This one might deserve inclusion in the series of classic goals described by Edouardo Galeano — it doesn’t really get much better than this in terms of a footballer doing the (near) impossible. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/PSo9oRUxeMk” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
On Sunday afternoon, I rode the metro up from my place in the thirteenth arrondissment to Belleville, in the northeastern part of Paris, to take in the Algeria-Slovenia match in a neighborhood with a large Algerian population. Almost as soon as I emerged from the station onto the wide Rue Belleville, I met Ben, an… Read More »
We all know that with the thrill of the World Cup comes an astonishing array of national, racial, and cultural stereotypes. While we are not yet through the opening round of matches, we are taking a look for posterity’s sake at some of these, seeing how they’ve held up (or not) so far and what… Read More »
I found this image, up at Obstructed View, particularly delicious, though it’s apparently photo-shopped! (Maybe that makes it even funnier?) It’s also up at New York magazine.
We’re into the next cycle — as dependable as the World Cup itself — of the never-ending discussion on soccer in the U.S. It’s an incredibly predictable pattern, whose history is nicely explored in Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism and Soccer in a Football World, and it gives me a headache. It always happens the… Read More »
Just saw this interesting article about the Gaetjens family’s wishes for today’s U.S.-England game. Lots of us on the same page! In an interview yesterday Altidore talked about the same thing. You can see earlier posts on this here and here.
South Africa vs. Mexico Truly the dullest opening match in my memory. No upsets, no good football. Sloppy stagnant stuff, not to mention the maddening drone of the “vuvuela,” one invention that I wish I’d never heard of. When the crowd caught its collective breath, one was subjected to the asinine commentary of American television… Read More »
My second post to the “Pilgrimages” Blog is up, this one on how France is the Caribbean team in this World Cup. “When the French team takes the field against Uruguay, and later against Mexico, history will be lurking. In 1924 and 1928 the Uruguayans famously took the Olympic football competition by storm, leaving a… Read More »
My first piece is up at Chimurenga’s Pilgrimages Blog: “In Port-au-Prince there stands – or at least there stood, before the January 12th earthquake devastated much of the city – a mural depicting four great nationalist heroes of the Caribbean: Toussaint L’ouverture, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Emmanuel Sannon. If you don’t recognize the last… Read More »
On the eve of the World Cup, after four years of anticipation and hope, tactics and
maneuvering and hype, interestingly, it is possible to sum up the mood of the French capital on the state of the national team in a word: pessimism.
