Roaden Polynice
Superstar
By Stu Barnes
A special acknowledgement to the vanishing spray, and a shout out in general, it is so good to finally meet you. For the first time proper, that is. Reports of the vanishing spray had squirted through in very small increments to begin, with glimpses of refs in the Americas spraying something and it disappearing inexplicably. For a bit it was like the hallowed olden days of scouting and catching wind of players. A time before our techno wizardry and uber-connectedness, when we had to rely on newspapers, televisions, landlines, fax machines, carrier pigeons and desperately scrawled acrostics to attain information. Scouting was generally done in shrouded secrecy, with intrepid scouts braving tropical climes, British Isle climes, living out of a suitcase and speaking in hushed tones on long distance calls to academies. Nowadays there are no secrets. Every club has ample resources and a worldwide network of scouts ready to analyze the same fourteen-year-old Ecuadorian, and then offer an eye-watering amount of cash for the youngster. You could almost imagine the perplexed and intriguing inquiries into this “spray.” A spray? That marks where the wall is to be placed? Really? Tell me more.
Hearing of the Vanishing Spray was actually probably nothing like this, but either way, appearances of a white, viscous type of substance that duly disappeared upon ejaculation created in a cosmetics factory by an inventive Brazilian became reality in 2000, when Heine Allemagne created “Spuni”, the spume that was to goo the wider footballing world over and over. In an interview with the BBC, Allemagne was watching a match when the wall during a free kick kept moving, upon which he took it on himself to solve the problem that had plagued football for decades, his inspiration for his invention being shaving cream. Given the rule that there may be no other markings on the pitch, Allemagne quickly reasoned that the spray must be temporary. It took him some time to market his product, and eventually Spuni was created and was adopted by Brazilian football, and then at international level, paradoxically spouting a thick and permanent jet into the annals of football history.
According to Wikipedia, the first appearance of Spuni was in the 2000 Brazilian championship Copa João Havelange and has since been used in MLS and the Copa América. Vanishing spray made its most indelible mark this past summer in the 2014 World Cup, where a contingent of referees were given license to spurt out gallons of the white stuff to enforce the rules of the book and engender fair play, one of the reasons behind the creation of the spray according to Allemagne. Since its breakout performance in the World Cup, the Vanishing Spray has been the subject of several newspaper articles and a general gushing over its simple and effective qualities. The Guardian itself ran 17 articles about the spray, miraculously beating off the spate of van Gaal articles commissioned in the same time frame, of which no less than 13 articles and three hagiographies in a two-day period were published.
The Vanishing Spray is truly here to stay, though its effects on the game are yet to be seen, including most importantly, the effects on the referee. On one hand the ref is given another tool in his arsenal to successfully judge a game to the best of his or her abilities. Refereeing is an endeavor that is invariably prone to human fallibility but one that is also dedicated to a machine like rendering of decisions and performances that aims to cut out any sort of human error or judgment. So in that regard, the addition of the spray can holster to the ref utility belt can only be seen as advancement in the way the game is to be refereed. On the other hand, it could perhaps be argued that the vanishing spray affords the ref more purchase in his control of a match, which could be seen as a detriment. The referee’s aim is to be a presence, though not an overbearing one. The best refs are proponents of this. Other refs have taken it upon themselves to be imposing, aiming to stymie the flow of the game to their liking and burn an indelible signature on the match instead allowing proceedings to flow to their own natural conclusions. Refs have the ability to carry this out on their own accord as is, the spray, though seemingly inconsequential, could be a facilitator and aggravator of this.
More absurdly, there is an apprehension to new technology and devices that are being implanted into the game. For all its glistening exteriors, state of the art facilities, and colossal presentations that are in tune with the demands of the bigger is better 21st century lifestyles, football at its most basic conception as a sport and athletic pursuit, has, more or less, stayed the same. Change comes at a glacial pace in football if at all, so to stir in a flurry of new technological gizmos into the stew is akin throwing out your nana’s daily planner and shoving an iPad in her mitts and forcing the old bat to work it out on her own. Oh, I’m being hyperbolic you say and dissolving spray changes nothing, but one day it is goal line technology and dissolving spray, next it's Phil Dowd decked out in the most technologically advanced outfit to date, several different watches, the tightest of under amour, an inexplicable pair of periscopic goggles which allows him to spread his Google tentacles over a match, forever changing football as we know it.
But that could yet be far off into the future. For now we can sit back and watch as the referees graffiti and dot the landscape with their miraculous vanishing spray upon which no defensive wall will ever shift again. Welcome, Vanishing Spray! May your stay be long!
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I really thought it was shaving cream all this time.
