The lone warrior steps forth, ready to vanquish his foe, ready to lead his people to the moment they thought would never come. Victory was imminent, in his mind. Fear? What is this fear you speak of? There is nothing in his eyes but determination, the unwavering sort, a kind of focus that allows greater warriors to do in dire moments what ordinary warriors cannot.
Think back to Zinedine Zidane’s costless kick and subsequent penalty in 2004, Andrés Iniesta’s last minute heroics (I’ll leave you to choose between his Stamford Bridge exploits or his winner in South Africa), Kun Agüero’s title clinching goal for Manchester City against QPR.
These players are all undeniably dripping with talent, so much so that you would almost expect these moments of magic from them. The fact that they managed to actually pull them off, though, are what puts them in an almost untouchable area in sports history, at least for their respective teams. Zidane’s disgraceful head butt in the final of the 2006 World Cup would have permanently besmirched the name of nearly any other footballer, but he almost got a costless pass for it. Sure it was universally acknowledged as unsportsmanlike and unprofessional, but aside from a handful of people, is there anyone out there who truly cannot look past it? His actions in the World Cup were almost seen as a dramatic end to a glorious story.
Moments like the ones discussed above are what come to define a player. They change how people see them. They go from being great player to a magical one. It’s also true that these opportunities are rare. Rarer still are the players who can keep their cool, make time stand still, and take advantage of the opportunity.
Bojan Krkić was not one of these players.
The opportunity was there, the stage was set, the script had been written. When the ball fell so perfectly upon the head of the young striker, Mr. History was leaning against the goal post looking on expectantly, ready to welcome him into his elite club. Seeing him, Bojan sent the ball past the wrong side of the goal post, straight into the face of Mr. History, giving him a bloody nose. Perhaps things would have been different had the referee not ruled out what would have been the winning goal later on in the game after a very debatable handball incident (maybe that was Mr. History’s way of avenging his disfigured facial features), but the fact remained that Bojan would not be remembered as the hero that he would have been had he netted the goal.
He did try to make amends. Bojan was instrumental in the games that followed, stepping up to the plate as Zlatan Ibrahimovic fell out of favour with Pep Guardiola. He scored in every game right up to the end of the season, all of his goals being pivotal. Villarreal, Tenerife, Sevilla and Valladolid were his victims, and it seemed that the damage that was inflicted when he missed his chance to play Superman in the semifinals of the Champions League had not had a lasting effect. Barcelona fans and players alike couldn’t have been more thrilled.
Bojan had this sort of expectation hanging over him. While many players try to play down any comparisons surrounding them, especially while they are still young (Xavi Hernández being an example, as he said he detested being held up to the figure of Pep Guardiola), Bojan did not. In fact, he almost encouraged it. Following the departure of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Bojan was first to claim the number 9 shirt, despite not truly having earned it, and already sporting the respectable number 11. He placed himself under enormous pressure to succeed as Barca’s new number 9, but it was something like a guppy trying to pretend that he was a great white - amusing. No one really took him all that seriously, especially when there were people like Pedro around, wearing the more humble number 17 quite happily, and thriving.
The blame for this additional pressure doesn’t rest solely on Bojan’s shoulders. As a general rule, socis of the club enjoy seeing young talent rise up through the ranks, so whenever word gets out that there is a particularly special someone lurking in the B team, there is lots of excited chatter and eagerness to see him succeed.
He had already smashed a handful of existing records: The youngest player ever to debut for Barcelona in the league, the youngest person to score for Barcelona in the league (beating a certain Lionel Messi’s record), the first person born in the 1990’s to score in the Champions League…
If he’s this good at 17, imagine how good he’ll be in a few years! He’s even younger than Messi was! Wow! If he keeps going at this rate, he’d have scored 128047 goals by the time he’s 21! He’ll be slaying dragons, discovering new planets; we could win matches with him alone! We’re set for the future! He’s the next Messi!
One of the things people tend to forget when they talk about Lionel Messi is this: He’s Lionel Messi. It’s become some kind of twisted rule that if a player hasn’t reached his full potential by about 23, that he’s never going to. If they don’t shine at 20, they won’t shine at all. Messi was and is a special player, and his standard cannot be applied to anyone else. Messi’s partners in crime, the people that critics say are responsible for much of his success, Xavi and Iniesta, weren’t even Xavi and Iniesta when they were that age.
In the following 2010-11 season, Bojan scored only 5 goals less than he had in the season prior to that, which many considered his breakout season. The issue this time was that if his goals last season were pounds, his goals this season were pennies. They were almost worthless. 2 in a 0-8 thrashing of Almería, the 5th in a 5-0 romp over Real Sociedad. His most memorable action that season was his assist that set up Jeffrén Suárez for the fifth goal against Real Madrid in the historic 5-0 destruction. Even that wasn’t exactly a season defining goal (Barcelona fans will beg to differ, I’m sure).
He finished his last season in the Catalan capital by scoring the equalizer against Málaga in a 1-3 come from behind win after the league had already been decided.
It was announced, to little surprise during the summer of 2011 that Bojan would be going on loan to AS Roma for 2 years for a fee of 12 million euros, with Barcelona obliged to buy him back for 13 million Euros in a couple of years’ time. It was basically a deal that allowed Barcelona to pay a small fee to give him some experience before bringing him back, disguised as a loan deal.
His first season at Roma under Luís Enrique passed without any notable success. Roma finished 7th in the league, with Bojan making 33 appearances and scoring 7 times.
Enter AC Milan. Huge changes were taking place at the San Siro, with veterans like Thiago Silva, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexandre Pato all departing before or over the course of the season. The club decided to bring in Bojan on a season long loan with the option to buy at the end of the season. It was another drab year for the young striker, and Milan chose not to exercise their option to buy him citing the reason that they would not be able to guarantee him playing time.
There was a hint of hope when Bojan was originally sent on loan, that he would grow as a player, and as he got more minutes under his belt, fulfill his potential that was so obviously apparent when he was younger. Instead, he has sort of stagnated, never reaching the heights that he was once irrevocably going to reach.
Someone who was once a young prodigy, destined to be the best thing since sliced bread is now a confusing shell of what he could have been. I say confusing because despite all that has happened, what everyone tends to overlook is that Bojan Krkić is still only 23 years old.
Who knows? Maybe he shakes off his tendency to overthink things and starts playing football with joy instead of in his current contrived manner. Maybe, now at Ajax Amsterdam, he will find his footing in the Eredivisie and become top scorer. Maybe he vanquishes all before him and returns to his home club next season leaving a trail of slayed dragons behind him. Here’s to hoping. Here’s to Bojan. Here’s to the blossom that hasn’t bloomed yet.