Joe Rodon is shouting at the world — Square Ball 3/4/24
BACK PAIN
Written by: Rob Conlon
There was no logical explanation for Joe Rodon chasing a
lost cause down the right wing deep into Hull City’s half, but I was glad he
was. Hull’s Ozan Tufan had it covered, but the ball was bouncing invitingly for
a fifty-fifty challenge. Both players ignored the ball, colliding in a meaty
shoulder barge as it rolled out for a throw-in. As Tufan casually walked away,
Rodon shouted a few words in his direction that, from a few rows away in the
East Stand, I was fairly sure weren’t compliments. Jogging back into position,
Rodon continued muttering in his perma-scowl, this time lambasting nobody but
himself.
There was a lot of talking among Leeds’ players all night
against Hull City. Nothing was working as it should have been, and they were
trying to work out why. Throughout the unbeaten run of 2024, the triangle of
Rodon, Ethan Ampadu, and Ilia Gruev has held everything together, setting the
platform for everyone else to get on with their jobs. But now that axis has
been disrupted by Gruev’s absence, nobody was doing what their teammates around
them were expecting. After Hull equalised, Pat Bamford, Cree Summerville, Glen
Kamara, and Archie Gray were debating who should have closed down Regan Slater.
At one point, the disconnect throughout the entire team was underlined by
Bamford and Illan Meslier telling each other that, whatever they were trying to
do, do something different.
Rodon wasn’t in the mood for discussion. He rarely is,
playing every game with the moody expression of a kid who’s been told to come
in for their tea only to find a plate of vegetables rather than ice cream. And
on that night of all nights, struggling with a back spasm that meant he
couldn’t even join in with light training on the morning of the game, tactical
nuances could wait. The last thing he needed was to be scrapping for a win
while his teammates were dicking around drawing.
Instead, Rodon was yelling at everyone. The opposition, the
referee, his own team. He wasn’t even sparing himself the occasional verbal
lashing. Anything to take his mind off the pain in his back and the fatigue of
his 47th game of the season. Jesus Christ could have risen from the centre
circle carrying two bags full of Easter eggs and Rodon would have grabbed him
by the scruff of his robe and told him to fuck off the pitch and let Leeds get
on with trying to win the game.
Given Daniel Farke revealed after the game that Rodon was
playing dosed up with painkillers, maybe it wouldn’t have been a surprise if he
did hallucinate Jesus in the centre circle. I’ve often thought the best nights
at Elland Road can feel like a psychedelic trip. In The Doors Of Perception,
Aldous Huxley notes ‘the close similarity, in chemical composition, between
mescalin and adrenalin’. I’m no chemist, but it might be the best explanation
I’ve heard for why, when Elland Road is at its most terrifyingly exhilarating,
the green of the pitch and the white of the kits appear more vivid, the aroma
of fried onions, flat lager, and god awful farts smells more pungent, and the
songs and silences and sighs of the crowd sound so much more distinct.
At least that’s why I reckon my palms were getting clammy
and I could feel my heart beating out of my chest. At one point in the second
half I become very aware I was experiencing the tension through my own two
eyes, puzzled by how 35,000 people could be going through their own unique
sensations yet feeling the exact same emotions, the type of thought that should
only be voiced at 3am in a random kitchen while a wide-eyed stranger is talking
very quickly about Area 51. Then Dan James dropped a tab of LSB from fifty
yards and all four sides of the stadium were shaking and swaying and I felt
like I was spinning around in a washing machine.
Or maybe Rodon wasn’t hallucinating at all, and was just
raging at the world like the rest of us, because he understood exactly what was
happening and it was making him furious. Perhaps that’s the most logical
explanation for why he was chasing after a ball down the right wing just so he
could try to knock someone over. As Leeds were defending their 2-1 lead in the
first minute of stoppage time, Rodon roared when Meslier claimed a simple catch
of a looping ball into the air, then bollocked the referee for daring to give a
free-kick after he blatantly tripped someone up on the halfway line. With a
minute to go, he growled in celebration at his bezzie Ampadu for heading a
dangerous ball across the six-yard box out for a corner, which Rodon headed
away not once, but twice, completing a thirteen-second hat-trick of defending
by blocking a shot to launch the counter that allowed James to send everyone
into delirium. Rodon didn’t bother looking where his block landed. He turned to
face the South Stand, and screamed at them too.
