonia, and the women of Kruščica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, who are
spearheading a months-long, 24/7 protest to protect their community’s only source of
drinking water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhmHByZ0Xd8
Carving Landscapes
(2018, 6 min)
Through the inspiring legacy of Mary Vaux we will venture onto the Illecillewaet
Glacier, reenacting her research and her mountain travel in the restriction of Victorian
dresses. https://vimeo.com/299359466
The Passage
(2018, 25 min)
In 1974, my 20-year-old parents and uncle Andy built their own canoes, launched them into the
Pacific, and became some of the first people in modern history to canoe from Washington to
Alaska up the Inside Passage. My brother and I grew up paddling those wooden canoes in the
Virginia rivers and the 1974 adventure became a legend in our family - shaping who we’ve
become, how we view our parents, and how our parents view themselves. In the summer of
Curated by Lianne Caron
2017, we renovated those canoes and with our aging parents completed their 1974 journey. The
Passage is a story about growing up, growing old, and the wild places that define us.
https://vimeo.com/272632802
Grizzly Country
(2018, 12 min)
After serving in the Vietnam War, author and eco-warrior Doug Peacock spent years alone in the
Wyoming and Montana wilderness observing grizzly bears. This time in the wild changed the
course of his life. With the protection of Yellowstone grizzlies now under threat, Peacock
reflects on the importance of habitat and why he continues to fight for wild causes.
https://vimeo.com/300829054
The Botanist
(2016, 20 min)
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan, a former Soviet Socialist Republic, plunged into a
devastating civil war. A famine struck the mountainous region of the Pamir where Raïmberdi,
a passionate and ingenious botanist, built his own hydroelectric station to help his family
survive through the crisis.
https://vimeo.com/267165412
Surviving the Outback
(2018, 57 min)
Could you survive alone across hundreds of kilometers of remote outback for a whole
month, trekking and sailing on a makeshift raft, with nothing but a time capsule of antique
stuff from 1932? Mike wasn’t sure he could pull it off either!
https://tubitv.com/movies/497254/surviving_the_outback
The Mirnavator
(2017, 11 min)
Ultra-runners overcome obstacles on every trail. In this film, Force of Nature Mirna
Valerio overcomes the negative voices that don’t believe she belongs in the sport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5-CSQcYeXk
Ski Photographer
​
(2018, 9 min)
Drawn to the mountains in search of the ski bum lifestyle, Oskar Enander had no intention of
ever becoming a photographer. Is his affinity for cold stark places driven by his color
blindness? Or is it place that has formed his aesthetic?
https://vimeo.com/300544856
Curated by Lianne Caron
My Mom Vala
(2017, 10 min)
Life has a way of putting us where we need to be. For Vala, that’s in both Greenland – where
she works at her family’s fishing lodge – and Reykjavík, where she teaches her daughter how to
do it all on her own, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERjQ7hcVxus
AMO
(2017, 7 min)
Amo; in the native Rapa Nui Language means, to carry on ones shoulders. Easter Island is a
place known the world across in myth and legend, but the people who call it home and the
unique culture that they embody is often overlooked as the most valuable piece of the islands
estranged story. In this short film, Heu Rapa Haoa, native born Rapa Nui and one of 800
remaining people left in the world who speak his native tongue fluently, tells his story of the
island, the stone heads that brought Easter Island renowned, and in what he sees for his future
and in that the future of his people the culture that defines them.
https://vimeo.com/254442752
Surface
(2018, 7 min)
In a photographic niche defined by familiar angles, Ben Thouard is driven by his desire to
create something original in surf photography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeONe9teVWw
The Frenchy
(2018, 14 min)
Jacques is an 82-year-old badass athlete, but the real story is how he inspires us with his
contagious love of life, epic tales of survival and his ability to counter aging through
laughter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhfipv8LXRg
Dreamride 3
(2018, 6 min)
Inspired by a Dr. Seuss narrative, this mountain bike film is sure to take you places like no
other. https://vimeo.com/266377015
Treeline
(2018, 40 min)
Through a cinematic exploration of three extraordinary tree communities, Treeline brings forests
alive on screen, illuminating the reciprocal bond between humanity and nature - a relationship
we can’t survive without - and asks what responsibility we have to protect the exceptional
forests that remain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCEaYInJbos
Curated by Lianne Caron
The Wolf Pack
(2018, 12 min)
The Braford-Lefebrve family lives to run and runs to live. Without cell phones or any
modern worry, the wolf pack roams the mountains around Silverton CO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I83E6jSHBs4
​
Danny Macaskill: Danny Daycare
(2019, 4 min)
In his latest film Danny Macaskill takes on some child care the only way he knows how... by
taking them for a wee bike ride around Scotland!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj0CmnxuTaQ#action=share
Electric Greg
(2019, 20 min)
Record-breaking mountain endurance athlete Greg Hill has never shied away from a goal.
Through his time spent in the mountains, he's seen the effects of climate change first-hand and
came to realize the way he was approaching the mountains was only making the problem
worse. Two years ago he changed his approach and set out to climb 100 peaks without burning
any fossil fuels. But the question is: will it make a difference?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTL5l4CcBdE&feature=youtu.be
Defiance
(2019, 13 min)
The path of progression is paved with acts of defiance. Leanne Pelosi, Jake Blauvelt, and
Victor de Le Rue take the stage in British Columbia in a showcase of shred.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUN-2fAgp0A&feature=youtu.be
Par For The Course
(2019, 4 min)
Mirna Valerio takes on her first ever sky race at the 4th annual Broken Arrow Sky Race. Mirna
navigated the rocky, exposed ridge lines, steep climbs and snow filled descents of Squaw
Valley with an attitude unlike any other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13kb8geCNNc&feature=youtu.be
The Motivator
(2018, 4 min)
Filmmaker Aaron Hitchins turns his camera on the person who has motivated him to lead a life
connected to the outdoors: his mother, Maureen. He wishes he were half as active as she is,
and her commitment to rediscovering herself is inspirational.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpLt8ThtOFc&feature=youtu.be

Published in Complete Works and Other Stories (University of Texas Press, 1995):

FINISHED SYMPHONY

And I could tell you,” the fat man interjected in a rush, “that three years ago in Guatemala an old organist in a neighborhood church told me that in 1929 when he was asked to catalogue the music manuscripts in La Merced he suddenly found some unusual pages that intrigued him and he began to study them with his usual devotion and because the notes in the margins were written in German it took him a long time to realize they were the two final movements of the Unfinished Symphony so I could just imagine his feelings when he saw Schubert’s signature written clearly and when he ran out to the street in great excitement to tell everyone of his discovery they laughed and said he had lost his mind and wanted to trick them but since he was a master of his craft and knew with certainty that the last two movements were as excellent as the first two he did not lose heart but swore instead to devote the rest of his life to making people admit the validity of his discovery and that was why from then on he dedicated himself to methodically visiting every musician in Guatemala with such awful results that after fighting with most of them and without saying anything to anybody least of all his wife he sold his house and went to Europe and once he was in Vienna it was even worse because they said no Guatemalan Leiermann was going to teach them how to find lost works least of all ones by Schubert whose scholars were all over the city and how could those pages have ended up so far from home until almost desperate and with only enough money for his return passage he met a family of elderly Jews who had lived in Buenos Aires and spoke Spanish and listened to him very attentively and became very agitated when God knows how they played the two movements on their piano viola and violin and at last grew tired of examining the pages every which way and smelling them and holding them up to the light that came in through the window and finally found themselves obliged to admit at first very quietly and then with great shouts they’re by Schubert! they’re by Schubert! and began to cry in despair on each other’s shoulders as if instead of finding the pages they had just lost them and I would have been amazed at how they continued to cry although they calmed down a little and after talking among themselves in their own language tried to convince him as they rubbed their hands together that the movements excellent as they were added nothing to the value of the symphony just as it was and on the contrary one could say they detracted from it since people had grown used to the legend that Schubert tore them up or did not even try to write them certain he would never surpass or even equal the quality of the first two and the pleasure lay in thinking if this is how the allegro and the andante are what must the scherzo and the allegro ma non troppo be like and if he really respected and revered the memory of Schubert the most intelligent thing would be to allow them to keep the music because besides the fact that there would be an endless polemic the only one who would lose anything would be Schubert and then convinced he could never achieve anything among the philistines much less the admirers of Schubert who were even worse he sailed back to Guatemala and one night during the crossing under a full moon shining against the foaming sides of the ship with the deepest sadness and sick of fighting bad people and good he took the manuscript and ripped the pages one by one and threw the pieces overboard until he was certain that now no one would ever find them again”—the fat man concluded in a certain tone of affected melancholy—“while great tears burned his cheeks and he thought bitterly that neither he nor his country would ever claim the glory of having returned to the world those pages that the world should have received with so much joy but which the world with so much common sense had rejected.”

THE CENTENNIAL

“Which reminds me,” I said, “of the story of the ill-fated Swede, Orest Hanson, the tallest man in the world—in his time. These days the record he set is frequently broken.
In 1892 he made a well-deserved tour of Europe to display his height of eight feet, one inch. The journalists, with the imagination that distinguishes them, called him the Giraffe Man.
Imagine. Since the weakness of his joints made any effort almost impossible, in order for him to eat, one of his relatives had to climb to the branches of a tree and place special little meatballs, with small pieces of beet sugar for dessert, into his mouth. Another relative tied his shoes for him. And still another was always on the lookout for the moment when Orest would need to pick up some object that by accident or because of his peculiar clumsiness had slipped through his fingers and fallen to the ground. Orest looked at the clouds and allowed himself to be waited on. His kingdom, in fact, was not of this world, and you could see in his sad, distant eyes a persistent nostalgia for earthly things. In his heart of hearts he felt a special envy for dwarfs, and he always dreamed of trying with no success to reach doorknobs and of breaking into a run as he used to in the afternoons of his childhood.
His fragility reached incredible extremes. When he walked along the street, each step made even the Scandinavians fear a spectacular fall. In time his parents showed signs of a greedy pragmatism that deserved the harshest criticism; they decided that Orest would go out only on Sundays, preceded by his Uncle Erick and followed by the servant Olaf, who passed his hat for the coins that sentimental souls thought they were obliged to pay for that show of gravitational danger. His fame grew.
But it is true that happiness is never perfect. Little by little, an irresistible love for those coins began to filter into Orest’s childish soul. His genuine passion for minted metal eventually caused his downfall and proved to be the reason for his strange end, as you will see in due course.
Barnum made him a professional. But Orest did not feel the artistic vocation, and the circus interested him only as a source of money. His aristocratic spirit, however, could not bear the smell of the lions or the fact that people pitied him. He said goodbye to Barnum.
At the age of nineteen, he measured seven feet, eleven inches. Then came a period of quiescence, and it was not until the age of twenty-five that he reached his full height of eight feet, one inch, which he maintained until his death. This is how the discovery was made. Invited to London by the gracious command of their British Majesties, he went to the English consulate in Stockholm to obtain a visa. The English consul, being the man he was, received him with no great show of surprise, dared to ask his height and weight, and doubted he was eight feet tall. When the measuring stick revealed that his height was eight feet, one inch, the consul made the serene gesture that means “I told you so.” Orest said nothing. He went to the window in silence and spent long moments bitterly contemplating the rough sea and calm blue sky.
From that time on, the curiosity of European monarchs increased his income. In a short while he became one of the richest giants on the Continent, and his fame reached even the Patagonians, the Yaquis, and the Ethiopians. In the magazine that Rubén Darío edited in Paris, you can see two or three photographs of Orest smiling beside the most celebrated personalities of the time—graphic documents that the great poet published on the tenth anniversary of the artist’s death in a homage as deserved as it was posthumous.
Suddenly his name disappeared from the newspapers.
But despite all the plotting and scheming to keep secret the causes that contributed to his unexpected end, we know today that he died tragically in Mexico during the Centennial Celebration, which he attended as an official guest. The causes were twenty-five fractures suffered when he bent down to pick up a gold coin (a “centennial,” as a matter of fact) which the obscure Chihuahuan, Silvestre Martín, henchman of Don Porfirio Díaz, threw at him in an outburst of vulgar patriotic enthusiasm.

COW

While I was traveling on the train the other day, I suddenly stood up, happy on my own two feet, and began to wave my hands with joy and invite everyone to look at the scenery and see the twilight that was really glorious. The women, the children, and some gentlemen who interrupted their conversation all looked at me in surprise and laughed; when I quietly sat down again, there was no way for them to know what I had just seen at the side of the road: a dead, a really dead cow moving past slowly with no one to bury her or edit her complete works or deliver a deeply felt and moving speech about how good she had been and all the streams of foaming milk she had given so that life in general and the train in particular could keep on going.

YOU TELL SARABIA THAT I SAID HE SHOULD HIRE HER AND PLACE HER HERE OR WHEREVER, THAT I’LL EXPLAIN LATER

It is known that the ancient gentiles worshiped the vilest, most contemptible brutes. The goat was the deity of one nation, the tortoise of another, of a third, the beetle, of a fourth, the fly.
FEIJOO, CRITICAL THEATER OF THE WORLD
To the memory of the Wright Brothers
It was late when the civil servant decided to follow the flight of the fly again. And the fly, as if he knew himself to be the object of scrutiny, took great pains in the programmed execution of his acrobatics, buzzing to himself but always aware that he was a common ordinary housefly, and that among the many possible ways he could shine, buzzing could not compare to the increasingly wide and elegant circles he was flying around the civil servant who, on seeing them, remembered dimly but insistently and as if he were denying it all to himself how he had been obliged to circle around other civil servants in order to reach his present high position, and without making too much noise either, and perhaps with less joy and more somersaults but with a little more brilliance if brilliance is what you could call, with no sarcasm, what he had achieved before and during his ascent to the heights of public office.
Then, overcoming the sultry heat, he went to the window, opened it firmly, and with two or three brusque movements of his right hand and forearm, forced the fly to leave. Outside, the warm breeze gently shook the treetops, while in the distance the last golden clouds sank definitively to the bottom of the afternoon.
Back at his desk, exhausted by his efforts, he pressed one of five or six buttons and, leaning comfortably on his left elbow (thanks to a clever mechanism in the swivel chair), waited to hear
“Yes sir?”
so that he could order, almost at the same time
“Have Carranza come in”
whom he quickly saw half-serious, half-smiling, pushing
the door in
coming in
and then turning his back tactfully to bend over the knob to close the door again with all necessary care so that it would make no noise except the slight inevitable click that doors make when they are closed and, turning around immediately, as he usually did, he heard
“Do you have Payroll C handy?”
and answered
“Not really handy but I can bring it in five minutes; you look exhausted; what’s wrong?”
and came back in less than three with a sheet wider than it was blue which the civil servant glanced at, up and down, without enthusiasm, and then raised it to the clear sky as if he wanted to fly away, fly up, fly far, grow smaller and smaller until he lost his tie and his ordinary shape and became a speck the size of a distant airplane which is the size of a fly, and then an even tinier dot, and finally he handed it back to Carranza, his friend and co-worker, who asked him, puzzled, if anything was wrong, and he heard himself answer
“No, tell Señorita Esperanza that tomorrow Señorita Lindbergh is coming in regard to the matter of the vacancy and tell her to send her to Personnel to see Sarabia. You tell Sarabia that I said he should hire her and place her here or wherever, that I’ll explain later.”

UNDER OTHER WRECKAGE

The fly buzzing around me at this moment: if it sleeps at night in order to begin its buzzing again, or if it dies tonight, and in the spring another fly, emerging from some egg laid by the first, starts to buzz—in the end it is all the same.
A. SCHOPENHAUER, THE WORLD AS WILL AND IDEA
We see this man walking anxiously up and down in front of the door of the transient hotel on Calle París in Santiago, Chile; he watches and suspects. For the last few days he has done nothing but suspect. He has looked into her eyes and suspected. He has noticed that his wife smiles at him in too normal a way, that everything either seems all right to her or doesn’t, that she does not disagree with him as much as before or disagrees with him more than before, and he has suspected. Anyone would. That’s how these situations are. Suddenly you feel something strange in the air, and you suspect. The handkerchiefs given as gifts begin to be important, and there’s always one missing and nobody knows where it is; just like that, nobody knows where it is. Then this gentleman works up his courage and goes to the hotel. He has finally decided to put an end to his doubts by being man enough to wait until he sees them coming out and then trap them, furtive and surely wearing the expression of unconcern that hides their fear of being discovered. And now, while he waits, he has crossed God knows how many times in front of the large, open, main door, walking back and forth mechanically, and it bothers him when he realizes that sometimes he feels almost no anger. Well, perhaps you have gone through this at one time or another and it is indiscreet of me to remind you, to call to mind something you have buried under other wreckage, other illusions, other films, other facts, for better or worse everything has blurred what at one time seemed to be the end of the world and today, as you know very well, you remember almost with a smile. Or you have leaned against the blue wall across the street. He was a tall, good-looking man with graying hair, about forty years old, it doesn’t matter. It was summer, he was wearing linen, he was sweating. We watched him from the second-story window of the building across the way. It was fun to spy on the couples who kept arriving. Old men with young girls. Young boys with old women. Young girls with young boys. Never old men with old women, I wonder why. Middle-aged men with middle-aged women, both men and women very calm. Experienced men with all kinds of little maids who were terrified. Liberated men with liberated women who went in laughing freely, happily, what envy we felt. Sometimes we spent a whole Sunday afternoon, Enrique, Roberto, Antonio, and I, watching them come from the side streets and go in. Or not go in. We would make bets. These two will go in. These two won’t. You lost or won because the ones you thought would go in, the ones you bet on, would walk right by only to come back and go in after ten steps when you supposed that virtue was going to enjoy one of her most sensational victories but was, happily, defeated. But getting back to this man—how sorry we felt for him. This man was suffering. He nervously watched the falsely confident exit of each couple, fearful they would be the ones he was waiting for and that in a careless moment they would get away from him, lost in the first shadows of twilight as they used to call it. Look how he cranes his neck, how he stands on tiptoe, how nervous he becomes when anyone comes out and how upset when anyone passes in front of anyone leaving. He goes from one corner to the other only to return quickly in a state of agitation. Perhaps he thinks that at this moment they have managed to elude him. It’s incredible. The man is beginning to make us feel sorry for him. If this were not our usual game, we would not have had the patience to observe him from this comfortable window for more than two hours (because it’s already seven o’clock) with no real interest in what was happening inside. But it does interest him, what’s happening inside, and he imagines and suffers and tortures himself and thinks up bloody acts of vengeance at which he stops and trembles, not knowing if from anger or from fear, although in his heart he knows it’s anger. And you and your friends from your comfortable vantage point watch and suffer and are not sure what is happening right now with your own wives and maybe that’s why this man who could be you, could be all of you, disturbs you so, as the twilight turns into night and the clerks anxious to return, who knows why, to their homes, increase in number and run laboriously for the buses and trolleys that go by, jammed with people. Finally, suddenly, you see in him an agitation that is much more intense, a nervousness, an anguish, and you realize that the supreme moment he has been waiting for has arrived and you quickly turn your eyes again to the door of the hotel and you see that the lovers are coming out and have realized what is happening, that is, he is there, and pretending to be calm they quicken their pace looking back in their minds and walking faster and holding one another by the arm they turn the corner of San Francisco and you come down quickly from your vantage point so you won’t miss what is happening and you find the man still on O’Higgins Avenue and you find him distraught, looking around, roughly pushing people out of his way, turning on his heels, searching, looking here and there, anxious, disconcerted, but now certainly tomorrow, or next Saturday, or Monday, or whenever, he will have the chance to watch when he is less distracted, not as slow as he was this afternoon when it probably wasn’t them.

PARADISE

Our flies know songs taught to them in Norway by the ganique flies that are the white goddesses of snow
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE, BESTIARY
Recently he had been coming to his office a little late, very late really but within the limits he thought the system tolerated, placed there precisely so they would not work, would not get in the way, so that he could come in late because, as he gave it some thought, the important thing was not to stay out altogether, to come in, to be there. Then the boy offered him a cup of coffee, which he accepted gratefully, since it was good to feel you were doing something, that you had something to wait for during the next three minutes, even if it was only a cup of bad coffee smelling of old, very old rats. When the secretaries told him that no one had asked for him (“no one” was different from nobody; “no one” of course meant some superior, some boss in the office hierarchy), he felt calm and confident. The morning would go by with no major anxieties, and now it was all a matter of waiting patiently for noon and then one o’clock and then half past two. But this was always an illusion. The hours are hard to chew, and like the boa with its victims it is better to salivate each one slowly, calmly, so that you can swallow it minute by minute, although in the offices you could see clearly that sometimes after each hour there is another, and then another and another, and there are still thirty minutes left over which you finally use up somehow and then you can go. Naturally you can always count on the newspaper, but you can’t spend the whole morning reading the paper. But you know your reserves and are certain that someone, the Great Someone, will be there to talk to you. Someone always listens with interest, or at least pretends to, which is no small matter—listens to your problems with interest and says yes when you need someone to say yes and no that’s not right when you need someone to disapprove of the way your wife handles money, or your children, or the papers and books you always leave around with that famous characteristic disorder of yours—you always know where everything is as long as they don’t straighten your damn desk; or maybe the movies, no, sports, even less, literature, perhaps, but not very deeply since even if you really know about most of the novels that have been written recently, especially in Latin America, which is all the rage, in fact you haven’t read them although you know, well, although you think it is your duty as a writer, but after all you can talk about them as if you really had read them, your instincts or a skimming through are enough to know where Cortázar, Vargas Llosa, García Márquez, or Lezama Lima are heading without having to work so hard especially now when not a day goes by without something new being published and there’s really no time to read everything, especially those long novels that are complicated intentionally by the authors just to show they know how to do it. Have you noticed? Have you read Paradiso? I couldn’t. You haven’t finished one thing when the next one appears. You’ve read it? No, you say jokingly, I’m still getting through Don Quixote, knowing full well you’ve never read Don Quixote, that it bores you to death as the great Lope de Vega said about Dante on his deathbed. But joking aside, no, the fact is you haven’t had time. Then you think with determination that in half an hour, when you leave, you’re going to catch up with the Spanish American novel, and you see a perfect world, a kind of Garden of Eden, where you come home and everything is ready and your wife with her pretty pink apron and her smile, that smile that never leaves her face except when she has problems, serves you your supper right away and your children are all sitting around the table quietly with “10”s in conduct and quick as a wink you eat your dessert and go to your room and pick up Paradiso and like those swimmers with big batrachian fins on their feet and oxygen on their shoulders God knows how many meters under the water in slow motion and in colors no one has ever seen before you sink into a deep marvelous reading interrupted only by your own impulses, like going to urinate, or scratching your back, or walking downstairs for a glass of water, or putting on a record, or trimming your nails, or lighting a cigarette, or looking for a shirt to wear to the cocktail party this evening, or making a phone call, or asking for some coffee, or looking out the window, or combing your hair, or contemplating your shoes, in short, all those things that make good reading—and life—so pleasant.

CHRISTMAS. NEW YEAR’S. WHATEVER

Fearing flies is the reverse side of loving birds.
OTTO WEININGER, INTIMATE JOURNAL
The cards and gifts you send and receive year after year or that we send and receive with a somewhat foolish feeling that overwhelms you or us but which slowly, because of an interweaving of memories and forgetfulness, you or we stop sending or receiving, like those trains that pass with no hope of ever passing one another again, or rather, now for self-criticism, since the comparison with trains is really not very good because you would have to be a very stupid train not to meet up again with the trains you’ve met—like those bourgeois drivers who, just because they are who they are, when they drive their cars feel free of something they cannot name if you ask them what it is and once, only once in their lives, meet up with you at a red light and you exchange foolish knowing glances with them for a moment while you discreetly but meaningfully arrange your hair or adjust your tie or check your earrings or take off or put on your glasses, depending on how you think you look best, with the melancholy suspicion or optimistic certainty that you are never going to see them again but nonetheless live that brief moment as if something important depended on it, or perhaps something not so important, that is, those fortuitous meetings, those conjunctions, just to give them a name, when nothing happens, when nothing needs explanation, when you don’t need to understand each other, when you shouldn’t understand each other, when nothing needs to be accepted or rejected, oh!

The Circumstantial or the Ephemeral [Tr by Leland H Chambers]

Collected in Contemporary Short Stories from Central America, ed. by Enrique Jaramillo Levi and L. H. Chambers (U of Tx Press, 1994):

From the first moment she saw him come in, she knew what it was about; but in any event she had to allow him to be the one who would say it. Then, waving a piece of paper in his hand, he informed her: "I won it."
"What was that?" she responded, persevering in letting him believe that she suspected nothing. Exceptionally good at her vocation, she knew that with her expectant attitude she was providing him with an extra joy. Of course, he knew that his wife knew,- but he was just as certain that in a marriage, if you don't play this game, things end up by losing interest, since in that state, by a certain point both know so essentially that if one of them is thinking of something, the other one generally is thinking that same thing, and sometimes they both even say it simultaneously, to their mutual surprise, for they always declare, How curious, I was thinking that same thing, without either one knowing exactly how, but in such a way that both end up believing and on occasion being absolutely convinced that this means they love each other, and both discuss and chat enthusiastically about the topic, and even a few minutes later each one on his or her own goes on thinking that, of course, this really does mean they love each other.
"The prize in the contest. The car."
"No!" she said, thinking, we have to celebrate, I'm going to get the ice out for the rum. And, more convinced of it than ever, she added, "I can't believe it!"
In the face of his timidity and, more than anything else, in the face of the danger that his wife might suspect that he really felt himself to be a writer, he dared to remark, "For me the important thing is having written the story and sent it in to the contest. Even though I might lose. I don't care about the car."
"Oh? even though we need one?" she thought. And she imagined herself with her neck enveloped in a woolen muffler driving down Reforma and saying goodbye to her acquaintances with a careless movement of her left hand while out of the corner of her right eye she took care that the traffic was moving along without problems. But merely to continue with the machinery of the conversation, she proposed, without emphasizing it, "Well, if you don't want it we can sell it."
"You know it's not a question of that," he said. "Of course I want it. But, aren't you tickled? See, I write the story almost without wanting to very much, just to see how it would come out, like playing, and I win the prize. What do I care about the car? Now, I would like to be able to write more, yes, to read, write."
"Then let me have it," she said. And she seriously considered that possibility, though at exactly the same moment she began to recall that whenever she was at the window of a tall building looking down at the street she was afraid to think how she would feel down there the day she herself might have to be driving along among so many cars which from above seemed to be moving all by themselves, like toys or something.
"I repeat," he said, carefully taking another glass of rum and water with ice from her hands, "that for me the car is the least of it. The good thing is that from now on I really am going to write."
"Of course you are," she said.
"I don't want to go on my whole life long just correcting proofs. But neither of us knows how to drive," he added, as if he had just now discovered this fact, staring at his new shoes.
"All right, all right, you can't drive, I can't drive, what are we going to do, hire a chauffeur?" she made a pair of declarations and asked a question, secure in the knowledge that the first was as obvious as the second was absurd and that perhaps her husband's reply would be, "Hasn't it ever occurred to you that we might learn?" while he, in the meantime adding a little rum to his glass, waxed enthusiastic about how good it was that it had all been decided and now he was going to go write even though they hadn't eaten yet and she might not like it.
But she, adding just a little bit to her own glass, maintained, "When have I ever objected? Do your own thing, that's all that matters to you. I'm going to learn, and that's all there is to it. Anyway, who knows if you could even do it, with your nerves?"
"What's wrong with my nerves?"
"Well, you should just see yourself right now."
"Right now is another thing. Okay, okay, so I'm nervous. But as far as I'm concerned I'm happy about the prize for the reason I gave you, not for the things they are going to give me. I don't think you understand that," he persisted, asking her if she wanted more rum and serving himself.
To direct the discussion she said that he knew very well that she was also happy for the same reason, but that what she was saying was only that either he would learn, or she would learn, or they both would.
"All right, then, you learn. From now on you do your thing and I'll do mine. If you want to, afterward we'll change around."
"Why do you have to be so sarcastic with me?" she said, suddenly really offended and adding that he just had an inferiority complex like the rest of his family that made him afraid to try to get ahead.
"I am not sarcastic with you," he responded. "Seriously: we'll change places if you want, from now on you write and I'll cook."
"See what I mean? What you really want is to keep me from using the car. You know very well you're never going to write because you're dying of fear, or vanity, or fear of failure, or being a success, or who knows what the hell else!" She let it ooze out, slowly and firmly, moved to cruelty by an unknown resentment and by the alcohol and filled with intent to cut really deeply.
"Are we starting again?" he questioned, certain that that was what they were doing, that they were in truth starting again.
"Yes; and hundreds of other times too, because you're so selfish." Ever since he had come in, he hadn't done anything else but talk and talk about writing without giving a damn whether she was going to drive the car or not. And, coming back to reality, hadn't something just occurred to her? Where would they put the car? She was happy to have discovered this new difficulty and also the fact that of course it would have occurred to him as well, but she kept this in reserve.
"When do they give it to you?" she added instead.
She was beginning to feel tired, as if all at once she suspected that neither she nor he were anything more than characters in something written by someone else a long time before, not motivated by any incitement, not interested in satisfying any internal needs, not attracted by any prizes.
"Between the fifteenth and the twentieth."
While he was saying it he also began to feel the likely weariness the readers of his story would be going through, as if he lacked any real existence and as if what he was thinking were actually being thought by someone else. He shook his head before adding, "You should start taking lessons now. Let's not discuss it any more. It's a good thing there's no catch."
"And what if there is?" she said. After five years of marriage to a writer, or whatever, she was well versed in the kind of conversation where what one of them thinks seriously the other says as if making a joke--and vice versa. "You guys all know each other."
Despite the fact that he was certain this was just a case of a simple wisecrack, his wife's words did not cease to make him anxious. He remembered then the joking of his friends at the office when they were discussing the possibility of entering the contest. "Isn't there a catch?" one of them said craftily. "If there's not, I'm not entering," another said with a knowing smile, and they all laughed, putting out their respective strokes of wit while they mutually recalled how those things were done. It all depended: sometimes one would win because of a friendship, others lost because of enmities, and vice versa; and on and on ad infinitum, everything being illustrated with the names of former prizewinners that left no room for the slightest doubt and that put the finishing touches to their arguments. And then came all the slighting remarks about the obstacles found in the very rules of the contest, they were so vague and, apart from their vagueness, so funny. "The theme should have to do with any situation or development of events among persons or institutions, and these can take place when the satisfaction of needs is more than fulfilled, to the point of excess, waste, extravagance; when available resources, especially if they are limited or modest, are appropriated to superfluousness; when, in sum, a person or many persons or even an entire country deflect their resources toward excessive purchases under the influence of lack of foresight, imitation, vanity, appearances, the circumstantial or the ephemeral, instead of putting them at the service of the production of goods." This was the "theme" of the contest. A really nice theme, don't you think?
But leaving aside things and cars, the important thing now was that he had won, and above all, that he had written something and he had sent it in without fear of failure and he had won. Wasn't that at bottom what the contest was all about? Looked at properly, what was it they were trying to develop with their contest? The country's industry in general, and especially the automotive, or just literature? He knew that, in hopes of winning, many would try to follow those outlines in their coarsest form and try to please the automobile factories or the country's industry as a whole, and would forget the objectives of their art. But with this last argument, wasn't he himself, as one might think the protagonist was doing in the story he had submitted and never thought would win, trying to have an influence on the minds of the jurors--his friends, perhaps-- by presenting them with the dilemma of deciding which side each was on, that of industry or that of literature? Again and again he repeated to himself that for him the important thing was not the prize but the fact that he had participated and won, with a worn-out joke, with the old foolishness of writing a story about the one who is writing the story, as a result of which he definitely succeeded in affirming once more that life is a foolish tale told by an idiot.
"Well, yes, probably. But not because I was after it," he said, as if coming awake again. "Why not? It could be that they realized it was mine and they liked it."
"And so?"
"And so what?
"And so what, what?
" Oh. The car. You take it. I tell you seriously, it doesn't matter to me."
"You see what I mean? Although you still don't want to accept the idea that the only thing that matters to you is the car, because you're a selfish person. All right then, take it and give it away to some whore," she said, thinking she would make him understand once again that what he liked were women who got money out of him, who deceived him, who were not as good as she was, and raising her voice a little, not with the idea that he should hear better but in order to draw his attention away from the fact that she was beginning to pour herself another glass.
"Do whatever you want with it," he responded in the same way, pouring one for himself too, and looking absent-mindedly at the shoes he had just bought and that he had been taking off because it had been a long time since he had broken in a new pair of shoes and his feet were burning. "Throw it away, give it away, sell it!"
While she was drinking her rum, she was thinking, he's all worked up, he always gets this way, he has to demonstrate that he is the stronger, that material things don't matter to him; that what he wants is to write, and that I should admire him for this, and I should love him not for what he has but for what he can do altruistically; that I should understand, and I do understand it, that he would be ready to let himself to be killed over this literature nonsense, or over a painting, or all those kinds of things that people rightly admire--but who would go so far as to think of doing the same over a war or particularly over the stupidities that others spend their time with, business or whatever. But of course what she answered was, "Oh, of course, that's what I'm going to do: buy what I can't have if my sister doesn't give me her throwaways, just to humiliate me, or if your friends don't do you the favor of granting you a prize."
She wasn't going to do anything like this, nor did she feel humiliated in the least, but in discussions of this sort that was the way one answered, even though what was inspiring the other was desire, or love, or tenderness perhaps, though one never knew why it was that all this was almost always blended with hatred.
"All right, let's not discuss it any more," he said. "Either you are married to a good writer or to a fool."
Just the opposite of what he thought, which was the latter, she was sure that in reality he was the former. But partly because they were beginning to get hungry and partly so as not to give any more importance to what each one was thinking at that moment, they made their way to the kitchen to look for something to eat. Once there, a silence occurred in the middle of which, while they were slowly chewing and with difficulty swallowing a little bread with some ham, since it wasn't a question of preparing a real supper, they thought about cars that were red or blue or any color really, and about new shoes, and long avenues filled with cars, and awful galley proofs, and garages for cars where one could leave them safely overnight, and literary reviews in which one's name appeared immortalized by a prize, and discussions enlivened by alcohol, and how you had to carry through with them and never give in, and love, and sex, and sentences of reconciliation, and who would be the first to say them, until the ham was finished, along with a couple more glasses, he said thank you, and she answered, you're welcome, both in the indifferent tone of voice of people who had never seen each other before this, after which he declared, with an air of determination or decisiveness, I am going to go write, and he got up and made his way to their room and sat down in front of his tiny writing desk and while she was getting undressed in front of him and into bed he took out a piece of paper and, pen in hand, stared at it for a long time, as if hypnotized by the color white, until she in her turn, after a long while of serious thought or, as can be imagined, serious examination of conscience, asked him from the bed, half imperiously and half in supplication, feeling herself abandoned and depressed as on most nights when he applied himself to that, "Aren't you coming?"
In general, at eleven-thirty at night one finds oneself more than weary of work, galley proofs, breaking in new shoes, the office, friends, oneself, arguing, eating ham on bread, winning prizes, one's own enthusiasm; apart from which, at that hour the alcohol makes one feel the next day will not only be less difficult but the glorious future a great deal easier, so that, thinking about the fresh white bedsheets and what awaited him within them, he responded in a conciliatory and hopeful tone while quickly tossing down a final shot, "Oh, yes."