I’m here in South Africa, and last night went to the see the Argentina-Mexico game at Soccer City. I’ll warn you that a portion of this post will sound a bit like FIFA propaganda, so if you can’t stand that please stop reading now. But the feeling here in electric and ebullient, and I really… Read More »
Well, being on a different continent certainly changes things. After the epic flight from the U.S. to South Africa — 16 hours, including the required putzing around on the tarmac in Atlanta — I arrived just in time to catch the U.S.-Ghana game at a restaurant here in Melville, Johannesburg. I watched with Simon Kuper,… Read More »
It’s interesting to compare the exits of the two finalists France and Italy from the World Cup. Italy, remarkably, just faded away after some remarkably bad games against much lower-ranked opponents. Italian friends told me everyone knew the team was terrible anyway, so they had no hopes to be dashed. At least the coach went… Read More »
Our Paris correspondent, John Harpham, offers up this funny account of hanging with the French during the past few days at Deadspin.
For those of you boning up on teams, players, and political factoids — all crucial for full enjoyment of the World Cup — I highly recommend Steven D. Stark and Harrison Stark’s World Cup 2010, which I’ve found packed with good analysis and tidbits. Their blog is also a useful place to keep updated on… Read More »
It has been a beautiful day. It was a perfect match, offering up everything that draws us to football. The devastation of the goal-that-was-not, the relief as the team, rather than fumbling into frustration, kept carefully building up excellent plays, defending beautifully, and pushing, pushing, pushing. Raïs M’Bohli, the Paris-born Congolese/Algerian goalkeeper — who, I… Read More »
Yesterday I participated in two discussions about French football. The first, on the English-language TV station France 24, had a perfect line-up: one person defending the classic “football is alienation” thesis, a sports journalist seeing politics as mainly being projected onto sport, and me, the cultural historian imagining everything as politics. Later in the day… Read More »
Well, that was exhausting. I don’t think I’ve ever been so conflicted. The traditional fan in me was rooting for France, the romantic for South Africa, and I really didn’t want Mexico eliminated either. So much hope for South Africa for a sliver of time, after they had scored the two goals and Uruguay 1.… Read More »
In 1998, as the French team prepared to play their first World Cup match, they heard singing from the opposing team’s locker room. The Bafana Bafana — in their first World Cup appearance after the end of apartheid, fielding an integrated team — were gearing up to play with song, and as the two team’s… Read More »
As everyone knows, you can never get the French to agree on anything. So it has been nice to see the country coming together during this World Cup.
