This article is part of a series called "The feuilets de mon album" — The sheets of my album —, by Jean Eskenazi, published in 1937 & 1938. These series are a collection of footballers and some quick interesting comments of Eskenazi abut every single one of them. You can see the whole episodes by clicking here.

Phenomena and animators
Jean Eskenazi | 30/12/1937



Bastin


— I want, said the Greek child, powder and bullets.

Clifford Bastin, international at 19, Boby of English football. Only needs bullets.

On occasion he will even look for them and then lead dizzying dribblings that strike with their penetrating power.

One of the greatest footballers of the time.

And he's not 26.

Glory crowned his merits when he was young.


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Meazza


Handsome as a young god of antiquity.

With "velvet eyes" that make all beautiful Italian women swoon. Mr. Pozzo's darling child,, and a very great player certainly who has dynamism, power, and a shot of which many can be proud.

Centre-forward as insider, has always had the heyday of the famous Squadra Azzura of which he has become, despite his relative youth, the captain.


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Alec James


It's not James, it's Alec James, like Hugo was Victor Hugo! He is also a giant in football, this little guy who evokes a caricature of Poulbot with a "climbing" spell on his knees.

The football wizard, the magician. He was everything except a goal scorer.

But he was all the more dangerous for that.

And where was the ball, there it was and it was from there that the goals were scored by partners triggered like automatons by this devilish little Scotsman.


*   *   *

Svoboda


A little snappy.

Like all high class men. But when he felt in good shape, you had to get three or four to stop him in his powerful breakthroughs, always perfectly ruminating.

A player of great stature, a leader in a team, and a handsome athlete, elegant and distinguished, despite his weight, healthy as are many of the representatives of this beautiful race, the Czech race.


*   *   *

Sekoulitch


A Slav, and a real one. Run into the heap? Ugh! But feign the opponent, dribble him, play him, play the toreador. This is football for our Sekoulitch who, one day, even had fun playing his match barefoot. An artist who operated only with finesse.

But what finesse, a finesse worthy of the brushstroke of a Winterhalter.


*   *   *

Braine


He achieves an incomparable synthesis. He has the virtuosity of a Central European player.

And the robustness of a British "pro".

When he makes lace, it is therefore that of a reinforced cement bridge.

Astonished Prague, Vienna, Budapest.

"And then returned full of use and reason to live between his parents the rest of his age", in Antwerp.


*   *   *

Hiltl


What is he playing at the Excelsior? Winger, insider, centre-forward? No. He plays “Hiltl”. It's the extraordinary Mr. Hiltl. Class personified. With the nonchalance, the disdain for the effort of all those who have genius at birth. In Vienna, he would now be the centre-forward of the Austrian team. In France, he is only Hiltl, the inimitable, the virtuoso Hiltl.


*   *   *

Kennedy


Baudelaire wrote "I hate the movement that displaces the lines".

Fred Kennedy shared this opinion. He was reluctant to move.

But he was in charge of running the ball for him.

And that's the art of football, precision and efficiency which, in good English, Kennedy understood admirably.

Because he was a real Briton, furious, and who on desperate occasions gathered his last strength — as a worthy descendant of Nelson — and changed the result with an unforeseen shot. Sports too.

Back in England, he wrote a lovely article about Racing and France.


*   *   *

Kennedy


Looks like a Flemish truck driver. Enormous thighs, and a lopsided head.

Above all, he has a henaurmic shot, as Flaubert would have said. A heavy shot like that of a Bertha.

But expiates it with a slowness that would make Zivcovitch himself jealous!

He's the cannon man.

An attraction for a Football Fair.