& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Bringing art to life

Rob Hughes
In a field where an is movement, and where pace is paramount, it takes someone special to score out of stillness. Juninho Pernambucano is special, even by the standards of the great Brazilians who down the decades made us gasp at the impudence of their freekicks.
Juninho's goal in Tuesday's 1-1 draw between Lyon and Barcelona may have begun as still life, but the flight he induced on his kick from 30 meters, the almost supernatural way he angled the ball and caused it to curl with a trajectory that made a decent goalkeeper appear like a drunken sailor, was very definitely an.
"Juninho's goal was a really nice one,” acknowledged Josep Guardiola, the young coach of Barcelona. Guardiola has seen a few free-kick specialists in his time. "It was not a mistake from Victor Valdds - nobody could have stopped it."
Valdas is Barcelona’s goalkeeper. He has spent countless hours in training against men like Ronaldinho. Lionel Messi, Xavi Herndndez, Thierry Henry, all of whom are accomplished "dead ball" strikers.
It wasn't difficult for Guardiola to foresee the danger, and to warn his players in the locker room before the kickoff: "Juninho is one of the best players in the world, capable of winning a match on his own."
Picture, then, the scene at Stade Gerland in Lyon. The contest is barely wanned up, just seven minutes old. Juninho, now aged 34 and talking of retirement, stands innocendy enough over the ball. Innocent not because of the distance, but because the angle of approach would not suggest a direct shot at goal.
The instant he strikes it, all those watching in the ground or on television realize that Juninho has conjured danger where none seemed to exist.
As the ball flies through the air, he stands there like a golfer who has hit a shot out of the rough, moving a hand as if to guide the curve of the ball along the path he intended.
Valdas comes forward from his net, begins to backtrack and finally seems to lose his bearing as the ball deceives him in flight and nestles, as intended, inside the furthest post.
A brief silence is followed by rapturous applause. Juninho. real name Antonio Augusto Ribeiro Reis Junior, looks the least surprised. He
studied a long line of Brazilians who brought the so-called dead ball to life. He would practice and practice, like Didi in the 1950s, Rivelinho in the 1970s, Zico in the 1980s and Rivaldo in the 1990s.
There is a video of a training session of the Brazil national squad in which Juninho rehearses free kicks. Standing behind a line of cutout dummies, the goalie. Julio Cesar, points to a spot on the underside of his crossbar, inviting Juninho to beat him from 20 meters.
Once, twice, three, four, five times, Juninho does just that. Always with the right foot, always with a different cut or swerve or spin on the ball. Always with a smile on the faces of watching national team colleagues.
Knowing what Juninho will do is no defense to preventing it Juninho moved from Brazil to France eight years ago. and is on course to his eighth consecutive French league championship with a Lyon team that is a class above the rest in its land.
But on Tuesday they faced the best in Europe. Barcelona, perhaps in contention with Manchester United, possesses the sweetest rhythm and flow, and any number of forwards capable of turning a match.
Yet Barca has stalled, slightly, after their recordbreaking season. After Juninho's strike, they had to dig deep to rescue the match. They did so an hour after going behind. A corner from Messi was flicked on by Rafael Mdrquez. and headed into the net by Henry at the far post The result leaves the teams delicately balanced for in the second leg at Barcelona's Nou Camp stadium in two weeks' time.
(Rob Hughes is sports correspondent, International Herald Tribune)