[caption id="attachment_39527" align="alignright" width="405"] AN ENIGMA: Arjen Robben of the Netherlands celebrates after defeating Mexico 2-1 during a round of 16 World Cup match in Fortaleza. Picture: GETTY IMAGES[/caption]
"I AM almost crying," gasped Arjen Robben. "It's the emotions, they're so strong."
The Dutchman had just emerged from the dressing room in the Arena Castelao in Fortaleza, having guided his team through to a World Cup quarterfinal. He struggled to keep calm and properly articulate his feelings of exhilaration.
His thoughts tumbled out in a rush. "All these young players, it's so great for them," he said, as 21, 22 and 23 year-olds in Netherlands tracksuits and blazers filed past him.
Robben was then asked about whether he might have "dived" to win the last-minute penalty by which Holland had defeated Mexico 2-1.
He had not, Robben said, but went on, as if in a confessional, to volunteer he had dived earlier in the match to try to gain a free-kick.
An admission does not lessen a flaw, yet it was unusual to hear Robben so candid about an aspect of his game that has aggravated opponents for well over a decade.
According to Jose Mourinho, one of the many coaches who have worked with him, diving is a habit Robben was told to eliminate nearly 10 years ago at Chelsea, when the good, bad and the sneaky of Robben's soccer came under the scrutiny of worldwide audiences for the first time.
He was an enigma even then. First, there is his appearance. At 20, he already had a receding hairline, and the lived-in face of a man 10 years older. Yet he could, and still does, sprint astonishingly fast.
At one point in the 60m dash he set off on to score the fifth of Holland's goals against Spain in their dramatic opening match at this World Cup, he was timed at 37km/h.
Put him in civilian clothes and he does not look like an athlete. Many of his off-field habits are unlike those of the stereotype modern, elite player. He used to cycle 13km to training, as a teenager at Groningen, an unusual commute in a sport where many men in his income- bracket collect enough cars and chauffeurs to use a different one each day of the week.
Robben's flashiness is mostly reserved for the pitch, where symptoms of egomania have often been pronounced.
At Chelsea, as at Real Madrid, and in the first three of what are five seasons now at Bayern Munich, his decisions over whether to pass or whether to continue on one of his soloist slaloms have frequently been criticised by colleagues.
At Bayern, he once got a thump in the eye in the dressing room from teammate Franck Ribery after they had argued over who was going to take a free-kick.
In Holland's game against Mexico, we witnessed something distinct from the Robben of arrogant reputation. The penalty he gained in the last minute of stoppage time, six minutes after Holland had still been trailing 1-0, was taken not by him, but by substitute Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.
Even more startling, Robben had turned down the chance to take it, to score his fourth goal of the tournament, and offered it instead to Huntelaar.
Granted, Robben has missed some pressure penalties in his career, but he has a fine technique from 11m.
And he loves nothing more than a duel, one-against-one. He is at his captivating best running at a marker, usually a fullback, and these days, usually at a left back, who he likes to cut across onto his preferred left foot. Time and again, his best goals, his team's best openings come from that manoeuvre.
He is in many ways the most predictable of the great attacking players of his generation.