La trayectoria del equipo es imparable en la sala de trofeos desde el glorioso mes de mayo cuando cayeron de forma consecutiva el Bernabéu, Mestalla y Roma. Esta noche ganó la Supercopa de Europa después de haber alcanzado la de España, dos torneos que refrendan el triplete conseguido la temporada pasada y coronan un año mágico, único en la historia del fútbol europeo, únicamente comparable desde el punto de vista azulgrana con el mítico equipo de Les Cinc Copes de los años cincuenta. El Barça de Messi es pariente del de Kubala no sólo por las copas sino también por el fútbol. Ambos participan de la misma carta de naturaleza, juegan muy bien, tienen futbolistas extraordinarios y han forjado su leyenda a partir del culto a la cantera. Ahí está el gol del joven Pedro para certificarlo.

A dos equipos tan peloteros como el Barça y el Shakhtar es un delito que les manden a jugar una final en Mónaco. El estadio es postizo, el césped está bacheado, la cancha es estrecha y no hay ambiente de fútbol por más que animen los seguidores de ambos equipos. No corren la pelota ni el aire, achicar los espacios es fácil y la gente se ahoga. Al plantel de Lucescu, además, nadie le exigía atacar ante el campeón de Europa, así que aprovechó la ocasión para formar con hasta nueve futbolistas por detrás del balón. El Shakthar se paró muy bien en su cancha, apretó hasta encimar a los azulgrana en la medular y cerró con una firme línea de cuatro, de manera que el partido se puso muy áspero para el Barcelona, siempre a disgusto cuando la contienda no tiene ritmo.

Los barcelonistas detestan el futbolín porque para ser profundos necesitan ensanchar el campo. A falta de terreno, no les quedó más remedio que perseverar en el juego, poner interés, llevar la iniciativa, ser solidarios y darle a la imaginación, para al menos ser el equipo reconocible de siempre. Alves se acercó hasta la divisoria y Touré se descolgó como tercer central para sacar el cuero desde su área cuando presionaba el adversario, hasta Messi recuperaba cuando se perdía el cuero y basculaban tanto Keita, infiltrado en la rodilla, como Henry. Los ucranios, sin embargo, no concedieron ni un tiro hasta pasada la media hora cuando se contó un duro remate de Messi, rebanado por Chigrinski, el futuro defensa azulgrana que anoche ejerció más de central que libre por las exigencias del argentino y de Ibrahimovic.

Ante el dominio del Barça, el Shakthar apeló a la táctica para contener y a las transiciones, a un fútbol tan selectivo como peligroso en ataque, por la intimidación de su pelotón de brasileños, volantes y delanteros rápidos, potentes y con interesantes detalles técnicos. La zaga azulgrana tuvo que estar siempre muy atenta mientras que los medios y delanteros nunca podían generar situaciones de superioridad en campo contrario. Había que mover el árbol y apelar a la estrategia ante tanto barroquismo futbolero. A mitad de camino, Guardiola probó con Messi de falso nueve e Ibrahimovic tirado a las bandas mientras Touré continuaba dirigiendo con precisión las maniobras.

Aunque resultaba muy complicado, no había que desesperar ni perder el sentido de equipo ni tampoco el juego colectivo por mas pesado que fuera el Shakthar. La cuestión estaba en saber cual de los dos equipos se cansaría antes en su empeño: si el equipo de Lucescu de defender o el de Guardiola de atacar. Nadie desmayó ni se acoloró hasta alcanzar el final de la prórroga después que la pelota se negara a entrar en el parco de Pyatov en un par de remates francos de Messi y un tercero de Henry. Las tornas se cambiaron en el tiempo suplementario, y tanto Puyol como Valdés mantuvieron al Barça en la final hasta que apareció Pedro y no paró hasta poner la pelota en el número exacto de la ruleta del casino de Montecarlo. Un gol tan precioso como merecido.

Ramon Besa, El Pais, 28.08.09

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/deportes/quinta/fue/heroica/elpepudep/20090828elpepudep_8/Tes

 

 

Lionel Messi, a key figure in FC Barcelona's march to UEFA Champions League glory last season, has more to celebrate after collecting the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year prize at the UEFA Club Football Awards in Monaco. The Argentinian international was also selected as Best Forward while team-mate Xavi Hernández took the Best Midfielder trophy. Manchester United FC's Edwin van der Sar was nominated Best Goalkeeper and Chelsea FC captain John Terry completed the honours list as he received his third Best Defender gong from Paolo Maldini.

Sensational season

Messi had scored Barcelona's second goal – his ninth of the 2008/09 competition – in the UEFA Champions League final against Manchester United in Rome, as the Catalan side became the first Spanish team to lift the Liga, Copa del Rey and European Champion Clubs' Cup titles in one season. If the headed goal from Messi that capped his sensational campaign was a collector's item, his presence on the scoresheet was more predictable: the 22-year-old struck 38 goals in all competitions last term.

'Important award'

Messi succeeds Cristiano Ronaldo as the Club Footballer of the Year and is the second Argentinian international to land the prize after Fernando Redondo in 2000. "It is an enormous joy to be able to receive such an important award as this," he said. "And it's also a pleasure to be able to thank all the people who voted for me and who decided I should get this award."

UEFA Official Site, 27.08.09

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/supercup/news/kind=1/newsid=877275.html

 

El camerunés Samuel Eto'o tiene cita para regresar al Camp Nou, después de que su nuevo equipo, el Inter de Milán, haya quedado incluido en el grupo F con el Barça.

Además del Inter, el club azulgrana se jugará el pase a octavos de final de la Liga de Campeones con el Dinamo de Kiev y el desconocido Rubin Kazan, vigente campeón de la Liga rusa.

El retorno de Eto'o, un aliciente

El morbo está servido en el Camp Nou, especialmente después de las últimas declaraciones de Eto'o, quien insistía en que desconocía aún por qué el Barça había decidido traspasarle.

Será la eliminatoria de los encuentros, ya que Thiago Motta también regresará al equipo que lo formó como futbolista, así como el técnico del Inter, el siempre polémico Jose Mourinho.

En el lado contrario también habrá un reencuentro, ya que los ex interistas Maxwell e Ibrahimovic se medirán a su ex equipo y volverán al Giusseppe Meazza, donde los últimos años han recogido numerosos éxitos.

El choque entre ambos conjuntos será lo más atractivo del grupo F, ya que se prevé que ambos serán los dos equipos que alcanzarán la siguiente ronda y todo quedará a expensas de quién lo hará como cabeza de serie.

En las filas del Inter, vigente campeón del Scudetto, destacan jugadores como el brasileño Maicon, los ex barcelonistas Quaresma, Motta y Eto'o, y jugadores de la talla de los brasileños Julio Cesar y Lucio, el ex madridista Wesley Sneijder, al argentino Diego Milito o el italiano Marco Materazzi.

Reencuentro con el Dynamo de Kiev

El tercer equipo con opciones a luchar por una plaza para la siguiente ronda será el Dinamo de Kiev, un viejo conocido del Barcelona con el que se ha medido en ocho ocasiones en los últimos veinte años, con tres victorias para el equipo ucraniano, cuatro para los barcelonista y un empate. De ingrato recuerdo es para el Barça el último choque entre ambos, en la temporada 1997-98, cuando el equipo azulgrana cayó por un estrepitoso 0-4 en el Camp Nou y 3-0 en Ucrania.

El Dinamo, vigente campeón de Liga, es el verdadero dominador del torneo ucraniano, con 13 trofeos desde que se fundó a principios de los noventa, aunque en los últimos diez años ha compartido sus éxitos con el Shakhtar Donetsk.

Igor Sakis, presidente del Dinamo, cambió de técnico esta temporada, al contratar al veterano Valeriy Gazzaev, aunque no pudo conseguir la repatriación de Andrei Shevchenko, aún en el Chelsea.

El Rubin Kazan, todo un desconocido

El equipo entrenado por Kurban Berdyyev es el vigente campeón de la liga rusa, tras sorprender la pasada temporada a los grandes favoritos al título: el Zenit de San Petersburgo y el CSKA de Moscú.

En sus filas milita el central ex jugador del Gimnàstic de Tarragona y del Racing de Santander, César Navas, y sus estrellas son el delantero argentino Alejandro Domínguez, el centrocampista turco Karadeniz Gökdeniz y el máximo goleador del equipo, el ruso Bujárov.

El club, fundado en 1958, ha vivido en los últimos años su época de mayor esplendor, puesto que ascendió por primera vez a la máxima categoría del fútbol ruso en 2002, debutó en la UEFA en 2004 y consiguió su primer campeonato el pasado año.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The death of Mr. Kennedy, who had been battling brain cancer, was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family, which was already mourning the death of the senator’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver two weeks earlier.

“Edward M. Kennedy — the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply — died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port,” the statement said. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever.”

President Obama said Mr. Kennedy was one of the nation’s greatest senators.

“His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives — in seniors who know new dignity, in families that know new opportunity, in children who know education’s promise, and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just — including myself,” he said. Mr. Obama is scheduled to speak at a funeral Mass for Mr. Kennedy on Saturday morning in Boston.

Mr. Kennedy had been in precarious health since he suffered a seizure in May 2008. His doctors determined the cause was a malignant glioma, a brain tumor that carries a grim prognosis.

As he underwent cancer treatment, Mr. Kennedy was little seen in Washington, appearing most recently at the White House in April as Mr. Obama signed a national service bill that bears the Kennedy name. In a letter last week, Mr. Kennedy urged Massachusetts lawmakers to change state law and let Gov. Deval Patrick appoint a temporary successor upon his death, to assure that the state’s representation in Congress would not be interrupted.

While Mr. Kennedy was physically absent from the capital in recent months, his presence was deeply felt as Congress weighed the most sweeping revisions to America’s health care system in decades, an effort Mr. Kennedy called “the cause of my life.”

On July 15, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Mr. Kennedy headed, passed health care legislation, and the battle over the proposed overhaul is now consuming Capitol Hill.

Mr. Kennedy was the last surviving brother of a generation of Kennedys that dominated American politics in the 1960s and that came to embody glamour, political idealism and untimely death. The Kennedy mystique — some call it the Kennedy myth — has held the imagination of the world for decades, and it came to rest on the sometimes too-narrow shoulders of the brother known as Teddy.

Mr. Kennedy, who served 46 years as the most well-known Democrat in the Senate, longer than all but two other senators, was the only one of those brothers to reach old age. President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were felled by assassins’ bullets in their 40s. The eldest brother, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., died in 1944 at the age of 29 while on a risky World War II bombing mission.

Mr. Kennedy spent much of the last year in treatment and recuperation, broken by occasional public appearances and a dramatic return to the Capitol last summer to cast a decisive vote on a Medicare bill.

He electrified the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August with an unscheduled appearance and a speech that had delegates on their feet. Many were in tears.

His gait was halting, but his voice was strong. “My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, it is so wonderful to be here, and nothing is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States.”

Senator Kennedy was at or near the center of much of American history in the latter part of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st. For much of his adult life, he veered from victory to catastrophe, winning every Senate election he entered but failing in his only bid for the presidency; living through the sudden deaths of his brothers and three of his nephews; being responsible for the drowning death on Chappaquiddick Island of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, a former aide to his brother Robert. One of the nephews, John F. Kennedy Jr., who the family hoped would one day seek political office and keep the Kennedy tradition alive, died in a plane crash in 1999 at age 38.

Mr. Kennedy himself was almost killed in 1964, in a plane crash that left him with permanent back and neck problems.

He was a Rabelaisian figure in the Senate and in life, instantly recognizable by his shock of white hair, his florid, oversize face, his booming Boston brogue, his powerful but pained stride. He was a celebrity, sometimes a self-parody, a hearty friend, an implacable foe, a man of large faith and large flaws, a melancholy character who persevered, drank deeply and sang loudly. He was a Kennedy.

Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, one of the institution’s most devoted students, said of his longtime colleague, “Ted Kennedy would have been a leader, an outstanding senator, at any period in the nation’s history.”

Mr. Byrd is one of only two senators to have served longer in the chamber than Mr. Kennedy; the other was Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. In May 2008, on learning of Mr. Kennedy’s diagnosis of a lethal brain tumor, Mr. Byrd wept openly on the floor of the Senate.

More Than a Legislator

Born to one of the wealthiest American families, Mr. Kennedy spoke for the downtrodden in his public life while living the heedless private life of a playboy and a rake for many of his years. Dismissed early in his career as a lightweight and an unworthy successor to his revered brothers, he grew in stature over time by sheer longevity and by hewing to liberal principles while often crossing the partisan aisle to enact legislation. A man of unbridled appetites at times, he nevertheless brought a discipline to his public work that resulted in an impressive catalog of legislative achievement across a broad landscape of social policy.

Mr. Kennedy left his mark on legislation concerning civil rights, health care, education, voting rights and labor. He was chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions at his death. But he was more than a legislator. He was a living legend whose presence ensured a crowd and whose hovering figure haunted many a president.

Although he was a leading spokesman for liberal issues and a favorite target of conservative fund-raising appeals, the hallmark of his legislative success was his ability to find Republican allies to get bills passed. Perhaps the last notable example was his work with President George W. Bush to pass No Child Left Behind, the education law pushed by Mr. Bush in 2001. He also co-sponsored immigration legislation with Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. One of his greatest friends and collaborators in the Senate was Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican.

Mr. Kennedy had less impact on foreign policy than on domestic concerns, but when he spoke, his voice was influential. He led the Congressional effort to impose sanctions on South Africa over apartheid, pushed for peace in Northern Ireland, won a ban on arms sales to the dictatorship in Chile and denounced the Vietnam War. In 2002, he voted against authorizing the Iraq war; later, he called that opposition “the best vote I’ve made in my 44 years in the United States Senate.”

At a pivotal moment in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Mr. Kennedy endorsed Mr. Obama, then an Illinois senator, Obama for president, saying he offered the country a chance for racial reconciliation and an opportunity to turn the page on the polarizing politics of the past several decades.

“He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past,” Mr. Kennedy said at an Obama rally in Washington on Jan. 28, 2008. “He is a leader who sees the world clearly, without being cynical. He is a fighter who cares passionately about the causes he believes in without demonizing those who hold a different view.”

This month, Mr. Obama awarded Mr. Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which his daughter, Kara, accepted on his behalf.

Mr. Kennedy struggled for much of his life with his weight, with alcohol and with persistent tales of womanizing. In an Easter break episode in 1991 in Palm Beach, Fla., he went out drinking with his son Patrick and a nephew, William Kennedy Smith, on the night that Mr. Smith was accused of raping a woman. Mr. Smith was prosecuted in a lurid trial that fall but was acquitted.

Mr. Kennedy’s personal life stabilized in 1992 with his marriage to Victoria Anne Reggie, a Washington lawyer. His first marriage, to Joan Bennett Kennedy, ended in divorce in 1982 after 24 years.

Senator Kennedy served as a surrogate father to his brothers’ children and worked to keep the Kennedy flame alive through the Kennedy Library in Boston, the Kennedy Center in Washington and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he helped establish the Institute of Politics.

In December, Harvard granted Mr. Kennedy a special honorary degree. He referred to Mr. Obama’s election as “not just a culmination, but a new beginning.”

He then spoke of his own life, and perhaps his legacy.

“We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make,” he said. “I have lived a blessed time.”

Kennedy family courtiers and many other Democrats believed he would eventually win the White House and redeem the promise of his older brothers. In 1980, he took on the president of his own party, Jimmy Carter, but fell short because of Chappaquiddick, a divided party and his own weaknesses as a candidate, including an inability to articulate why he sought the office.

But as that race ended in August at the Democratic National Convention in New York, Mr. Kennedy delivered his most memorable words, wrapping his dedication to party principles in the gauzy cloak of Camelot.

“For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end,” Mr. Kennedy said in the coda to a speech before a rapt audience at Madison Square Garden and on television. “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

A Family Steeped in Politics

Born Feb. 22, 1932, in Boston, Edward Moore Kennedy grew up in a family of shrewd politicians. Both his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, and his mother, the former Rose Fitzgerald, came from prominent Irish-Catholic families with long involvement in the hurly-burly of Democratic politics in Boston and Massachusetts. His father, who made a fortune in real estate, movies and banking, served in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, as the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and then as ambassador to Britain.

There were nine Kennedy children, four boys and five girls, with Edward the youngest. They grew up talking politics, power and influence because those were the things that preoccupied the mind of Joseph Kennedy. As Rose Kennedy, who took responsibility for the children’s Roman Catholic upbringing, once put it, “My babies were rocked to political lullabies.”

When Edward was born, President Herbert Hoover sent Rose a bouquet of flowers and a note of congratulations. The note came with 5 cents postage due; the framed envelope is a family heirloom.

It was understood among the children that Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the oldest boy, would someday run for Congress and, his father hoped, the White House. When Joseph Jr. was killed in World War II, it fell to the next oldest son, John, to run. As John said at one point in 1959 while serving in the Senate: “Just as I went into politics because Joe died, if anything happened to me tomorrow, Bobby would run for my seat in the Senate. And if Bobby died, our young brother, Ted, would take over for him.”

Although surrounded by the trappings of wealth — stately houses, servants and expensive cars — young Teddy did not enjoy a settled childhood. He bounced among the family homes in Boston, New York, London and Palm Beach, and by the time he was ready to enter college, he had attended 10 preparatory schools in the United States and England, finally finishing at Milton Academy, near Boston. He said that the constant moving had forced him to become more genial with strangers; indeed, he grew to be more of a natural politician than either John or Robert.

After graduating from Milton in 1950, where he showed a penchant for debating and sports but was otherwise an undistinguished student, Mr. Kennedy enrolled in Harvard, as had his father and brothers.

It was at Harvard, in his freshman year, that he ran into the first of several personal troubles that were to dog him for the rest of his life: He persuaded another student to take his Spanish examination, got caught and was forced to leave the university.

Suddenly draft-eligible during the Korean War, Mr. Kennedy enlisted in the Army and served two years, securing, with his father’s help, a post at NATO headquarters in Paris. In 1953, he was discharged with the rank of private first class.

Re-enrolling in Harvard, he became a more serious student, majoring in government, excelling in public speaking and playing first-string end on the football team. He graduated in 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, then enrolled in the University of Virginia School of Law, where Robert had studied. There, he won the moot court competition and took a degree in 1959. Later that year, he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar.

Mr. Kennedy’s first foray into politics came in 1958, while still a law student, when he managed John’s Senate re-election campaign. There was never any real doubt that Massachusetts voters would return John Kennedy to Washington, but it was a useful internship for his youngest brother.

That same year, Mr. Kennedy married Virginia Joan Bennett, a debutante from Bronxville, a New York suburb where the Kennedys had once lived. In 1960, when John Kennedy ran for president, Edward was assigned a relatively minor role, rustling up votes in Western states that usually voted Republican. He was so enthusiastic about his task that he rode a bronco at a Montana rodeo and daringly took a ski jump at a winter sports tournament in Wisconsin to impress a crowd. The episodes were evidence of a reckless streak that repeatedly threatened his life and career.

John Kennedy’s election to the White House left vacant a Senate seat that the family considered its property. Robert Kennedy was next in line, but chose the post of attorney general instead (an act of nepotism that has since been outlawed). Edward was only 28, two years shy of the minimum age for Senate service.

So the Kennedys installed Benjamin A. Smith II, a family friend, as a seat-warmer until 1962, when a special election would be held and Edward would have turned 30. Edward used the time to travel the world and work as an assistant district attorney in Boston, waiving the $5,000 salary and serving instead for $1 a year.

As James Sterling Young, the director of a Kennedy Oral History Project at the University of Virginia, said the catchphrase of that era was: “Most people grow up and go into politics. The Kennedys go into politics and then they grow up.”

Less than a month after turning 30 in 1962, Mr. Kennedy declared his candidacy for the remaining two years of his brother’s Senate term. He entered the race with a tailwind of family money and political prominence. Nevertheless, Edward J. McCormack Jr., the state’s attorney general and a nephew of John W. McCormack, then speaker of the United States House of Representatives, also decided to go after the seat.

It was a bitter fight, with a public rehash of the Harvard cheating episode and with Mr. McCormack charging in a televised “Teddy-Eddie” debate that Mr. Kennedy lacked maturity of judgment because he had “never worked for a living” and had never held elective office. “If your name was simply Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy,” Mr. McCormack added, “your candidacy would be a joke.”

But the Kennedys had ushered in an era of celebrity politics, which trumped qualifications in this case. Mr. Kennedy won the primary by a two-to-one ratio, then went on to easy victory in November against the Republican candidate, George Cabot Lodge, a member of an old-line Boston family that had clashed politically with the Kennedys through the years.

When Mr. Kennedy entered the Senate in 1962, he was aware that he might be seen as an upstart, with one brother in the White House and another in the cabinet. He sought guidance on the very first day from one of the Senate’s most respected elders, Richard Russell of Georgia. “You go further if you go slow,” Senator Russell advised.

Mr. Kennedy took things slowly, especially that first year. He did his homework, was seen more than he was heard and was deferential to veteran legislators.

On Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, he was presiding over the Senate when a wire service ticker in the lobby brought the news of John Kennedy’s shooting in Dallas. Violence had claimed the second of Joseph Kennedy’s sons.

Edward was sent to Hyannis Port to break the news to his father, who had been disabled by a stroke. He returned to Washington for the televised funeral and burial, the first many Americans had seen of him. He and Robert had planned to read excerpts from John’s speeches at the Arlington burial service. At the last moment they chose not to.

A friend described him as “shattered — calm but shattered.”

A Deadly Plane Crash

Robert moved into the breach and was immediately discussed as a presidential prospect. Edward became a more prominent family spokesman.

The next year, he was up for re-election. A heavy favorite from the start, he was on his way to the state convention that was to renominate him when his light plane crashed in a storm near Westfield, Mass. The pilot and a Kennedy aide were killed, and Mr. Kennedy’s back and several ribs were broken. Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana pulled Mr. Kennedy from the plane.

The senator was hospitalized for the next six months, suspended immobile in a frame that resembled a waffle iron. His wife, Joan, carried on his campaign, mainly by advising voters that he was steadily recovering. He won easily over a little-known Republican, Howard Whitmore Jr.

During his convalescence, Mr. Kennedy devoted himself to his legislative work. He was briefed by a parade of Harvard professors and began to develop his positions on immigration, health care and civil rights.

“I never thought the time was lost,” he said later. “I had a lot of hours to think about what was important and what was not and about what I wanted to do with my life.”

He returned to the Senate in 1965, joining his brother Robert, who had won a seat from New York. Edward promptly entered a major fight, his first. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Voting Rights Act was up for consideration, and Mr. Kennedy tried to strengthen it with an amendment that would have outlawed poll taxes. He lost by only four votes, serving lasting notice on his colleagues that he was a rapidly maturing legislator who could prepare a good case and argue it effectively.

Mr. Kennedy was slow to oppose the war in Vietnam, but in 1968, shortly after Robert decided to seek the presidency on an antiwar platform, Edward called the war a “monstrous outrage.”

Robert Kennedy was shot on June 5, 1968, as he celebrated his victory in the California primary, becoming the third of Joseph Kennedy’s sons to die a violent death. Edward was in San Francisco at a victory celebration. He commandeered an Air Force plane and flew to Los Angeles.

Frank Mankiewicz, Robert’s press secretary, saw Edward “leaning over the sink with the most awful expression on his face.”

“Much more than agony, more than anguish — I don’t know if there’s a word for it,” Mr. Mankiewicz said, recalling the encounter in “Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography,” by Adam Clymer (William Morrow, 1999).

Robert’s death draped Edward in the Kennedy mantle long before he was ready for it and forced him to confront his own mortality. But he summoned himself to deliver an eloquent eulogy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

“My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it,” Mr. Kennedy said, his voice faltering. “Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world.”

A New Role as Patriarch

After the funeral, Edward Kennedy withdrew from public life and spent several months brooding, much of it while sailing off the New England coast.

Near the end of the summer of 1968, he emerged from seclusion, the sole survivor of Joseph Kennedy’s boys, ready to take over as family patriarch and substitute father to John’s and Robert’s 13 children, seemingly eager to get on with what he called his “public responsibilities.”

“There is no safety in hiding,” he declared in August in a speech at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. “Like my brothers before me, I pick up a fallen standard. Sustained by the memory of our priceless years together, I shall try to carry forward that special commitment to justice, excellence and courage that distinguished their lives.”

There was some talk of his running for president at that point. But he ultimately endorsed Hubert H. Humphrey in his losing campaign to Richard M. Nixon.

Mr. Kennedy focused more on bringing the war in Vietnam to an end and on building his Senate career. Although only 36, he challenged Senator Russell B. Long of Louisiana, one of the shrewdest, most powerful legislators on Capitol Hill, for the post of deputy majority leader. Fellow liberals sided with him, and he edged Mr. Long by five votes to become the youngest assistant majority leader, or whip, in Senate history.

He plunged into the new job with Kennedy enthusiasm. But fate, and the Kennedy recklessness, intervened on July 18, 1969. Mr. Kennedy was at a party with several women who had been aides to Robert. The party, a liquor-soaked barbecue, was held at a rented cottage on Chappaquiddick Island, off Martha’s Vineyard. He left around midnight with Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, took a turn away from the ferry landing and drove the car off a narrow bridge on an isolated beach road. The car sank in eight feet of water, but he managed to escape. Miss Kopechne, a former campaign worker for Robert, drowned.

Mr. Kennedy did not report the accident to the authorities for almost 10 hours, explaining later that he had been so banged about by the crash that he had suffered a concussion, and that he had become so exhausted while trying to rescue Miss Kopechne that he had gone immediately to bed. A week later, he pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident and was given a two-month suspended sentence.

But that was far from the end of the episode. Questions lingered in the minds of the Massachusetts authorities and of the general public. Why was the car on an isolated road? Had he been drinking? (Mr. Kennedy testified at an inquest that he had had two drinks.) What sort of relationship did Mr. Kennedy and Miss Kopechne have? Could she have been saved if he had sought help immediately? Why did the senator tell his political advisers about the accident before reporting it to the police?

The controversy became so intense that Mr. Kennedy went on television to ask Massachusetts voters whether he should resign from office. He conceded that his actions after the crash had been “indefensible.” But he steadfastly denied any intentional wrongdoing.

His constituents sent word that he should remain in the Senate. And little more than a year later, he easily won re-election to a second full term, defeating a little-known Republican, Josiah A. Spaulding, by a three-to-two ratio. But his heart did not seem to be in his work any longer. He was sometimes absent from Senate sessions and neglected his whip duties. Senator Byrd, of West Virginia, took the job away from him by putting together a coalition of Southern and border-state Democrats to vote him out.

That loss shook Mr. Kennedy out of his lethargy. He rededicated himself to his role as a legislator. “It hurts like hell to lose,” he said, “but now I can get around the country more. And it frees me to spend more time on issues I’m interested in.” Many years later, he became friends with Mr. Byrd and told him the defeat had been the best thing that could have happened in his Senate career.

Turmoil at Home

In the next decade, Mr. Kennedy expanded on his national reputation, first pushing to end the war in Vietnam, then concentrating on his favorite legislative issues, especially civil rights, health, taxes, criminal laws and deregulation of the airline and trucking industries. He traveled the country, making speeches that kept him in the public eye.

But when he was mentioned as a possible candidate for president in 1972, he demurred; and when the Democratic nominee, George McGovern, offered him the vice-presidential nomination, Mr. Kennedy again said no, not wanting to face the inevitable Chappaquiddick questions.

In 1973, his son Edward M. Kennedy Jr., then 12, developed a bone cancer that cost him a leg. The next year, Mr. Kennedy took himself out of the 1976 presidential race. Instead, he easily won a third full term in the Senate, and Jimmy Carter, a former one-term governor of Georgia, moved into the White House.

In early 1978, Mr. Kennedy’s wife, Joan, moved out of their sprawling contemporary house overlooking the Potomac River near McLean, Va., a Washington suburb. She took up residence in an apartment of her own in Boston, saying she wanted to “explore options other than being a housewife and mother.” But she also acknowledged a problem with alcohol, and conceded that she was increasingly uncomfortable with the pressure-cooker life that went with membership in the Kennedy clan. She began studying music and enrolled in a program for alcoholics.

The separation posed not only personal but also political problems for the senator. After Mrs. Kennedy left for Boston, there were rumors that linked the senator with other women. He maintained that he still loved his wife and indicated that the main reason for the separation was Mrs. Kennedy’s desire to work out her alcohol problem. She subsequently campaigned for him in the 1980 race, but there was never any real reconciliation, and they eventually entered divorce proceedings.

Although Mr. Kennedy supported Mr. Carter in 1976, by late 1978 he was disenchanted. Polls indicated that the senator was becoming popular while the president was losing support. In December, at a midterm Democratic convention in Memphis, Mr. Kennedy could hold back no longer. He gave a thundering speech that, in retrospect, was the opening shot in the 1980 campaign.

“Sometimes a party must sail against the wind,” he declared, referring to Mr. Carter’s economic belt-tightening and political caution. “We cannot heed the call of those who say it is time to furl the sail. The party that tore itself apart over Vietnam in the 1960s cannot afford to tear itself apart today over budget cuts in basic social programs.”

Mr. Kennedy did not then declare his candidacy. But draft-Kennedy groups began to form in early 1979, and some Democrats up for re-election in 1980 began to cast about for coattails that were longer than Mr. Carter’s.

After consulting advisers and family members over the summer of 1979, Mr. Kennedy began speaking openly of challenging the president, and on Nov. 7, 1979, he announced officially that he would run. “Our leaders have resigned themselves to defeat,” he said.

The campaign was a disaster, badly organized and appearing to lack a political or policy premise. His speeches were clumsy, and his delivery was frequently stumbling and bombastic. And in the background, Chappaquiddick always loomed. He won the New York and California primaries, but the victories were too little and came too late to unseat Mr. Carter. At the party’s nominating convention in New York, however, he stole the show with his “dream shall never die” speech.

With the approach of the 1984 election, there was the inevitable speculation that Mr. Kennedy, who had easily won re-election to the Senate in 1982, would again seek the presidency. He prepared and planned a campaign. But in the end he chose not to run, saying he wanted to spare his family a repeat of the ordeal they went through in 1980. Skeptics said he also knew he could not fight the undertow of Chappaquiddick.

A Full-On Senate Focus

Freed at last of the expectation that he should and would seek the White House, Mr. Kennedy devoted himself fully to his day job in the Senate, where he had already led the fight for the 18-year-old vote, the abolition of the draft, deregulation of the airline and trucking industries, and the post-Watergate campaign finance legislation. He was deeply involved in renewals of the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing law of 1968. He helped establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He built federal support for community health care centers, increased cancer research financing and helped create the Meals on Wheels program. He was a major proponent of a health and nutrition program for pregnant women and infants.

When Republicans took over the Senate in 1981, Mr. Kennedy requested the ranking minority position on the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, asserting that the issues before the labor and welfare panel would be more important during the Reagan years.

In the years after his failed White House bid, Mr. Kennedy also established himself as someone who made “lawmaker” mean more than a word used in headlines to describe any member of Congress. Though his personal life was a mess until his remarriage in the early 1990s, he never failed to show up prepared for a committee hearing or a floor debate.

His most notable focus was civil rights, “still the unfinished business of America,” he often said. In 1982, he led a successful fight to defeat the Reagan administration’s effort to weaken the Voting Rights Act.

In one of those bipartisan alliances that were hallmarks of his legislative successes, Mr. Kennedy worked with Senator Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, to secure passage of the voting rights measure, and Mr. Dole got most of the credit.

Perhaps his greatest success on civil rights came in 1990 with passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which required employers and public facilities to make “reasonable accommodation” for the disabled.

When the bill was finally passed, Mr. Kennedy and others told how their views on the bill had been shaped by having relatives with disabilities. Mr. Kennedy cited his mentally disabled sister, Rosemary, and his son who had lost a leg to cancer.

Mr. Kennedy was one of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s strongest allies in their failed 1994 effort to enact national health insurance, a measure the senator had been pushing, in one form or another, since 1969.

But he kept pushing incremental reforms, and in 1997, teaming with Senator Hatch, Mr. Kennedy helped enact a landmark health care program for children in low-income families, a program now known as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-Chip.

He led efforts to increase aid for higher education and win passage of Mr. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. He pushed for increases in the federal minimum wage. He helped win enactment of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, one of the largest expansions of government health aid.

He was a forceful and successful opponent of the confirmation of Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court. In a speech delivered within minutes of President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Mr. Bork in 1987, Mr. Kennedy made an attack that even friendly commentators called demagogic.

Mr. Bork’s “extremist view of the Constitution,” Mr. Kennedy said, meant that “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of Americans.”Some of Mr. Kennedy’s success as a legislator can be traced to the quality and loyalty of his staff, considered by his colleagues and outsiders alike to be the best on Capitol Hill.

“He has one of the most distinguished alumni associations of any U.S. senator,” said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University who has worked in Congress. “To have served in even a minor capacity in the Kennedy office or on one of his committees is a major entry in anyone’s résumé.”

Those who have worked for Mr. Kennedy include Stephen G. Breyer, appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton; Gregory B. Craig, now the White House counsel; and Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration’s top official for compensation.

A Place in History

Mr. Kennedy “deserves recognition not just as the leading senator of his time, but as one of the greats in its history, wise in the workings of this singular institution, especially its demand to be more than partisan to accomplish much,” Mr. Clymer wrote in his biography.

“The deaths and tragedies around him would have led others to withdraw. He never quits, but sails against the wind.”

Mr. Kennedy is survived by his wife, known as Vicki; two sons, Edward M. Kennedy Jr. of Branford, Conn., and Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island; a daughter, Kara Kennedy Allen, of Bethesda, Md.; two stepchildren, Curran Raclin and Caroline Raclin; and four grandchildren. His former wife, Joan Kennedy, lives in Boston.

Mr. Kennedy is also survived by a sister, Jean Kennedy Smith, of New York. On Aug. 11, his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver of Potomac, Md., died at age 88. Another sister, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, died in 2006. His sister Rosemary died in 2005, and his sister Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1948.

Their little brother Teddy was the youngest, the little bear whom everyone cuddled, whom no one took seriously and from whom little was expected.

He reluctantly and at times awkwardly carried the Kennedy standard, with all it implied and all it required. And yet, some scholars contend, he may have proved himself the most worthy.

“He was a quintessential Kennedy, in the sense that he had all the warts as well as all the charisma and a lot of the strengths,” said Norman J. Ornstein, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute.

“If his father, Joe, had surveyed, from an early age up to the time of his death, all of his children, his sons in particular, and asked to rank them on talents, effectiveness, likelihood to have an impact on the world, Ted would have been a very poor fourth. Joe, John, Bobby ... Ted.

“He was the survivor,” Mr. Ornstein continued. “He was not a shining star that burned brightly and faded away. He had a long, steady glow. When you survey the impact of the Kennedys on American life and politics and policy, he will end up by far being the most significant.”

John M. Broder, The New York Times, 26.08.09

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/us/politics/27kennedy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

 

 

Habitués à une série de plébiscites orchestrés par le pouvoir, parfois au prix d'une fraude manifeste, ils avaient fini par déserter les scrutins.

La ruée sur les listes électorales observée à la mi-juillet, pendant leur courte réouverture, a confirmé l'engouement pour cette élection présidentielle. "Avant, on payait les gens pour qu'ils aillent se faire inscrire. Cette fois, les gens se sont levés spontanément, remarque Dieudonné Minlama Mintogo, de l'Observatoire de la démocratie, une association qui se veut l'expression de la société civile. Depuis la mort de Bongo, ils se disent que c'est le moment de se réveiller."

Cette fois en effet, il s'agit non pas de renouveler le sempiternel mandat d'Omar Bongo, mais de lui trouver un successeur et, au-delà, de répondre à la question : une élection libre est-elle possible au Gabon ? Le "système Bongo" continuera-t-il de contrôler les richesses du pays (pétrole, bois, manganèse) et la répartition des revenus qu'elles procurent ? La France, présente notamment avec le groupe pétrolier Total, restera-t-elle neutre ? Autant de questions qui taraudent les Gabonais.

Le vote de dimanche, ouvert comme aucun ne le fut, est d'autant plus crucial que l'élection, à un seul tour, autorise la victoire d'un candidat avec un faible score.

Il est encore renforcé par la tournure prise par une campagne électorale où Ali Ben Bongo, 41 ans, le fils du président disparu, apparaît en majesté, seul contre tous, disposant de leviers politiques et de moyens financiers sans commune mesure avec ses adversaires. Ses affiches dominent largement la campagne et il est le seul à sillonner le Gabon en hélicoptère, avantage décisif dans un pays largement dénué de routes. Il contrôle une chaîne de télévision privée - Télé Africa - tout comme son ancien ami aujourd'hui adversaire, André Mba Obame, avec TV+.

Si les candidats sont nombreux, les véritables opposants sont rares. Parmi les deux principaux concurrents d'Ali Ben Bongo figurent deux anciens premiers ministres de son père (Casimir Oyé Mba et Jean Eyéghe Ndong) et plusieurs de ses anciens ministres : Zacharie Myboto, Paul Mba Abessole, et surtout André Mba Obame, ministre de l'intérieur jusqu'en juillet, longtemps présenté comme le "frère" d'Ali Bongo en politique.

Seul Pierre Mamboundou, qui se pose en "alternative à un système néocolonial défaillant et antidémocratique fondé sur la corruption de prédateurs", présente un itinéraire d'opposant opiniâtre, encore qu'il ait esquissé sur le tard un rapprochement avec Omar Bongo. Quant à Bruno Ben Moubamba, militant contre les "biens mal acquis" et nouveau venu sur la scène politique, il poursuit une grève de la faim à Libreville depuis le 15 août pour dénoncer "un coup d'Etat électoral".

Ecoles, hôpitaux, routes, allocations familiales : les candidats rivalisent pour jurer qu'ils réaliseront les promesses jamais tenues en quatre décennies de régime Bongo. Ali Bongo a choisi trois axes : "paix, partage développement". "Fini avec le favoritisme, fini avec les postes réservés aux parents ! Place au mérite, place à ceux qui travaillent !", s'est-il exclamé lors d'un récent meeting, en promettant de "punir les corrupteurs et les corrompus", comme l'avait fait son père en décembre 2007, lorsqu'il avait dénoncé "l'enrichissement illicite" comme principale cause du retard du Gabon.

MANQUE DE TRANSPARENCE

Si l'ambiance générale est celle d'une campagne électorale populaire animée et sans trop de violence, les apparences sont trompeuses, dans un pays pauvre où il suffit de distribuer quelques billets de banque et des T-shirts pour remplir un meeting.

D'autres éléments reflètent un manque de transparence et des irrégularités, alimentant des tensions qui pourraient s'aggraver d'ici au vote et surtout après la proclamation des résultats.

Les adversaires du fils Bongo se retrouvent pour dénoncer les "trucages flagrants" dans la constitution du corps électoral. Ils soulignent l'étrangeté, pour un pays jeune de 1,3 million d'habitants, étrangers compris, de compter plus de 800 000 électeurs. "Tous les candidats qui ont appartenu au gouvernement disposent d'un énorme avantage : ils avaient mis à profit les législatives de 2006 pour battre le rappel de leurs partisans et les inscrire sur les listes électorales", indique un responsable politique. De nombreux Gabonais admettent qu'ils sont inscrits "à la fois au village et en ville".

Le ministre de l'intérieur lui-même a reconnu l'existence de 120 000 "doublons". L'argument de la fraude nourrit le slogan de l'opposition selon lequel Ali Bongo, impopulaire, "ne peut pas se faire élire à la régulière", comme l'a répété Casimir Oye Mba, mercredi sur Radio France Internationale (RFI).

Anticipant implicitement l'annonce d'une victoire de M. Bongo, ses adversaires agitent la menace de manifestations dans cette hypothèse. "Nous saurons défendre notre victoire, y compris dans la rue", prévient Paul Mba Abessole, tandis que Pierre Mamboundou estime que "toutes les conditions de la contestation des résultats sont réunies".

L'avocat Robert Bourgi, conseiller officieux de Nicolas Sarkozy et chaud partisan de son client Ali Bongo, dont la victoire à ses yeux ne fait aucun doute, pronostique aussi dans tous les cas de figure "des violences contre les Français et leurs intérêts".

Officiellement, cette stratégie de la tension n'inquiète pas l'Elysée. "Depuis la mort d'Omar Bongo, tous les Cassandre se sont trompés, souligne-t-on dans l'entourage de Nicolas Sarkozy. La campagne se passe dans un bon climat et la France observe une stricte neutralité." L'effectif des soldats de la base française de Libreville, prend-on le soin de préciser, n'a pas été renforcé.

Philippe Bernard, Le Monde, 27.08.09

http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2009/08/27/election-inedite-au-gabon-apres-le-regne-d-omar-bongo-par-philippe-bernard_1232442_3212.html#ens_id=1217941

 

 

Casi 20 años después de su discutido libro El evangelio según Jesucristo, que fue vetado por el Gobierno portugués para competir por el Premio Europeo de Literatura, el Nobel luso hace un irreverente, irónico y mordaz recorrido por diversos pasajes de la Biblia pero no teme que vuelvan a crucificarle. "Algunos tal vez lo harán -explica Saramago-, pero el espectáculo será menos interesante. El Dios de los cristianos no es ese Jehová. Es más, los católicos no leen el Antiguo Testamento. Si los judíos reaccionan no me sorprenderé. Ya estoy habituado. Pero me resulta difícil comprender cómo el pueblo judío ha hecho del Antiguo Testamento su libro sagrado. Eso es un chorro de absurdos que un hombre solo sería incapaz de inventar. Fueron necesarias generaciones y generaciones para producir ese engendro".

José Saramago no considera este libro su particular y definitivo ajuste de cuentas con Dios -"las cuentas con Dios no son definitivas", dice-, pero sí con los hombres que lo inventaron. "Dios, el demonio, el bien, el mal, todo eso está en nuestra cabeza, no en el cielo o en el infierno, que también inventamos. No nos damos cuenta de que, habiendo inventado a Dios, inmediatamente nos esclavizamos a él", explica el autor. Niega que la cercanía de la muerte, hace ahora un año debido a su enfermedad, le hiciera pensar más en Dios. "Tengo asumido que Dios no existe, por tanto no tuve que llamarlo en la gravísima situación en que me encontraba. Y si lo llamara, si de pronto él apareciera, ¿qué tendría que decirle o pedirle, que me prolongase la vida?".

Y continúa Saramago: "Moriremos cuando tengamos que morir. A mí me salvaron los médicos, me salvó Pilar (su esposa y traductora), me salvó el excelente corazón que tengo, a pesar de la edad. Lo demás es literatura, y de la peor". Hace un año, el escritor sorprendió a sus lectores por la ironía y el humor que destilan las páginas de El viaje del elefante (Alfaguara) y que ahora vuelve a con Caín. Para él es un misterio. Y reflexiona: "No fue deliberado ni premeditado, la ironía y el humor aparecen en las primeras líneas de ambos libros. Podía haberlo contrariado e imprimirle un tono solemne a la narrativa, pero lo que está me vino ofrecido en una bandeja de plata, sería una estupidez rechazarlo".

El escritor empezó a pensar en Caín hace muchos años, pero se puso a escribirlo en diciembre de 2008 y lo terminó en menos de cuatro meses. "Estaba en una especie de trance. Nunca me había sucedido, por lo menos con esta intensidad, con esta fuerza", rememora. Saramago, que una vez escribió que "somos cuentos de cuentos contando cuentos, nada" y así sigue viéndose, escribe más y más rápido que nunca (tres libros en un año), quizás como la mejor manera de seguir vivo. "Es verdad. Tal vez la analogía perfecta sea la de la vela que lanza una llama más alta en el momento en que va a apagarse. De todos modos, no se preocupen, no pienso apagarme tan pronto", sentencia. En su blog (blog.josesaramago.org ) aparece hoy el anuncio de la nueva novela, una suerte de tráiler del libro y una carta de la presidenta de la Fundación Saramago, Pilar del Río, en la que anuncia a los lectores del Nobel que este Caín no les dejará indiferentes.

El Pais, 27.08.09

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/Saramago/carga/Dios/salva/Cain/elpepucul/20090827elpepucul_4/Tes

 

 

Afeitado como llegaba el Athletic al Camp Nou, pendiente de su clasificación para la Liga Europa, y resuelta como parecía la competición desde la ida disputada en San Mamés (1-2), la exigencia en la vuelta se la puso el propio Barça desde la alineación. Pasado el disgusto del Gamper, y a falta de Iniesta y Márquez, apostó Guardiola por el equipo titular porque ayer había un título en juego. Una cosa son los torneos de verano, incluso cuando el organizador es el propio club, y otra distinta la competición oficial, incluso cuando en juego está la Supercopa, posiblemente el menos importante de los trofeos de la temporada.

Desde la seriedad, los azulgrana fueron a por el encuentro sin concesiones, con un despliegue muy académico, bien repartidos los futbolistas en cancha rival. La afrenta barcelonista obligó a los suplentes del Athletic a mantener la concentración y defender fuerte y bien desde el inicio de partido. Aunque las ocasiones tardaron un poco en llegar, el juego se concentró en el marco de Gorka.

Alves ponía buenos centros, Xavi filtraba pases interesantes, Touré se reivindicaba como interior e Ibrahimovic empezó a mostrar su excelente repertorio de gestos técnicos. Pivotaba, descargaba, combinaba y se ofrecía el sueco en cada jugada. Acaso tardó en sintonizar con Messi, que por momentos parecía fuera de foco, como si extrañara los tiempos en que ejercía de falso delantero centro y barría el frente de ataque. Falsa impresión. Aunque normalmente necesita estar en contacto con la pelota, desde hace un tiempo Messi se ha vuelto más selectivo. Anoche desperdició un mano a mano con Gorka después de una asistencia de Xavi. Acto seguido habilitó a Ibrahimovic en una acción espectacular por el toque del argentino y la recepción del sueco, que amortiguó la pelota con el pecho y disparó sobre la salida del portero. Y a la tercera, la pulga no perdonó en una jugada sensacional: Xavi tocó para Ibrahimovic, el delantero abrió a un toque para Messi y el argentino quebró al central con la zurda para picar la pelota sobre la salida del meta con la derecha.

Un golazo que alivió la ansiedad del Barça. Al equipo hasta entonces le había faltado puntería para rematar el encuentro antes del descanso. El Barcelona estuvo poco preciso y, por lo demás, el campo le resultó a menudo demasiado largo, las líneas no estaban muy juntas. Los delanteros metieron muy atrás a la zaga rojiblanca y apenas hubo llegadas desde la segunda línea azulgrana. Al Barça le costaba atacar desde la defensa, jugar a un toque y la circulación del balón excesivamente lenta para un equipo que ataca a la velocidad de la luz.

Puede que la mecánica de juego haya quedado afectada momentáneamente por la entrada de Ibrahimovic. Los muchachos quieren integrar al sueco ya mismo y el ariete se desvive por mezclar con los chicos hasta el punto que a veces tanta cortesía desnaturaliza al equipo. El gol reforzó la sensación de que Ibrahimovic aspira a asociarse con los extremos y los volantes antes que combatir la leyenda de Eto'o como ariete indiscutible, punto y final de las jugadas, siempre tan agresivo y egoísta como certero.

Ibrahimovic pudo ser sustituido ayer con el partido decidido y la hinchada entregada. Más que en reivindicarse como ariete, el sueco se empeñó en mejorar a Messi, que repitió después desde el punto de penalti en una jugada que pareció un cúmulo de despropósitos. La rueda de cambios permitió a Bojan dejar su gol de rigor y el partido se apagó malamente por el temor a las lesiones y con un gato negro merodeando por el fondo norte. No era cuestión de fastidiar la fiesta tan bien preparada desde la formación. Apostó el Barça por la Supercopa, el primer título de la temporada en juego y el cuarto del año, y lo ganó con tanta autoridad como cualquiera de las anteriores finales.

Ramon Besa, El Pais, 24.08.09

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/deportes/Ibrahimovic/juega/Messi/elpepidep/20090824elpepidep_10/Tes

 

To his critics he is an arrogant misogynist who wouldn't be where he is without his famous father, Kingsley. To his fans he is a brilliant chronicler of our times whose literary success – and success with women – has fuelled resentment and envy. As Martin Amis prepares to celebrate his 60th birthday on Tuesday, we asked 15 leading literary figures whether they love him or loathe him.

Marina Warner, Writer

I haven't read him for a while. I parted company with him because of his attitude towards the Iraq war. I admired his early work a lot. I liked Other People: A Mystery Story. It was a very powerful dystopian vision of contemporary society. He's a very stylish wordsmith, and he can bring about some terrific effects. I do read him with a mongoose fascination for his unrepentant misogyny. I know he says he isn't, but everyone says they aren't. It's his puritanical attitude towards sex that makes me feel that; sexual purity and misogyny go together. He's a barometer of misanthropy.

Al Alvarez Poet, writer, and critic

I have known Martin since he was in his pram. What I admire about him is his current devotion to literary excellence as he sees it. He has very high standards for himself, which are very hard to keep.

It is hard for me to comment on whether he is a misogynist or not; his father was, there is no doubt about that, but I would not have thought that he was. When he was young he did screw around, as everyone does, but that could be simply because he loved women.

Claire Tomalin, Biographer

I think he is a really terrific writer – one of the best writers of prose of his generation, and he has had a mixed good fortune of being a celebrity due to his father. I think he stepped out of his father's shadow with his first book. I'm very fond of him, but I wouldn't rush out to read his latest book. Every writer goes through ups and downs, but he has kept up a very good standard over time.

Ann Widdecombe, MP

I just don't enjoy it. Nothing more than that. He has made a huge reputation for himself.

Jacqueline Wilson, Children's author

My only acquaintance with Amis was once in Edinburgh when I remember his lovely daughter came up to me – and Amis also came up – asking for an autograph, and a little bit of me thought: "Martin Amis is grovelling to me!"

His works are always interesting and a talking point, and he's not frightened of taking critical comments. I'd certainly be interested to see his new book. I think he has stepped out of his father's shadow. It is very difficult [to have a famous parent], although in any profession it can help, too. But I'm sure The Rachel Papers would have been well received no matter who his parents were.

David Lodge, Novelist

Martin Amis is the most original prose stylist of his generation and a very influential one. Money, published in his heyday, I would say is his best book, but Time's Arrow and Experience, published much later, were also terrific books.

I don't think Amis is a misogynist writer, the way his father certainly was in some of his work. The nicest character in Money is a woman, for instance. Because he writes about males lusting after and complaining about women very expressively and amusingly it is easy to assume that he identifies uncritically with such characters, but I don't think that's the case. They are often made to look ridiculous.

There was an Oedipal struggle between Martin and his father that was literary as well as personal. He differentiated himself from his father and made his own mark, but the underlying family resemblance in style is fascinating to observe.

Michael Frayn, Playwright and novelist

I am a tremendous admirer of his work and particularly of Money.

Germaine Greer, Feminist academic

I can't really work up any enthusiasm for him. I read the early novels. He was outstanding. Then I was a friend of his. I'm not a friend anymore, our paths have diverged.

I don't think he's any more misogynist than the average Englishman. Martin is a small man and not quite perfectly formed. He had a polished routine of seduction, but that's very ordinary. The only thing that's not ordinary about Martin is that he's a writer – and he could have been a very good one. He might still be a very good one. We thought he was going to be brilliant when he wrote The Rachel Papers and then Success.

But then it all went a bit wrong. There was magical realism, restless surface glitter in the prose. It became exhausting and tedious and irritating. It's very hard to watch clever boys showing off because all the time there's a different kind of writer, writing perfect stories.

Lionel Shriver, Novelist

Martin Amis has always impressed me as a writer who capitalised on his parentage, but who also distinguished himself in his own right. I adored Money, for example, which has a vague relationship to Kingsley's satirical work without being imitative. As for his latter years being "disappointing", I admit I'm one of the many readers who didn't fancy Yellow Dog. But I thought House of Meetings was a tour de force, and anyone who can write that is hardly suffering from a weakening of his authorial powers.

I was especially struck by the fact that that novel is deeply serious (albeit full of deadpan drollery), thus representing a big departure from the likes of Yellow Dog. It does not come across as lazily autobiographical; rather, as a magnificently successful imaginary inhabitation of another people's experience and another country's history. In general, I rue the public pettiness that has dogged Amis – all that rubbish about his teeth, the ludicrously outsized indignation about his quite modest salary as a university tutor.

He's intelligent, he takes risks and he is a skilful craftsman. He is a national treasure, and an underappreciated one.

Jilly Cooper, Author

I knew him when he was very young and he was very sweet and kind. He is a very, very funny man. I remember a touching story about him – when his father left with Jane, he marched across London to find him and knocked on his door, begging him to come back home. He did just absolutely adore his father.

Martin writes with passion and tenderness, and he is a charming and attractive man.

Barry Fantoni, Cartoonist

I met Martin's father a number of times and my feeling is that it's very difficult when you are the child of someone who is very famous or very good at what they do.

Martin's work is rather watery and not really worthy of the attention that is given to him. I don't find his work interesting but that is not to say that his books are good or bad. Having said all that, he has stuck in there and kept going all this time.

Peter Florence, Founder of the Hay festival

He is actually fantastically important in my life for a number of reasons, one of which being Money, as it was the first contemporary novel I ever read. The whole of my career and life I have searched to find something as satisfactory as that book. He may have more significance, I believe, than a lot of people who have won prizes around him.

Calling him a misogynist is bad journalistic shorthand. If you take what he is writing about literally then you will not get it; people fail to understand that it's satire. I have known him professionally for 20 years and he is courteous and amazingly generous with his time. I am bewildered by the media perception of him.

Beryl Bainbridge, Novelist

I first met Martin when he was quite young, we have done one or two literary tours together. I enjoyed his earlier books enormously, but I haven't read his later work. What is very interesting is that he didn't do very well at school. I think he was a bit lost. Then all of a sudden he buckled down and worked extremely hard.

Ruth Rendell, Novelist

I like Martin Amis very much. I particularly like his early work. I used to know him slightly, as one does, and I very much like London Fields. Time's Arrow and Experience – about him and his father – are two other favourites of mine.

I would say he has earned his reputation. I knew his father much better and I liked all his books. I think Martin is still to write a great masterpiece. People get labelled as misogynists for saying one wrong thing about women – but no, I don't think he is a misogynist.

The Independent, 23.08.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/martin-amis-now-we-are-60-1776198.html

 

 

Pour monter du centre de Kaboul vers le quartier nord de Parwan, où réside le Dr Abdullah Abdullah, principal challenger du président Karzaï, il faut emprunter la large avenue Salang Wat, qui résume à elle seule les principaux problèmes du pays. Elle longe le commissariat de police central, bâtisse dont on ne voit pas les deux premiers étages, cachés par une épaisse muraille de béton armé, destinée à dissuader les camions suicides. On y est vite couvert de poussière, car sa voie de droite n'est pas asphaltée : où sont donc passés les 35 milliards d'aide internationale reçus par l'Afghanistan depuis la chute du régime des talibans ?

Dans une ville où les adresses précises n'existent pas, il faut trouver sa destination en demandant aux passants. Ici, tout le monde sait où se trouve la belle villa familiale du Dr Abdullah, ancien conseiller politique du mythique commandant Massoud et ministre des Affaires étrangères de 2002 à 2006.

Cinq 4 × 4 flambant neufs de l'ANA (Armée nationale afghane) barrent la ruelle qui y mène.

Le plus célèbre des Tadjiks vivants reçoit ses hôtes dans son jardin, sous un dais où sont assis une quinzaine de ses conseillers, dont le frère cadet d'Ahmed Shah Massoud. Pas la moindre femme parmi eux. Élégamment vêtu d'un saroual-kamiz ivoire à la chemise finement brodée, buvant son thé vert par saccades, Abdullah semble soucieux, au point d'oublier de proposer une boisson à ses hôtes, au mépris de toutes les traditions de l'hospitalité afghane. Ses conseillers ne desserrent pas les dents.

Devenu un politicien mondialement connu, Abdullah a perdu la charmante simplicité qui le caractérisait, en octobre 1996, lorsque nous partagions un campement sommaire de la plaine de Chamali, d'où le commandant Massoud envisageait de reprendre la capitale aux talibans. Trop de voyages officiels en Occident, trop d'interviews rapides données aux chaînes internationales, sont passés par là. Rompu à l'art de la communication politique moderne, Abdullah s'exprime désormais comme un robot souriant de langue de bois.

Rivalités ethniques

Prudent, il se félicite d'abord du succès de ces élections, «où les citoyens se sont rendus aux urnes en masse, en dépit de la campagne d'intimidation des talibans». Il souligne que le débat électoral, «apathique à ses débuts», a ensuite gagné beaucoup en vigueur, «grâce à l'énergie et aux thèmes nouveaux développés par ma campagne». Ces derniers portaient essentiellement sur la critique - fondée - de la corruption et de l'inefficacité de l'administration Karzaï, et de la tendance du président actuel à jouer sur les rivalités ethniques au lieu de se concentrer sur «l'édification d'une unité nationale».

Contrairement à ce qu'ont pu dire, ici ou là, tel ou tel de ses lieutenants, Abdullah ne fait pas devant nous de triomphalisme. Il n'évoque ni sa victoire ni celle du président Karzaï. Mais il se plaint du «niveau important de la fraude organisée par le pouvoir».

«Je n'évoque même pas le rôle de l'argent, l'achat de tribus entières par le gouvernement, tant ces pratiques sont hélas devenues chez nous monnaie courante, lâche-t-il avec un sourire ironique. Je veux parler du bourrage d'urnes systématique dans certaines provinces.» Abdullah nous annonce qu'il va déposer un grand nombre de plaintes auprès de la commission électorale, organisme dont il ne conteste pas l'indépendance.

Des fraudes, il y en a sûrement eu. Mais ce qu'omet de dire Abdullah, c'est que son mouvement disposait d'autant de scrutateurs que celui de Karzaï. Les principales victimes de la fraude risquent plutôt d'être les petits candidats, au bénéfice des deux grands.

Certains observateurs internationaux craignaient qu'Abdullah, par déception, provoque des manifestations dans Kaboul. Là-dessus, il se montre très strict : «Il n'en est pas question. Personne plus que moi n'est attaché à la paix civile et à l'unité nationale !» L'équipe d'Abdullah avait-elle eu connaissance de résultats préliminaires moins encourageants que prévu ? Ce qui est sûr c'est que, vendredi à midi, son QG ne respirait pas l'odeur de la victoire…

R.G., Le Figaro, 22.08.09

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2009/08/22/01003-20090822ARTFIG00017-rencontre-avec-abdullah-abdullah-le-leader-de-l-opposition-afghane-.php

 

 

Cuando Messi era niño, en su casa de Rosario siempre había un partido en la televisión, español, italiano o argentino. Y si jugaba el Newell's Old Boys, mejor, porque su padre le explicaba las virtudes del 8, del Tata Martino, hoy seleccionador de Paraguay.

Sin la pelota en los pies, Leo también veía dibujos animados hasta que sus padres le regalaron una Gameboy. "Le encantaba jugar a la maquinita", recuerdan en su entorno. Después descubrieron los juegos de azar, como la lotería, y los de cartas, como el chinchón y la casita robada. "Más valía que ganara. Tenía tal arranque que, si perdía, las cartas caían casualmente al suelo", explican.

Pero los mejores días para La Pulga eran los fines de semana, cuando se iba toda la familia a hacer unos regates en el Parque de la Independencia o en el del General Urquiza.

Hasta que un día la familia se dio cuenta de la perla que tenía. En un picadito en casa de la abuela, se midieron los Messi. El padre, el cuñado, los primos, los hermanos y él. "Cuando no tenía la pelota, la buscaba, se tiraba al piso y, con el cuero controlado, hacía túneles, regates... Fue impresionante. No era normal", desvelan fuentes familiares. Medía poco más de medio metro y ya era un genio. No tardaron en comprarle unas botas, negras, parecidas a las Adidas.

El Barça se fijó pronto en Leo, que dejó Argentina con 12 años y su familia a cuestas. Un año después, sin embargo, la madre y la hermana regresaron a Rosario dejando a Leo, sus hermanos y su padre en Barcelona. "Había que respetar el sueño de Lionel", se justifican desde la familia. Y resultó de fábula.

"Tiene demasiado potencial. Vamos a ir colocándole en categorías superiores y, cuando no dé más de sí, paramos", le comentó Josep Colomer, entonces responsable del fútbol base, a Jorge. Pasó por el Cadete A, el juvenil e incluso el filial en un año. "Leo nunca desesperó. No tenía más prisa de la que le daban en el club", aclaran sus familiares, que fueron a cenar a La Barca de Salamanca cuando Frank Rijkaard, en octubre de 2004 y ante el Espanyol, le hizo debutar en un partido oficial. Poco después, Leo decidió comprarle a su padre una camiseta en El Corte Inglés por la que suspiraba desde hacía tiempo. "Es muy detallista", sugieren en su entorno.

Tampoco resulta difícil hacerle regalos a Messi. "Para contentarle sólo hay que comprarle el móvil de última generación", revelan sus amigos. "Son su único capricho", añade la familia. Eso y seguir atado a una pelota: "Aunque también le gustan las series tipo Prison Break y Perdidos". Pero detesta la cocina. "Vive en casa con su padre, que también hace de cocinero. Si no, come en casa del hermano. Aunque ahora tiene un respiro porque almuerza en el club", indican desde su núcleo. Pero Leo ya ha avisado de que quiere independizarse.

La inversión para su casa será bien estudiada. "Aunque en Argentina tiene alguna propiedad, en España sólo cuenta con la casa donde vive con sus padres", explican desde su entorno. Y dinero no le falta. Imagen de Adidas, cualquier propuesta de anuncio es seleccionada por Leo Messi Management. A él sólo le debe preocupar la pelota y, progresivamente, su papel de líder del Barça y de Argentina. "A Leo le encanta la presión. La necesita", concluye Pep Guardiola.

Jordi Quixano, El Pais, 23.08.09

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/deportes/Mundo/Messi/elpepudep/20090823elpepidep_9/Tes