Last year, I lived three metro stops from the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid, and so I spent many evenings watching Karim Benzema. Real Madrid’s French forward — who last month won the Ballon d’Or for world’s best player, aged 34 — spends much of each game strolling around. He is scanning, clocking the location and directional movement of every player around him, as if that trademark bandage on his damaged right hand concealed a GPS. Then, when he suddenly breaks into a sprint, he is telling his teammates: “I have seen a gap. Give me the ball now.”
去年，我住在离马德里圣地亚哥-伯纳乌体育场三站地的地方，因此我花了很多晚上看卡里姆·本泽马(Karim Benzema)的比赛。皇马的法国前锋上个月获得代表世界最佳球员荣誉的金球奖的时候，已经34岁，他每场比赛的大部分时间都在散步。他其实是在进行扫描，记录他周围每个球员的位置和运动方向，就好像他受伤的右手上的标志性绷带隐藏着一个GPS。然后，当他突然开始冲刺时，他是在向他的队友们发出信号：“我已经看到了一个缺口。现在把球给我。”