Before we try to understand why billionaires are so angry, we first want to warmly welcome Radfan. Nick's visit to the AZC made our Larix club known there, and this Saturday Radfan from the AZC took the plunge and played a fine game with us. We warmly welcome him and hope that he will not only join us often but also get fellow AZC residents enthusiastic. Now, the billionaires. Last Saturday there was an interesting article about this by Joost de Vries in de Volkskrant. About twenty-five years ago, people who had made it financially were still appreciated; today most of the sympathy is gone. Today's billionaires are angry at the world they (almost) govern themselves, angry at the elite above whom they themselves rise, angry at diversity, angry at migration that provides them with cheap labour, angry at citizens and journalists, people, incidentally, whom they never encounter in their private streets and private palaces. They see universities and the media as enemies, committed to democracy, human rights, peace, freedom and the environment. They are also angry at women, who are claiming an increasingly important role in society. Most billionaires are rather odd characters. They believe that they made it, but their self-confidence is crumbling. Sympathy for them is rapidly declining. They cozy up to right-wing figures: Musk supports the AfD and Nigel Farage, Mark Zuckerberg earns his billions by circulating conspiracy theories, Jeff Bezos by squeezing his employees, and the French multimillionaire Vincent Bolloré supports Marine Le Pen. But their wealth is impossible without subsidies and state support. Aren't they biting the hand that feeds them? The achievements they attribute to themselves no longer hold up. Their self-confidence falters. That is why they are angry.

Whether we win or lose, we are not angry, but always happy when we can play a good game of football. This Saturday we have nine men. Unfortunately Simon could not come, so it remains four against five. The quartet consists of Mario, Hans, Karel junior and senior. The quintet consists of Radfan, Jasper, Douwe, Nick and Reinier. How will it end? Perhaps it is actually an easy question to answer. You see it in the Eredivisie and you see it on the Larix field. In the Eredivisie, you see the stronger team constantly attacking, while the defending team keeps things tight and snatches the victory with a goal from an occasional counterattack. Our quintet is also more on the attack, while the quartet benefits from stubborn defending and from having much more space when attacking. As a result, the quartet is already 4-0 up after just over half an hour. Team Radfan manages to recover somewhat and brings the deficit back to 4-2. Once again, team Mario benefits from the space and makes it 6-2. Finally, team Radfan reduces the deficit to 6-3. Twice, when Reinier is in goal, Mario comes through alone. With hypnotising movements, the ball glued to his foot as he moves from left to right, he finally nudges the ball past goalkeeper Reinier twice at a snail's pace. When he gets home, Reinier searches the internet for a course in "effectively keeping the goal closed" against hypnotising Mario football skills, but so far he has not found such a course. During the match we are also visited by two people in yellow vests, the parking wardens. They want to fine Mario, but Nick and Mario make such convincing arguments that the wardens decide not to issue a fine. Kudos to the men. Unfortunately, Nick has to stop ten minutes before the end because his calf muscles start acting up and he does not want to risk making the problem worse. Hopefully he is no longer suffering from it.

Mario scores five times, Douwe twice, and Jasper and Karel junior score once each.