In order to get ‘into’ a sport, it usually helps to have grown up with it. I grew up with shooting, sailing and rugby in so far as those where the things I took to during my (mostly) English school days. Although I also served time doing part of my education in the USA, American Football, Baseball and Basketball never really appealed… not that I really have anything against those games, I just do not ‘relate’ to them myself. Strangely, the only times I have ever played soccer was in the USA as that seemed a more understandable sport to me, perhaps for the simple reason that although it was never a school sport in my neck of the woods in the UK, the ambient presence of ‘footie’ is hard to escape in England.
I do enjoy watching soccer and although the prospect of the World Cup did to some extent sweep me up, but the more matches I watched this time, the more this strange sinking feeling came over me. No doubt it is just me but there just seems to be something desperately unheroic about the game these days, at least at an international level. Perhaps the fact that every time I watched Italy, the eventual winners, play, they seemed to be taking more dives that Jacques Cousteau. I for one find athletes rolling around on the ground play-acting terrible injury when someone so much as brushes up against them such a pathetic and unmanly spectacle that perhaps the Italian team should replace their national flag by flying a petticoat from the nearest flagpole. Although Italy seem to be the worst offender in this regard, it does seem to be an increasingly widespread tactic (that said, anyone playing against Croatia need engage in no injury play-acting given that team’s ‘robust’ approach to the game).
Overall, I cannot help but feel that the whole thing was rather unedifying.
What does this have to do with the values of personal liberty and absoloute property rights?
zidane’s header into the sternum of materazzi has to be the funniest moment of the world cup. this act, plus his almost scandalously facetious penalty kick in the first half, makes zidane a hero in my book. dammit, the bloke even enjoyed a crafty cig before the portugal game. sod the golden boot award, give that man the keys to the city…
Shamelessly stolen joke:
Have you heard about the new Italian wine?
It goes, “Mamma Mia! I’m a hurt so bad! Penalty! Penalty!”
At times, international soccer approaches the burlesque appeal of professional wrestling.
Any of you rugger-b*ggers getting into a self-righteous tizzy about Rooney’s “stamp” should have been watching the Wallabies and the All Blacks. One All Black was repeatedly raising his knee almost as high as his chin in order to stamp his foot into the guy on the ground. Of course, there is no media storm when the, ahem, “gentlemen” behave like this.
Mighty Mouse: it only indirectly connects to political issues that we regularly write about, but there is a sort of connection, in as much as sport is often about rules, and the impact that rules have on behaviour, and vice-versa. Sport is part of life, it is about enjoyment, like music or the arts. Pure politics can get awfully dull.
A sport that would make Sarah Bernhardt proud. Okay, it would if it didn’t get so hammy. I swear I saw a reconstruction of Michelangelo’s Pieta and a couple of Sergeant Elias death scenes.
Like anyone whose prefered sport is Rugby, I too find the sight of fit young sportsmen crying over imagined injuries maddening. It spoils an otherwise great sport.
One of the reasons I read this blog is that it is not just about the often depressing state of civil liberties in the world.
Some sportsmanship statistics: http://www.informationbuilders.co.uk/ontheball/wcuk.htm
The post was abaht footballers taking liberties, wunnit?
In the NHL they give penalties for taking dives. And in a game with 5 skaters and a goalie you’re likely to get scored on if you lay down and cry for a minute or so. Football’s 11 players means being a man down to draw a penalty is good tactics.
My solution to the drama? Any player that takes more than 5 seconds to get up is obviously hurt so he must be substituted off for a minimum of 5 minutes to get checked out.
Zidane’s header was the only thing mildly interesting about the World Cup final. The fact it was his last game and his team lost was very satisfying.
I really don’t see what the world gets worked up about when it comes to World Cup. I’m glad it’s over.
You got it. Admittedly, I’ve maybe watched parts of 3 soccer games in my entire life, but the fake injuries are both simultaneously pathetic and hilarious. Say what you will about football, but if you’re going off the field in a stretcher your ass had better be paralyzed.
Let’s get back to the good old days when people who considered themselves educated and sophisticated would barely supress a sneer if you enquired about that day’s football results. I’m fed up with the new fans with their middle-class football songs from trendy pop groups and knowledge of their team that stretches as far back as 1996.
pete: that’s a bit chippy. I think the arrival of “middle class” folk at clubs has had, at the margins, a civilising influence on crowd behaviour (at the margins, note, I am not saying there are not problems. There are). I know it is politically incorrect to praise the middle classes, but what the heck. More women watch the game than 20 or 30 years ago. More families go to games than used to be the case. I recall watching a Chelsea vs Norwich City game in the mid-80s and a very unpleasant experience it was: crappy grounds, racism, violence and the rest. Things have got a lot better.
If football is attracting a few posh supporters, so much the better. But as Perry said, the antics of the players are not a great sight.
It should be borne in mind that all this theatricality is only at the very top of the game. At the other end the problem is out-and-out thuggery.
For anyone who has actually played sunday league football the reality is very different. Its a very physical, nasty game, with far too many park-psychos for my liking (it’s why I gave it up).
pete
A little chippy and not entirely fair but I sympathise with what you say. I have no problem with the Johnny and Jemima come latelys if they actually go to matches and come to know it. For those who don’t, yet pontificate about something called footy once every four years, I agree entirely with you.
As I said before, roll on August when we get our game back and the serious stuff begins.
Now THAT is funny!!!
Jonathan, you are exactly the type of fan who I wish had never become interested in football. More women, more families, all seater stadiums, no, no , no. If I want suburban boredom I can always stay at home on a Saturday afternoon.
Pure politics can get awfully dull.
However watching sports is surely not an antidote to dull. And most footie watches I know would argue this World Cup was dull in extremis.
nah, it was dull all the way through. unless you mean you think the World Cup may be at the point of death, in which case global viewing figures would suggest there’s life in the old dog yet.
or maybe most of the footie watchers you know live in hospices?
Pete, so what would you prefer? Big fights every Saturday afternoon? Obscene chants? Crappy service at standing-only stadia? Football was in a deep trough in the 70s and much of the 80s in Britain and parts of Europe: Hillsborough, Heysel, Bradford, other disasters. Good riddance to all that I say. Like I said, take the chip off the shoulder. It ill becomes you.
Fifa is investigating the incident.
From the wikipedia article on Zidane:
An Amendment[27] regarding discrimination to Art. 55, Par. 4 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code[28] stipulates that if any player, association or club official or spectator publicly disparages, discriminates against or denigrates someone in a defamatory manner on account of race, colour, language, religion or ethnic origin, or perpetrates any other discriminatory and/or contemptuous act and can be attributed to a certain team, the team in question faces deduction of points in the group stage resp. disqualification in the knockout stage.