Category Archives: Belgium

Will the U.S. Ever Truly Master the ‘Art’ of Soccer?

In Soccer in Sun and Shadow, Eduardo Galeano proclaims the United States to be “the home of baseball” and sarcastically describes efforts by the American media to herald soccer as “the sport of the future” during the 1994 World Cup. Americans, however, do not necessarily appreciate soccer to a lesser extent than others. As of… Read More »

Qatar Aspire Academy: Humanitarian Effort or Cause for Concern

After reading African Soccerscapes, I was reminded of Qatar’s Aspire Academy: a footballing academy based in Doha, Qatar that takes children from Africa, South America, and Asia and brings them into Qatar to develop their football skills. When most people think of Qatar and soccer, they think of the 2022 World Cup or perhaps Paris Saint… Read More »

Soccer and National Identity in Belgium

 (image courtesy of the BBC)   This past summer during the World Cup viewers learned a lot about the political troubles of Brazil and how the World Cup helped unite the nation to some extent during the games. A conflict we do not hear much about in America is that of Belgium: specifically the French and… Read More »

Soccer Politics Class Begins

This week I began teaching “Soccer Politics” here at Duke University for the third time. This blog will host the writings of students in the course in four different languages: English, French, German and Spanish. You can see the class readings here. On the first day of class we analyzed three bits of the visual… Read More »

On Belgium

I wrote this analysis of the U.S. vs. Belgium match for The New Republic. An earlier analysis of the Belgian team, in comparison with the French team, is here.

Would you like some Sushi..taka? The Japanese style of soccer

Recently, the Japanese soccer team has been on the rise. They’ve recovered from the recent criticisms arising from their poor performance in the Confederations Cup. In their most recent matches, the Japanese national team has stood toe-to-toe with both the Netherlands and Belgium. In the match versus the Netherlands, Japan was not fazed at all… Read More »