From Colin Bruce Shanner
Fantastic that you mentioned the great Kaz Deyna.
As you may well know, he moved to the states to play NASL with the San Diego Sockers. He went on to win many indoor soccer championships.
He and the lovely Irishman Brian Quinn were my coaches from ages 10-14 of our youth traveling soccer team. Kaz was a fabulous player with a surgical left foot like Liam Brady.
As always, thanks for the memories.
PS. Don’t know if you knew this or not. Sad end…
Myles says:
I didn’t know Deyna died at 41, Colin, or that he played in the NASL.
Didn’t know Alan Hudson did either until a few months ago, via a journo friend who has lunch with Alan from time to time.
I’m excited by Klopp but think it will take him at least a year to get Liverpool playing the whirlwind football that blows opponents away.
WOW! YOU WERE COACHED BY DEYNA!
From Colin:
Amazing, right? I was just a kid, but was mesmerized by his touch.
Kazie is what he had us call him. He commanded the ball as if by remote control. He would curl in goals from the corner flag for us for fun.
Few kids knew how great he was, but I remember my English grandad over on summer holidays telling me Kaz Deyna was one of the 3 very best players in the entire world at one time. Chilling stuff. He was playful with us kids but has an innate inner sadness about him. As I grew up and met people from the old eastern bloc, I recognized the same sadness.
Yes, Klopp is a fantastic character. Just what we need, if only the despot would relinquish his throne.
Speaking of Dortmund, one of my favorite memories of watching a match was the red and whites vs. Sammer’s Borussia, led by Rosicky and Koller. The atmosphere in the Westfalen with it’s huge stand, flags and Wagnerian hymns was spine tingling stuff…the plane to Koln and the bus ride to the match through the Ruhr valley, the industrial heart of Germany, with an old WWII RAF Hurricane and Spitfire pilot, and lifelong Arsenal supporter, was equally spine-tingling.
The keeper for the black and yellow on that cold late October night in the Ruhr valley back in 2002 was none other than: MAD JENS
I was sat right above the goal in the away end with all the other gooners as we watched this strange tall character’s’distinctive pre-match stretching and yoga routine for the first of what, unbeknownst to us, would become many times.
I had been reading you daily since the late 90’s and I believe you rightly wrote that Vieira was off the boil that night and was overrun in midfield.
TH14 did his requisite disappearing act, if memory serves.