为你读书：《卢卡库：我有些话要说（连载六）》

导读

 

罗梅卢·卢卡库（Romelu Lukaku），这位比利时前锋是世界足坛最受关注的球星之一，却有着很多不为人知的过去。在2018世界杯开赛前，他在The Players’Tribune（《球星看台》）上撰文 I've Got Some Things to Say，回忆自己过去的时光与成长的历程。

 

 

 

The next season, I was still finishing up my last year of high school and playing in the Europa League at the same time. I used to have to take a big bag to school so I could catch a flight in the afternoon. We won the league by a mile, and I finished second for African Player of the Year. It was just … crazy.

接下来的赛季，我还需要完成我在高中的最后一年，同时我们也在踢欧罗巴联赛。我经常要背着大书包去学校，这样我才能赶上下午的飞机。我们几乎赢得了联赛，我也在年度最佳非洲球员评选中排名第二，真的，太疯狂了。

 

 

I actually expected all that to happen, but maybe not so fast. All of sudden, the media was building me up, and putting all these expectations on me. Especially with the national team. For whatever reason, I just wasn’t playing well for Belgium. It wasn’t working out.

我知道接下来会发生什么,但没想到这么快。几乎就是一瞬间,所有媒体都开始关注我，并且给了我许多期望，特别是在国家队当中。因为一些原因，我在国家队的表现并不好，没踢出来。

 

 

But, yo - come on. I was 17! 18! 19!

但是拜托，我才17岁！18岁！19岁！

 

 

When things were going well, I was reading newspapers articles and they were calling me Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian striker.

当事情向好的方向发展时，我看到新闻标题是：罗梅乌卢卡库，比利时前锋。

 

 

When things weren’t going well, they were calling me Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian striker of Congolese descent.

当时去没有向好的方向发展时，他们叫我：罗美路卢卡库，刚果血统的比利时前锋。

 

 

If you don’t like the way I play, that’s fine. But I was born here. I grew up in Antwerp, and Liège and Brussels. I dreamed of playing for Anderlecht. I dreamed of being Vincent Kompany. I’ll start a sentence in French and finish it in Dutch, and I’ll throw in some Spanish or Portuguese or Lingala, depending on what neighborhood we’re in.

如果你不喜欢我踢球的方式，没关系。但我出生在这里，我成长在安特卫普、列日和布鲁塞尔，我梦想着为安德莱赫特效力，我梦想着成为孔帕尼。一个句子我以法语开头，以荷兰语结束，我也会扔进去一些西班牙语、葡萄牙语或是林加拉语，这取决于我们的邻居。

 

 

 

 

I’m Belgian.

我是比利时人。

 

 

We’re all Belgian. That’s what makes this country cool, right?

我们都是比利时人，我们让这个国家越来越好，对吗？

 

 

I don’t know why some people in my own country want to see me fail. I really don’t. When I went to Chelsea and I wasn’t playing, I heard them laughing at me. When I got loaned out to West Brom, I heard them laughing at me.

我不知道为什么一些我的祖国的人希望看见我失败，我真的不知道。当我去切尔西，却上不了场的时候，他们在嘲笑我。当我租借去西布朗的时候，他们又在嘲笑我。

 

 

But it’s cool. Those people weren’t with me when we were pouring water in our cereal. If you weren’t with me when I had nothing, then you can’t really understand me.

不过没有关系，这些人在我们把水倒进牛奶里的时候不在我身边。如果在我一无所有的时候，你们没有跟我在一起，那你们一定不会真正懂我。

 

 

You know what’s funny? I missed 10 years of Champions League football when I was a kid. We never could afford it. I would come into school and all the kids would be talking about the final, and I’d have no idea what happened. I remember back in 2002, when Madrid played Leverkusen, everybody was like, “The volley! Oh my God, the volley!”

知道最可笑的是什么吗？当我还是个孩子的时候,我有10年看不了欧冠直播。因为家里没钱付电视费。当我回学校，所有的小孩都在谈论决赛的时候，我根本不知道发生了什么。我还记得2002年，所有孩子都在讨论皇马对阵勒沃库森的决赛，每个人都说：”那个天外飞仙！天呐！”

 

 

I had to pretend like I knew what they were talking about.

我只能假装知道他们聊的东西。

 

 

Two weeks later, we were sitting in computer class, and one of my friends downloaded the video off the Internet, and I finally saw Zidane smash it into the top corner with his left.

两周之后，在电脑课上，我的朋友下载了比赛视频，我才看到了齐达内的那脚射门。

 

 

That summer, I went over to his house so I could watch Ronaldo Fenomeno in the World Cup Final. Everything else from that tournament is just a story I heard from the kids at school.

那个夏天，我跑到了这个朋友家见证了罗纳尔多和巴西的世界杯决赛。对我来说，那年世界杯其他比赛的故事，我都是听着学校中的孩子们的讲述才了解的。

 

 

Ha! I remember I had holes in my shoes in 2002. Big holes.

哈哈！我还记得2002年我的球鞋破了个洞，一个大洞。