Arjen Robben

Arjen Robben’s retirement did not, strictly speaking, rupture the space-time continuum, but somewhere between Rotterdam and Rio you could feel the tectonic plates of nostalgia shift. The Dutch winger—part-time metronome, part-time glass figurine—hung up his boots in July 2021, and the global reaction was swift: one part elegy, one part sigh of relief from physiotherapists…