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My First Encounter With Middle-Finger: Stefan Effenberg 0

Playmaker +3 Pangeran Siahaan

Kamis, 24 Jun '10 13:13

Sepakbola memang bukan sekadar permainan. Ia juga memperkenalkan salam jari tengah kepada saya.

When was the first time you see middle-finger salute and acknowledge that it's a gesture of obscenity? I bet Hollywood movies with all its faux machoism or misogynist hiphop videos had large part of empowering brain with such knowledge back when you were younger.

The first time I noticed that one of your fingers - the one in the middle particularly, is god-given tool of insult was during the 1994 World Cup days. The lecture was to throw non-verbal flame at people you distaste. The lecturer was no one but the Deustch goliath, Stefan Effenberg. I don't know about you, but I think Effe had the most German look of all Germans, he would make Bastian Schweinsteiger -  the current Mr. German Look, like a Brit.

Albeit the 90's Germany team kit which bears amusing red-yellow-black helix pattern, I never paid attention to the Teutonic country. I always found ze Germans have grotesque physical image (Effe, Oliver Khan, Mario Basler, Rudi Voeller's moustache) and my negative view had been renewed when Effe was booted from team after he threw his God-given tool of obscenity to Germany supporters. Effe had been a target of jeers since he insisted to stay seperately from entire squad in different hotel. His sub-par performance triggered the supporters to boo and the rest is history.

As much as I was disgusted by Indonesian custom about left-hand disparagement, I was amused by how offensive giving middle-finger could be. From all the fingers you got, the international convention agreed to use one in the middle as a silent "Fuck You!". I don't know when that convention reached Indonesia, but i had never seen anyone throwing middle-finger until hip metal and their "parental advisory content" emerged in late 90s. Fred Durst, Jonathan Davis, don't get me started.

David Beckham would throw the obscene salute in the future, as Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, and many other footballers did, but I will remember that Stefan Effenberg, the fittest German footballer to wear SS uniform appearance-wise, is the first person to introduce me to the finger.

"Doing an Effe" is now a popular German phrase, I believe.

 

Tag: Jerman, Stefan Effenberg, Jari Tengah
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