Beyond the Pitch, A Troubled World

Two Barca players talk politics and more. Defender Lilian Thuram speaks out against the cynicism of politicians on the left and right and remembers the impoverished circumstances of his youth.

On his legendary goals against Croatia in the 1998 World Cup that set the stage for France's victory:

It was what I call my Miles Davis moment...Footballers can be like artists when the mind and body are working as one. It is what Miles Davis does when he plays free jazz - everything pulls together into one intense moment that is beautiful. He doesn't have to think about it; it's pure instinct.

And on the failed 2001 attempt at a reconciliation match between France and Algeria:

With tears in his eyes, Thuram ran from the pitch, charging straight to the dressing room without speaking to anyone. 'What happened that night was a disaster,' he says. 'It was as if everything I have ever believed in was wrong. I hoped, and still hope, that races can live together, but that night I saw such anger and hatred that it made me afraid for the future.'

And Barca right-back, Catalan nationalist, and all-around political activist Oleguer--who drives not a fancy sports car, but a van--suffers for his stand taken against the Spanish judicial system, but reminds us

'If we want a better world, we all need to roll up our sleeves. It's easy to moan to your friends and then do nothing. The consequences I suffer are nothing compared to what many people go through.'

Even on the heels of yesterday's disastrous outing against Seville (and what the hell was the deal with the red card against Guily? Are they giving those out for breathing too hard in the other guy's direction now?), man, do I love this team.

Wiping the Cobwebs from My Eyes

Like the masochist that I am . . . I will be watching the West Ham v Tottenham match Sunday morning. And I too have finally come to the realization that the Hammers are going to be relegated. But thank you Mr Brand for reminding me of why that team matters.

You can read more about being doomed with West Ham here.

Can't We All Just Be....Oh, Screw It!

Twelve minutes into the second half of the second leg of the Copa del Rey match between arch-rivals Real Betis and Sevilla, chaos bloomed. The silky-footed Frederic Kanoute scored in the 57th, breaking the 0-0 tie, but before the players could finish their celebrations, projectiles rained down upon the pitch and Sevilla's head coach Juande Ramos was struck in the back of the head with a bottle. As players, staff, and police scrambled around the unconscious Ramos--who was then stretchered off the pitch and into the locker rooms--it was obvious that the safety of the players, and everyone else for that matter, could not be guaranteed and the match was called off. I bet the programmers at GolTV love it when that happens.

You can read more about the incident here.

Luckily the second leg Copa match between Barcelona and Zaragoza went off a lot better. Barca, who are still redeeming themselves after last week's dreadful (though historically consistent when facing Liverpool) Champions League match against The Reds, returned to their united fleet-footed witchery and knocked Zaragoza out of the cup with a 2-1 win. There were a few ridiculous moments (Hey, Messi, I'm looking at you! D'Alessandro! Where the $@!% are you going?!) but Barca dazzled with some nifty passing courtesy of Iniesta, Xavi, and Marquez. Iniesta and Xavi also supplied both goals. Good match, good form, and no one got hurt, although there was plenty of rambunctious flailing about. Messi, get back over here! Okay, okay, I saw the footage. You did get head-butted. But. . . .

We Need a Bigger Couch

It's been awhile since we've posted anything (mostly due to . . . uh, life intruding upon the fantasy that is football), but the two matches I did manage to see this week so far (the melodramatic Carling Cup final between Chelsea and Arsenal and today's FA Cup 5th round replay between Reading and Man U) were brilliant.

What happened today? In the opening six minutes Manchester United, with their silky yet suspiciously robotic killer instincts on full display, managed to score three goals and arguably seal the deal. But Reading player Dave Kitson scored a committed header in the 23rd minute, and though I wasn't convinced that Reading could pull off an upset, I was happy that at least they weren't going to crawl under the porch without a snap of the jaws or two.

But in the second half, the Reading team did a whole lot more. With the inclusion of Glen Little and Leroy Lita, the squad consistently outplayed the big red machine and threatened to even up the score after Lita helped make the seemingly impossible possible in the 84th. Sir Alex, who had been confident enough not to play either Rooney or Christiano Ronaldo for most of the match, capitulated and put both players into the fray in the 76th and 89th minutes respectively to sustain the lead. And though Reading threatened, they unfortunately couldn't pull off an upset. But it was nevertheless exhilarating and I almost flipped over our couch while still seated in it.

Manchester United now face Middlesbrough in the quarter-finals.

Silence in the San Siro

When the Serie A scandal erupted last spring in Italy, it seemed for a few weeks as though the fat cats at the heart of some of the worst match fixing--and if what I've read elsewhere is to be believed, match-fixing is almost endemic at all levels of the Italian game--might finally be punished, and soccer might flourish anew. After a great deal of sound and fury that ultimately amounted to very little, the real losers ended up being the fans, and top-level players like Gianluigi Buffon and Pavel Nedved who made the difficult decision to remain with Juventus despite its relegation to Serie B.

Only this season have I begun to nurture an appreciation for il calcio, for the quintessentially Italian take on the game, complete with all of the theatre and much of the corruption one might expect. I hoped that the bad old days might be left behind, despite the fact that most of the punishments meted out amounted to wrist slaps. But the news that has trickled out of Italy this past week has gone from bad to worse, from a story about an official murdered at an amateur match to the death of policeman Filippo Raciti in the rioting outside the stadium during a game between the Sicilian cities of Catania and Palermo, reported first as though it occurred in the course of the melee and only later describing him as specifically targeted by a group of Ultras for having testified against them.

Italy's immediate cancellation of all matches must have been devastating for the fans, but it also seemed a sign that the country might finally be taking its problems with soccer violence seriously. This weekend teams throughout the country will play again, but with only six stadiums meeting newly announced standards, most--including Ronaldo on his AC Milan debut--will play before silent, empty seats. I am a novice when it comes to matters of Italian football, but I'm not convinced this and other measures will put an end to the violence. Part of the problem, of course, is age-old hatreds, grudges that long predate the arrival of il calcio, but there is also the problem of the Ultras. Not all of the Ultras, of course--as always, the peaceful supporters end up tarred with the same brush as the troublemakers. But can the measures put in place succeed as long as the Ultras continue to command the power they do over the clubs? This Guardian writer thinks it's a step in the right direction; I am somewhat less optimistic, because I'm simply not convinced that the powers-that-be mean it this time.

My other concern is the fact that empty stadiums, or stadiums packed with only home crowds, will not prevent "fans" from battling it out in the streets, which was the problem at the match in Sicily.

During the World Cup we swiped a bit of shorthand from both the football anthology My Favorite Year--in which Tim Parks describes his Italian father-in-law's needs for long, solitary walks when his team lost--and from the opening pages of Joe McGinniss's The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, in which the Major he meets at a train station goes out for a walk following a match and . . . well, you'll just have to read the book yourself to find out what happens. But these walks, they became our shorthand for moments when the pain of a defeat was too great, when we no longer felt like knocking back another pint and arguing about formations and bad calls but simply needed to be alone for a while to contemplate the existential pain of being a football fan. I am thinking of football fans across Italy who will not be allowed in their stadiums this weekend, the tumultous times that doubtless still lay ahead, and I am imagining that, win or lose, there might be more than the usual number of long, contemplative walks ahead for the lovers of the game.

The 36th Chamber of QPR

This was not the Beautiful Game. Nonetheless, I'd have paid good money yesterday to see this mad monkey kung fu brawl between the Chinese Olympic football team and West London ruffians Queens Park Rangers FC. Did no one suspect mayhem when the master killer himself Gordon Liu materialized on the pitch as the Twelfth Man? And to think we thought Shaolin Soccer was just a movie fever dream.

You can read more about the insanity here via The Guardian.

Anything But Friendly

The ongoing rivalry between the Mexican national team and the US team cranked up another few notches this evening in favor of Uncle Sam’s army of underachievers, with a 0-2 win that will no doubt make it that much easier to strike that “interim” tag from coach Bob Bradley’s title. The first half was a dreary affair, with Mexico gaining a slight advantage in terms of possession and shot opportunities. But that all changed in the second half when the US came out reinvigorated and defender Jimmy Conrad headed one in off a Landon Donovan corner kick. Mexico looked far from giving in, though, and second half substitutions Omar Bravo, Jose Fonseca, and Adolfo Bautista all contributed to or had viable shooting chances. Then in the 90^th minute the US cemented their win with a Landon Donovan goal off of a Ricardo Clark pass in midfield (which originated from a deflection off referee Mauricio Navarro’s feet!). A brutal finish to what ended up being a rather entertaining match.

And earlier today in Manchester, England, Steve McClaren’s inflated Three Lions braggarts failed to do anything interesting against the lads from Spain. Midfielder Andres Iniesta (who was subbed in early in the second half) scored a brilliant long-range shot in the 63^rd minute, earning the FC Barcelona player his first goal for the national team in eight appearances and the game winner to boot. The quick-footed and even quicker thinking player has become one of my favorite members of Barca this season and I’m glad to see the youngster’s good form for the Catalans translate to the national team. I’d bet serious money that the majority of the crowd packed into Old Trafford had no idea who the crafty Iniesta was before the match. But by the end of it, many in the crowd were no doubt muttering the Pale One’s name in between their curses, shouts, and boos directed at McClaren and his reptilian smile. Spain victorious 0-1.

Let's Go Do Some Crimes

While the rational, grown-up part of me recognizes, of course, that footballers are human beings like the rest of us, beset by the same human frailties--which they all too often exhibit both on and off the pitch--there is also an eight-year-old living inside me who looks upon even the players on our local squad as shining heroes.

So, when I run across a story like this one (by way of Roberto's Timbers blog), about former Timbers forward Fadi Afash's new career defrauding the elderly of their life savings, I am reduced to a state almost unknown to me: speechlessness.

Becks on a Plane

I've clearly been devoting far too much mental energy lately to David Beckham's problems at Real Madrid and his defection to the US; last night I dreamed I found myself seated next to him on a long flight, wherein we discussed at length his footballing future and how much Posh was going to enjoy living in the belly of the beast, I mean Los Angeles. In my dream he was exactly as he appears to me on television: charming, sincere, soft-spoken, and rather dim. Now were I to actually set down a list of even the top twenty footballers I'd like to be seated next to on a plane, either in real life, or a dream, Beckham would not be on it. Here's hoping in future my dreaming mind does a more accurate job of plumbing my football-obsessed unconcious.

It's Hard to Be Switzerland

Or, how does that whole neutrality thing work, anyway?

The prospect of watching one of the first truly exciting live games televised by FSC in a while enabled two-thirds of a pretty move to haul our ordinarily-much-lazier asses out of bed at 8 am on a Sunday morning. Derek swore he was rooting for Man U because a win from them would further endanger Chelsea; I find it difficult to root against Arsenal myself, despite the fact that they often frustrate and disappoint me: there's the balletic grace of Thierry Henry (when he's on, which he hasn't been much this season), a roster rich with players from Africa and France (I dream of a channel that televises African football, and I've not yet recovered from the disappointment of losing La Ligue games on FSC this season), the lingering affection for the squad shared by many of us bookish football fans due simply to the infectious joy of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, and of course their acquisition of one of my favorite Czechs, Tomas Rosicky. Even the presence on Man U of former Barca forward, the great Henrik Larsson, can't mitigate the existence of the wildly talented, wildly petulant, wildly annoying Cristiano Ronaldo.

So as the game gets underway I announce I'm rooting for Arsenal. The first Man U goal leaves no doubt where both our hearts lie; after the shock of its power, we both make a "huh" sound and do not even manage to indulge in our usual glee at seeing the oh-so-flappable Jens Lehmann bested. When a bolt from van Persie levels the scoreline we're leaping and shouting (the neighbors must love us), but it's the 94th minute stunner from Henry, with his characteristic ease, that brings down the living room. In 90-minutes-and-then-some Arsenal has managed to frustrate us once again, falling back on ugly and uncreative play as they do all too often, despite their reputation for pretty moves and Continental flair. But the win is suddenly and dramatically theirs, all at once the Premiership looks to be holding the potential for a much more interesting four-way battle at the top, and van Persie has done his work for Derek's fantasy football squad. For a few moments, at least, football has done its occasional good work of making us feel like all's right with the world.

How Do You Say "Liar" in Spanish?

Real Madrid were booted out of Spain's Copa del Rey competition on Thursday at the Bernabeu, losing to a determined Real Betis squad on a 1-1 away goal aggregate. I only caught the last half-hour or so, but it was anything but a bore (unlike last week's nil-nil result between the two clubs) as the dagger-eyed galacticos assaulted the Betis keeper with a series of thunderous shots on goal, including a farcical bicycle-kick attempt by Sergio "Look, Becks, I'm wearing my hair just like you" Ramos (though it would've been pretty if it had gone in), a seemingly endless series of corner-kicks, and a header by Ivan Helguera in the 88th that was justly ruled offside. And then the party really got started--a shower of projectiles--bottles, cans, even a cell phone!--came hurtling down upon the pitch, with the linesman being hit in the elbow with something or other. He didn't look amused. Not long after, with the frustrated Madrid wonderboys realizing their luster was sloughing off at an alarming rate, their tempers hit El Clasico levels and they subsequently lost their shit. Fighting ensued between both sides, time was wasted, and all the while David Beckham sat high above the melee in the stands wondering, remembering, how to say "liar" in Spanish:

http://football.guardian.co.uk/continentalfootball/story/0,,1994002,00.html

my wild fantasy about the man in the sarong

I live in a town now. A big one, built around a Shakespeare festival, not an ordinary town by any stretch, but a town. You can walk anyplace, one end to the other. Even dawdling and malingering, I still get to work within minutes. I am a town-dweller.

In my town, there is a single soccer bar: one of those faux-British places with a nonfunctioning red phone box where they'll give you fish and chips if you give them a $20 bill and a true pint for an additional fiver. I ask the waiter for a match schedule. He says, "Yeah, we show soccer. I don't know anything about it. Ask the bartender." I ask the bartender. He says, "Yeah, we show soccer. I don't know anything about it." Vaguely he agrees that my best bet is to wander in when I know a match is on.

I wander in when Valencia is playing Villarreal. Soccer? I ask. The bartender says, "We can't show soccer during football playoffs. Nobody wants to see it."

Read that sentence again to let the full horror of it sink in. Where do we, Joe Soccer Fan, get recognized as other than Nobody, if not in a town's solitary soccer bar? If you cut us, do we not bleed? If you call yourself a soccer bar, will we not demand soccer? If you make us watch any more American football, will we not run mad?

It was from beneath this pall that I heard the news of Beckham's approach, like the welcome clattering of hoofbeats when the cavalry's on the way. Picture this (I give it a year, maybe two): I am sitting in a random sports bar, some little joint off the highway on the way to nowhere. On the television screen, Sheringham heads in a Benayoun corner to give the Hammers an edge over their Real Madrid opponents. On the sidelines, Fabio Capello is spitting mad. Meanwhile, a guy walks up to the bar, says, "Hey, can you flip it over to the Steelers game?"

And the bartender says, "Sorry, man. We can't show American football. Not during Champions League knockouts. Nobody wants to see it."

It'll happen. (OK. Maybe not the part about the Hammers. A girl can dream.) When it does, you'll be able to draw a direct line straight back to the arrival of the blond man with the tiny voice and the beautiful moves.

My hero.

Two-Minute Hate

Jose Mourinho tells Roman Abramovitch to sack him or give him the money he needs to do his job. I can't blame him; Mourinho is understandably pissed off. I've written here before about my mixed feelings toward Chelsea and Mourinho himself. I think Mourinho is very good at what he does; there are those who say anyone with that roster could carry a team to the top, but we need only look at Real Madrid's struggles in recent years to see that a team of superstars does not make for a sure thing. Chelsea fields some players I like a lot: Drogba, Cech, little Joe Cole and his fancy feet, and John Terry makes me blush and stammer and drop my schoolbooks all over the sidewalk. Sheva kind of freaks me out, but I like him, too, although I believe he should've remained in Milan and I never got the whole "my wife* wants our children to learn English so I have to quit my job" thing. (Here is Silvio Berlusconi's unreconstructed take on the whole affair, and I really hope I don't have to turn in my feminist credentials on account of cracking up when I read it.) They do have American schools all over the world, and I'm betting the Shevchenko family can afford the tuition. I worry that Shevchenko has ruined his career.

So, all that said, I nearly always root against Chelsea. It's like a reflex. I've taken an unseemly delight, considering my largely-neutral stance, in their struggles this season and I am especially pleased when they are held to a draw or scored upon by a lesser team. Above all, I dislike Chelsea's style of play, which to me epitomizes what I dislike about the Premiership in general--its emphasis on speed and strength, versus La Liga's (or Argentina's Primera Division's) looser, slower, more technical, methodical ballwork--and, of course, the flair, oh the flair above all. I've heard arguments about which league is "better" and that just seems silly to me--both are obviously world class and it really does just come down to the style of football you prefer.

Anyway, Mourinho's ultimatum forced me to face the inevitable: he will be leaving the Premiership, later if not sooner. And man, I'm going to miss him when he goes. That petulant, put-upon expression, the passive-aggressive declarations of persecution, the injured air that everyone is always picking on me, because I am The Special One--all best conveyed in one of my favorite-ever covers from When Saturday Comes. But hope springs eternal in the form of one of the best rumors I've heard in a long time--that Mourinho could be moving on to Real Madrid. This could be the answer to all my prayers: the team** and the manager I most love to hate in one convenient package.

*I base my opinion of Sheva's wife's intelligence entirely on what the guy behind the counter at the magazine store told me during the World Cup, when I was looking at an article about the two of them, and really, if you can't trust the guy behind the counter at the magazine store, who can you trust?

**except maybe for the German national team

S. S. Lazio and Their Rejuvenation Movement

Racism is a stain that plagues a lot of European football, not just in Italy or Spain. But for some reason, Italy has had more than a few run-ins over the years with accusations of racist fans and players harboring possible fascist sympathies. It’s the unfortunate sinister underbelly of the sport, something fetid like eating a bad sausage or meat pie, scrunching too close in the stands to that one big, bald smelly guy, or supporting S. S. Lazio.

Lazio were Mussolini’s favorite team. Out-of-the-closet fascists such as Paolo Di Cannio have proudly served them, and Di Cannio infamously gave the fascist salute last year after his team won their derby against Roma. The team’s rabid ultras, the Irriducibili, routinely display banners and flags with Nazi and/or fascist symbolism adorning them (such as the SS Totenkopf), racist and anti-Semitic chants are routine, and up until recently they rarely if ever recruited black players to the squad. And if they did, those players didn’t last long.

ESPN soccer columnist Roberto Gotta would like you to cease being so hard on these lovable black shirts. Sure, his argument is a valid one—be wary of generalizing or demonizing teams, individuals, etcetera. I can’t argue with that. Pretty much all of the major football teams in Europe and South America have had problems with their more militant-minded supporters and I don’t believe that the majority of Lazio fans are little wolves. But this is a team that has fervently embraced the iconography of Roman imperium for too long to simply be dismissed as mere symbolism or the way of the old guard. Owner Claudio Lotito’s attempt to refashion the team into something more accommodating to the world beyond Rome’s borders is admirable, I guess, but I’m not really convinced that it’s anything more than cosmetic. Just ask Di Cannio if his devotion to the club was only skin deep.

I realize that the Gotta article is a few weeks old, but I just came across it yesterday. I’ve been hibernating.

Zaragoza v Sevilla

Nothing like a little La Liga and sissy boy slap party action to drag one out of the post-holiday doldrums. Saturday's match between fifth placed Real Zaragoza and the team at the top, Sevilla, was a contentious affair to say the least, but did it really have to come to this? Apparently.

It was a psychically damaging defeat for Sevilla, especially since their hold on the top slot is precarious--Barcelona is only two points behind--and their inability to capitalize on forward Luis Fabiano's goal in the 71st after numerous attempts was absurdly comical. Exciting match, but it was all overshadowed by the slap party. Okay, it didn't actually start out that way. Real punches were thrown! But in the end, it was all slapstick. Guy Maddin, I think, is smiling.

Barcelona v Internacional

Congratulations to SC Internacional.

Here at a pretty move . . . we're proud American Barcelona supporters. Our team played with honor and they played well. But Brazil's Internacional played even better and they are now the FIFA Club World Cup champions.

Till another day . . . . But now sleep awaits.

FC Barcelona 0-SC Internacional 1

When the Hurlyburly's Done . . .

The sinister UEFA Champions League last 16 draw has materialized:

FC Porto v Chelsea
Celtic v AC Milan
PSV Eindhoven v Arsenal
Lille v Manchester United
Roma v Lyon
Barcelona v Liverpool
Real Madrid v Bayern Munich
Internazionale v Valencia

Let the laughter and sobs commence!

Mlada Boleslav Booted

This time of year, in Mlada Boleslav, it's so cold that when you step outside your eyelashes and nosehairs freeze in under a minute. It's snowed and turned to slush and snowed again and frozen over so that the entire town is a treacherous ice rink, and the snow is dirty and grey and not at all picturesque. And the hometown team returns there, defeated following its bid for European glory, having snagged only three points to finish at the bottom of the UEFA Cup's Group G. Seems they never quite recovered the dazzle they called up for their surprise defeat of Marseilles in the qualifiers, but I'd hoped they'd hold on long enough and play a team significant enough to get televised in this country. I read somewhere that they actually played with a pretty move or two. Still, they remain near the top of Czech's Gambrinus Liga. Better luck next year, lads.

Barthez Reborn

When I first began watching footie, knowing nothing really about the sport, I was instinctively drawn to the keepers. The position seemed to me a lonesome and existentially absurd one, in which long stretches of boredom are punctuated by moments of sheer panic. That says more about the kind of lousy keeper I'd make (my sporting philosophy, born of a black eye inflicted by a poorly passed American football when I was in the fifth grade, is to run away from, not toward, the ball) than it does about the actual job itself. Still, my initial affection for the keepers of the world was only reinforced when I discovered no shortage of eccentrics and ne'er-do-wells who'd held the line against the final onslaught of the opposing squad, like Colombia's Rene Higuita. Of these keeper-eccentrics, one of my favorites is the erratic and unreliable French national Fabien Barthez. I was terribly disappointed when he went into a forced retirement following the World Cup, when, following his resignation from Marseilles, basically no team wanted him (imagine!), and I'm delighted to report Fabien's about to be out of retirement and prowling the pitch once again: he's due to sign a contract with struggling Nantes and could be between the sticks again before the end of the month. Look out, Nantes--er, I mean, all you other Ligue 1 contenders!

Club America v Barcelona

Gudjohnsen (11")
Marquez (30")
Ronaldinho (65")
Deco (85")

It was a beautiful thing.

Club America is a great team and I guess the jet lag was just too much for them. This was hardly the same furious club that severely tested the Catalans back in August in that 4-4 draw in Houston. But last night, Barca was hardly the same club either. Although jet lag seemed to be a factor for them as well, Ronaldinho and the lads dominated the match and cruised to a 0-4 victory that puts them in the FIFA Club World Cup final against Brazil's Internacional on Sunday. Unlike the Club America match, though, Internacional is sure to give Barca plenty of problems.