World Cup Review

In many parts of the world soccer inspires a degree of fanaticism that even the most rabid Yankee or Laker fan would find it difficult to match. During the month-long festival of the World Cup, which is held only once every four years, soccer fanaticism is compounded by national pride and the excitement reaches fever pitch. Through a two-year qualification process, two hundred national teams are whittled down to thirty-two, which play one another in four-team groups. Sixteen teams emerge from these round-robins and the knock-out rounds begin.

The arrival of television has certainly added to the popularity of these competitions. It’s estimated that one of every six people on earth was watching when Italy met France in this year’s final. So was I.

In fact, I followed the development of this year’s Cup with more that usual interest. This was in part because a friend had been priming me this spring with tapes of Premier League ties, but also because I now happen to get ESPN as part of my bare-bones cable package. I familiarized myself with the stars, read a few web reports, and attuned myself to the game’s pace and aesthetic. I began to understand that fouling is a standard part of defending, and that tugs, shoves, and trips are commonplace. At a certain point I came to believe I could differentiate between a good defensive play, a justifiable defensive foul, a blatantly uncalled-for foul (worthy of a yellow card), and a dive. At that point it became obvious that often the referees cannot tell these things apart. Yet the referees face a daunting task, I began to sense, in maintaining a subtle balance between keeping order on the field and letting the player’s play. If they called every foul they saw, the game would never get underway. If they never called one, a lot of people would eventually get hurt.

Fouling in the penalty area presents an even more demanding challenge to the refs. In basketball fouls are common and often deliberate, but just image what the game would be like if a foul in the “box” might result in the fouled team scoring not just two, but a hundred and two extra points. Such is the case in soccer, where a foul in the penalty area leads almost inevitably to a score, and a typical game ends in a score of 1-0.

This is only one of several reasons why, in soccer, luck is a very important factor in the outcome of most games. For every header that reaches the back of the net, four or five sail wide or over the top. Evidently it isn’t that easy to accurately redirect a slippery leather ball coming at you from an obtuse angle with great speed by hitting it with the top of your head. Similarly, a shot from thirty yards may land in the upper deck, making the player who took it look ridiculous, but the next one may hit the crossbar and bounce in. Suddenly, the fellow’s a hero!

In short, soccer is a game of deft approximations, and the game’s tension and excitement comes from the anticipation of a combination that proves both effective and lucky enough to result in a score. Such combinations sometime seem to materialize out of thin air. At other times, extended periods of remarkable footwork and passing in front of the goal end up going nowhere.

This may explain why a distinction is often made between winning and playing imaginative soccer. The fan is always on the lookout for beautiful passing combinations or a remarkable solo dribble past a bevy of defenders. On the other hand, twenty or thirty minutes of cautious, uninspired play wears our patience thin. How often we hear it said, “The Mexicans played better...but the Koreans won,” or something to that effect.

Yet fancy play is not, in itself, the be all and end all of soccer excellence either. The most dazzling exhibition of scoring fireworks that I saw during the 2006 World Cup was put on by Argentina in their tie against Serbia, but the contest ended in a 6 - 0 rout, and for all the brilliant footwork, it seemed too much like the A-squad lording it over the B-squad.

The ultimate thrill is to witness brilliance erupting from the midst of heated play with the outcome hanging in the balance. So much of the game is spent with the ball outside the net that whenever it goes inside there is a sort-lived but palpable sense of joyous disbelief, as if water had suddenly started to run uphill.

The geopolitical subplots of the World Cup always add to the excitement. For example, although Ivory Coast is currently embroiled in a nasty civil war, their team made it to the World Cup, and it was taken as a sign of hope (a ridiculously thin sign, it must be admitted) that the team included players from both of the warring regions.

Iran’s appearance took on more serious overtones when its controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that he would travel to Germany to cheer on his country’s players if they made it to the second round. Mr. Ahmadinejad is well-known around the world for, among other things, labelling the Holocaust a myth. In German espousing such a belief is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison...

Ronaldinho

The stars of the soccer firmament are most often the individuals who do remarkable things that stick in the memory. And for novices like me, it was not altogether displeasing to find that some of the names have remained the same over the years—Ronaldo, Zidane, Figo, Beckham. The American announcers in the early rounds filled up the dead air space by commenting repeatedly on how little these aging Galacticos were actually doing for their national teams. Yet Beckham seemed to be personally involved in every one of England’s scores, while his vaunted younger compatriots did relatively little. And as for Ronaldo (who on one occasion the announcers lowered themselves to referring as “fatty”), he scored three goals (two more than the entire American team) and thus became the most prolific scorer in World Cup history. Maybe the American team should try putting on a little weight themselves.

One of the great aspects of the 2006 Cup was the role played by Germany, both as a team and as a host nation. It was pleasant to watch the team play aggressive soccer, and the sight of the crowds was also impressive. I imagine it would have been electric actually to have been there.

As it happens, a friend of mine, Bill Roth, who continues to play in various senior leagues, made the trip. I asked him what it was like, and he sent me this report:

“It’s June in Berlin and at the Brandenburg Gate 500,000 people gather to watch jumbotrons showing the Germany/Argentina quarterfinal match being played in Olympic Stadium, a few miles away. In other cities throughout the country, thousands more congregate at fanfests, bier gartens, plazas and outdoor cafes. Jim Harris, owner of Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, and I were among them most nights but this day we were among the 72,000 fans in attendance.

Inside the stadium chants of “Deutschland, Deutschland” rise and roll like “the wave,” the stadium game that unfortunately will not die. The chants are followed by the inexplicable sing-song adaptation of an old car slogan, “Volare’ Volare’ oh, oh, oh, oh” and what sounds like a guttural exhortation to play harder. Straining my ears, I hear a modest “Ole! Ole! Ole!” from the small blue and white Argentina section. Next to me a young woman in a yellow, red and black Afro wig cups her face in her hands, smearing her similarly-colored face paint, and implores midfielder Michael Ballack to play better. “Nein, nein, NEIN Ballack!” she cries as a lazy pass is intercepted.

I wear my Bundesliga jersey and cheer along, my German heritage emerging from the dark shadows of twentieth-century shame and my Dad’s genealogical indifference. But here Roth is Roth with a long “o” and I’m an unabashed fan of the side managed by Jürgen Klinsmann, once a feared striker for the German national team and now a Southern California resident. This expatriate arrangement, and Klinsmann’s odd enthusiasm for American sports psychologists, is critical fodder for the usual nationalistic rhetoric until Germany suddenly starts winning, running through pool play and the round of sixteen with uncharacteristically stylish, attacking football.

Stereotypes can often be wrong and wrongheaded but it’s far worse not to be known for anything. The Germans, over time, have been known for perseverance, hard-knuckled defense and winning ugly. Case in point was the 2002 match against the Americans. The U.S. dominated, Germany won. But they are underdogs in their own country this time around and surfer-boy Klinsmann is the fall guy, having jettisoned old favorites like 2002 World Cup MVP Otto Kahn in favor of younger, more dynamic players. To many he has done the unpardonable, sacrificing dull competency for dangerously creative play. But now, four games in, he’s the golden boy again.

Whipping-boy status switches and is now bequeathed to the dour Sven Göran-Ericksson, England’s manager. In the Guardian and International Herald florid British columnists decry the meek passing of what was to be England’s golden age of football. The team was chosen badly, they say. Seventeen-year-old Theo Walcott is picked over more accomplished older players, then consigned to the bench. The alignments are wrong. Once Michael Owen is hurt they move storkish Peter Crouch to the bench and isolate Wayne Rooney up front, misusing his talents. Disastrous! cries the press who suddenly find winning a poor sister to beautiful football. Stars of the Premier League cannot play alongside one another. (What else in new?) One criticism trumps the next. Wayne Rooney, a comet on the international scene at seventeen, flares out in this Cup, collecting a deserved red card, failing again to score on the larger stage, a confounding shortcoming for a savior with a pug face and a cockney swagger.

Legends are made or tarnished here. Two-time world footballer of the year, Ronaldinho, looks ordinary, and Brazil departs. He will now be viewed differently, with an asterisk. Unhappy fans jeer the Brazilian bus as it leaves for the airport after a quarterfinal loss to France. Another league star, Thierry Henri, a focal point and vocal critic of the racism that has afflicted European soccer too long, plays reasonably well but is forced into the shadows by the brilliance of Zidane who “unretired” at age 34 to play for France, the improbable finalist. A light bronzing and Zidane could be the next heroic statue in the Tuileries Garden in Paris, his face classic, his legend secure.

Zidane

But new stars emerge or their status is confirmed. Ribery of France, Christian Ronaldo of Portugal and Robbens of the Netherlands make fearless runs into the heart of defenses. Argentina demonstrates one-touch skills that leave fans searching for superlatives, yet ultimately fall to the surging Germans who, in turn, fall to the Italians who seem undeterred, and perhaps even inspired, by the league scandals back home and the suicide attempt by a former teammate. Italy’s two goals at the end of overtime with Germany were stunning and well-deserved. Azzuri, the Italian blue, is no longer the team that set back U.S. interest in soccer ten years with their somnambulant crawl through the 1994 World Cup. Those flamboyant-looking, long-haired, handsome Italians defend as stoutly as ever, but they now play with flair.

I watched the U.S. – Ghana game in an internationally-mixed bar. I was the only U.S. partisan there (I’d lost Jim in a train mix-up) but the anti-U.S. sentiment was benign, almost condescending. “You win enough,” they told me. “This is our game.” I said little and left quietly. It was hard to disagree.

And what of the country that hosted these games, finally stepping out of the global shadows and their convulsive history? It was predicted that German efficiency would result in kept schedules, well-run trains, trained politeness, and effective policing. But it was far more. The Germans cautiously, then impulsively, opened up to their guests and themselves. They seemed to discover that national pride has a healthy side. As one German we spoke to, a professor who once attended the University of Iowa, noted, it’s rare to see a German display a national flag or speak of patriotism. They’re more likely to behave like a submissive dog that sidles up to a bigger one, seeking acceptance and declaring its harmlessness. In streets throughout the country congeniality gave way to a more exuberant celebration of not only the home team but also to the event and the rich mix of visitors from throughout the world.

During our stay we visited Hamburg, the bustling northern port city, cosmopolitan Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden. We weren’t determined to see the old East Germany but we did spend most of our time there. In Leipzig we toured the Church where the freedom movement met, grew and eventually spilled into the streets in October of 1989. The pride was evident. But nearby was the Staasi Museum, with its defining words, Power and Banality. Inside we viewed the instruments of suppression – citizen dossiers, mail-opening devices, interrogation chairs, surveillance cameras. The descriptions were all in German so all focus was on the artifacts. The effect was unsettling, but the devices themselves seemed oddly old-fashioned, like what you might find cleaning out Grandpa’s barn. Yet everyone knows better and that banality does not preclude evil but rather often defines it.
To their credit, present-day Germany does not turn its back on its past. Bombed-out churches stand in the middle of thriving commercial districts. In Hamburg, one destroyed church is equipped with an elevator and we ride it up to view the city and the plaques that describe the war’s ravages and the student soldiers sent to fight. In Dresden, there is the magnificent Frauenkirche, reduced to rubble in the worst firebombing of the war. Now it towers over this beautiful city on the Elbe. Much of the restored church is cream-colored, with its bell tower rising stories above the plaza where a Martin Luther statue has also been painstakingly re-created. However, mixed among the creamy bricks, colored originally with an egg mix, are sooty black bricks. These were pulled from the rubble and re-used, the soot a product of both the raging fire and the coal the area once produced and burned. The restoration, begun as a local project, eventually became an international cause, with sizeable U.S. donations included. There was guilt involved, no doubt. The firebombing was controversial and killed thousands of civilians. Politicians and high commanders quickly washed their hands of this massive firestorm and moved guilt down the military chain. Sixty years later, bus after bus of tourists walk through the narrow streets of the city that many find to be Germany’s most beautiful.

Americans remembering East Germany and particularly East Berlin often mention the sense of moving from color TV to black and white when moving from west to east. Soviet architecture was cheap and boxy, utilitarian and proletarian. Remnants persist and it deserves the criticism. But we were led to wonder if this functional rebuilding was as much a matter of empty coffers after the devastation of the war (and perhaps retribution for its 20 million dead), as it was a politically-inspired effort.

Regardless, assimilation of East and West continues, and the fear is abating that the East will slow Germany’s progress, sap the government’s coffers, and provided too much cheap labor. Indeed, although West Berlin is bourgeois in the way every major western city is, with skyscrapers, big-box retailers, and bustling commerce, East Berlin seems to be the livelier side. We stay in a neighborhood where we’re old enough to be parents or even grandparents of 75% of the population. The rents are cheap here, the shops chic, the outdoor cafes full of beautiful people.
And the games, to an American like me, seem like thirty days of NBA playoffs, televised nightly to millions of fans in every corner of the world. The stadiums are like hallowed grounds and I always clutched my tickets tighter than my passport or wallet. Thank you, parochial American sportscasters, for your snide assessments of 1-0 games. Appreciation of the “beautiful game” should be restricted to the few billion people who understand soccer’s intricate interplay of technique and passion. It’s often argued that soccer reflects life, with its bitterness, joy, dull stretches and occasionally unsatisfactory conclusions. To most of the world, it’s much more. It’s a club I now feel I’ve joined, at least as an affiliate member.”

Thanks Bill.

I don’t think I’d qualify as even an affiliate member of that club, and I’m not sure I want to join. Watching the World Cup remains, for me, on the order of participating in a Saami shamanistic ceremony or an age-old voodoo cult. I say “participating” rather than “observing” because the fans provide 99% of the hysteria associated with the event. If it weren’t for them (us) soccer would be a matter of a few men kicking a ball around a field. The beauty, skullduggery, and sweat would still be there, but for that final, crowning element of frenzied glory and irrationality, you have to look to the fans.

As the 2006 tournament reached it final week, four teams were left in the fray—Italy, Germany, France, and Portugal. The heavily favored Brazilians, with their happy-go-lucky galaxy of one-name superstars—Ronaldinho, Robinho, Ronaldo, Adriano, and all the rest—had fallen in the quarterfinals to a previously lackluster French squad following the sudden resurrection of Zidane as a midfield magician. (The air was cooler: the game was being played at night.) France proceeded to squeak by Portugal on a strength of a penalty kick sent from on high, while Italy defeated Germany in one of the tournament’s most exciting matches, scoring twice within two minutes during stoppage time following two hours of heated but scoreless play by both sides.

In the final, French once again scored early via a dubious penalty kick, Italy tied the game, and the two teams wore one another down, with a score by Italy during the second half being denied because of an off-sides call. During the first overtime period Italian goalie Buffon made a spectacular save of a point-blank Zidane header.

Then came the infamous head-butt. The world watched in horror as Zidane, after exchanging words with Materazzi, calmly lowered his head and sent the Italian midfielder to the turf with a crashing blow. He was ejected from the game, and as everyone knows, the Italians went on to win on penalty kicks.

In the following days lip-readers were hard at work trying to figure out what Materazzi had said to rile the French star. At a press conference a few days later Zidane revealed that Materazzi had insulted his mother and sister. Materazzi denied that his comments were anything more than “the type of insult that we’ve heard before so many times on the pitch, and sometimes we don’t even notice.” That may well be true. But it was too much for Zidane.

“You hear it once and then you try and walk away and I do walk away. Then he repeats that for a second time and for a third time… well, I’m a human being,” Zidane explained.

Soccer fans were well aware that Zindane has been ejected for similarly unsportsmanlike acts more than a few times during his career—ten, to be precise—but in light of all the adulation that had been coming his way recently, perhaps it was important for him to remind the soccer world of his darker side. I’m not sure that the closing minutes of a World Cup final, which was also the last game of Zidane’s career, was the best time and place to do so. In didn’t help the French team much, though it did provide French intellectuals with a pop-cultural event to deconstruct and analyze for years to come.

In the end Italy got the trophy, which most observers agreed was well-deserved. And Zidane reminded the world that there are some things in life more important than personal prestige, national pride, or a world championship.

For example, your mother and your sister.