Soccer in the shadow of capitalism
I’ve been getting very excited about the impending World Cup. Soccer. I only need to add that because I’m in Canada. People might think I mean hockey.
And this despite reading Eduardo Galeano’s Soccer in Sun and Shadow (some excerpts here).
Galeano, an Uruguayan journalist, essayist and general polemicist, writes lyrically and beautifully about the beautiful game. He describes in almost storybook style the history of soccer and how it has changed from a way to express and experience joy, to a grim repressive industry driven by greed, and controlled by secretive, autocratic old men with shady pasts.
Throughout its earlier chapters, Galeano conveys the magic, innocence and joy of the game. An example:
Heleno had his back to the net. The ball flew down from above. He trapped it with his chest and whipped around without letting it fall. His body arched, the ball still resting on his chest, he surveyed the scene. Between him and the goal stood a multitude. There were more people in Flamengo’s area than in all Brazil. If the ball hit the ground he was lost. So Heleno started walking and calmly crossed the enemy lines with his body curved back and the ball on his chest. No one could knock it off him without committing a foul, and he was in the goal area. When Heleno reached the goalmouth, he straightened up. The ball slid to his feet and he scored.
Though there’s tragedy too, as he points out that these stories were often very rags-to-riches as poor kids kick their way out of the ghettos only to end up back there after their fame leaves them.
And he reminds us that sport is far from politically neutral, as he describes soccer in the era of Italian, German and Spanish fascism. He tells of the entire first team of Dynamo Kiev, executed with their jerseys on after they defeated a German team in some exhibition match.
There is drama, emotion and magic in his historical tales, but as he traces the sport’s history to current day, the writing becomes tired and more matter of fact. He depicts the effect of television and sponsorships on the game, eventually tallying the winners and losers of various World Cups not by the side that won but by which sponsors got their logos on more games. Addidas won the 1998 World Cup, for example. Nike had to settle for second and fourth.
And despite this crystal clear analysis of soccer as an opiate of the masses or a rich man’s diversion, he continues to extoll the virtues of the game in its pure form and rail against its further corruption at the hands of advertisers and clubs who have larger revenues than half the countries of the world. (An American proposal to change the game to four, 25 minute quarters to permit more advertising comes in for particularly harsh criticism).
So even as I brace myself for World Cup stupidness (idiotic referees, moronic TSN commentary, jingoist fans, horrid bad luck, heart break and painfully uneven matchups) oblivious to the big picture, I am heartened to know that yea though the game be played in the shadow of capitalism, I’m not a total bourgeois tool for liking it.
