Watching the France-Canada game of the Women’s World Cup yesterday, I was exhilarated by the playing of the French side. Their dominance in the game was a surprise to many, and to me, and also a little ghostly: suddenly, I was watching the sort of flowing, graceful, entertaining French football which for the past years… Read More »
On June 7th, the Spanish national team played the second of two international friendlies in the Americas. The first was an energetic 4-0 victory over the United States in Boston; the second, in Caracas, another dominating win against the Venezuelan team. The match was noteworthy in contrast to the previous set of friendlies played… Read More »
I’ve been a good fan: sticking with the French through the decade since 1998, through ups and downs and waves of absurdity. I managed to get through the experience and the aftermath of the 2006 World Cup, though it did take writing an entire book about the history of French soccer to do so. I… Read More »
In the quaint Luxembourg stadium on Friday, in front of a hopeful banner that read “Lux 4, Fra 0,” the pitch welcomed Patrice Evra and Franck Ribéry back from their period of post-World Cup exile. The game itself was, to put it politely, not the most thrilling of match-ups — France is lucky to be… Read More »
It’s one of the oddities of international football: the French team, which often struggles against not-so-great opponents and has had tremendous ups and downs in the last decade, nevertheless seems to have one superpower: they consistently defeat Brazil. If I’m not mistaken, Brazil went undefeated in World Cup play between their loss in the 1998… Read More »
I found this video, produced by the Qatar bid, to be a fascinatingly constructed piece of work, transforming Zidane’s biography into an endorsement of the need for a Middle Eastern World Cup. In it, Zidane returns to his childhood home and talks about his career, and repeatedly refers to the difficulties he faced because of … Read More »
Here are some thoughts about yesterday’s World Cup decision by Steffi Decker, a graduate of Duke and of our Fall 2008 “World Cup and World Politics Class”: To Russia and Qatar We Go… This week, the FIFA executive committee convened in the “House of Football” a secretive, lavish and generally ostentatious layer nestled in the… Read More »
Well, the votes are in, the decision is made, and all the blandishments of Clinton and Morgan Freeman have failed: we won’t be having a World Cup here any time soon. I’ll try and get over my initial disappointment: I’ve lately been having bucolic daydreams about a nice summer 2022 (yes, we actually do plan… Read More »
The video for the World Cup Debriefing we held here at Duke a few weeks ago is now available here. Achille’s reflections on the meaning of the event for South Africa (the second presentation) are excellent. I’d welcome your thoughts and reactions!
Wayne Norman has posted a nice collection of quotes looking back at the 2010 World Cup and it’s impact here at his blog, This Sporting Life — and I’m not just saying that because he quotes me… If anyone has seen other interesting reflections on the event please share them!
