Football, Time and Massimo Luongo

It was Christmas week in 2022 that Massimo Luongo first came to train at Playford Road. We'd just lost 1-0 away at Wycombe, Brandon Hanlan shrugging off a rather timid challenge from then teenager Cameron Humphreys to score the only goal of the game. Lee Evans was just recovering from his annual knee injury, Dom Ball's season had ended at Bracknell and Little Cam was all that we had left.

TWTD broke the news and the response was not exactly overwhelming enthusiasm. Luongo had joined Middlesbrough as a squad player off the back of an injury hit spell at Sheffield Wednesday. Another journeyman who couldn't string 10 games together. He hadn't made a single appearance for Michael Carrick's Championship high-flyers. Still Wednesday fans spoke positively of his dynamism when fit, and he seemed to be well-liked by QPR fans. It felt like sensible business given our other senior midfielders' fitness issues and the difficulty we anticipated in getting our number one midfield target, then club captain at our promotion rivals Peterborough, Jack Taylor.

What strange temporal alchemy that description of events performs. This world where the physicality of Wycombe Wanderers' frontline was untamable, where Peterborough United were too close to us in status to easily pinch players off and where Michael Carrick was the star Manchester United coaching graduate. All of this was just two and a half years ago.

Massimo hung around for a couple of weeks before settling his Middlesbrough contract and signing for us in the second week of January. A six-month stop-gap of a contract, just experienced cover for Lee Evans. He wouldn’t make his debut until the end of the month and he didn't play any league football at all until February 18th, four days after that infamous Valentine's Day 0-0 at Bristol Rovers.

Sam Morsy has referenced the day he cemented his place, a tricky visit to Milton Keynes. The nation's least loved football team were rather unfortunate to be trailing at half time. In front of 14,046 spectators, mostly Ipswich fans bopping inflatables around in the sun-drenched away end, Mo Eisa, Jonathan Leko and Sullay Kaikai had missed excellent chances, before Morsy robbed Josh MacEachran and drove the ball low past Jamie Cumming. Luongo came on at half time and smashed the ball just narrowly over the bar within a minute of his introduction. He buzzed around as MK Dons faded from the game, mustering barely an effort on goal thereafter whilst Ipswich peppered Cumming's goal. A tricky encounter turned into target practice as Luongo and Morsy took over.

Mass would play in 56 of our next 59 league games, Town winning 36 of them. After 11 further matches in the Premier League he will finish his Town career having made just 69 league appearances. 69?! Seems impossible, doesn't it? The impact he's had, the importance of his contribution, the lifetime it feels he has been with us. It has to be more.

There's a line by Mexican poet Homero Aridjis (often mis-attributed to Lenin) that comes to mind when I think of Massimo’s 69 games: "There are centuries where nothing happens; and there are years where centuries happen".[1]

There were hundreds of games where nothing happens at all and one and a half seasons where everything happened. We lived more meaningful moments with Mass than we had in the previous two decades. This trio of seasons were more vivid to this middle-aged man than any since I was a teenager. As miserable as the past few games have been (sparing me from writing about Ipswich 1 West Ham 3 is another thing to be grateful to Mass for), nothing that happened this season should be allowed to spoil the magic of the back-to-back promotions. All of it, from that stalemate at The Mem to Omari Hutchinson’s confirming goal just after half time against Huddersfield, will stay with me forever.

Has any Ipswich player had such an impact in so few games? Massimo was everything you want in a midfielder, he embodied so much of what has driven the club forward in the past few years. I’m sure there are plenty of pleasing statistics about his contributions in League One and the Championship, but all you really need to understand Luongo’s contribution is the venerable chant we dug out for him. “He’s here, he’s there, he’s every fucking where, Massimo, Massimo”. Some players you notice instantly for their technical prowess, others you notice because they seem to just be involved in everything. I can’t remember the last player we’d sung that about and it was so perfect for him. Like 27,000 people had given him the same 10 out of 10 on the box-to-box midfielder eye test.

He just appeared everywhere you needed him to be. Need someone to scurry across and hoover up a loose ball in midfield? He’s there. Need an underlapping run into the penalty area? He’s there. Need cover when your left back is caught up field? Him. Need a driving run through the lines? He’ll do it. Need someone to crash the edge of the box and smash the winning goal in the top corner? Yes, sir, Massimo Luongo is present and correct.

All product of such boundless energy, plenty of skill and of a joyful physicality. Like Dennis Rodman fielding rebounds, he somehow just knew where he needed to be every time. If football kept statistics for how often loose balls just happen to land at a player’s feet, he’d top the charts. McKenna described him as the best he’d ever worked with ‘from a football IQ point of view and a game-feel point of view’. He was a lesson in pragmatic recruitment. He smiled. He obsessed over coffee.  

After the chastening experience of the last few months, it is important to try and be philosophical. It is easy to feel like this trilogy ended not with a bang but a whimper but we should remind ourselves how special what we got from Massimo and the group over the previous two years was. Football joy is transient joy. Nothing you win stays won, someone else comes along and wins it the very next year. No status you achieve lasts forever. No club lives a life of endless progress. Nor is any failure, embarrassment, pain, forever. We rise and fall, we meander through humdrum years of nothing, we slide into mediocrity, we fall into crisis. Sometimes though, we live indescribable pleasures, euphoria beyond description.

Those 56 games from February 2023 to May 2024. A lifetime.   

[1] “Hay siglos en los que no pasa nada y años en los que pasan siglos”, Aridjis was talking about 1492.