Esta es la pregunta planteada por la autora Monica Parga en un articulo escrito para la sección de deportes de la publicación española “El País”. Ella utiliza la reciente decisión de exfutbolista Zinedine Zidane para convertirse en la imagen de Mango (una marca europea de ropa popular) con el fin de explorar la relación entre… Read More »
(This piece was originally published in the April 2013 issue of the Chimurenga Chronic) A spectre is haunting European football – the spectre of Qatar. No holy alliance has emerged to respond to this rising power; indeed, it has been embraced by both established luminaries (Barcelona, Zidane) and by (hopeful) rising stars, such as the… Read More »
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 »
With a rapidity uncharacteristic of the French state, the FFF racism scandal has already run it’s predictable course: from outrage to self-exoneration. Yesterday, the French minister of sport Chantal Jouanno announced that no laws had been broken and therefore no specific legal or administrative action needed to take place. The argument was that, while the… 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 »
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 »
As we look forward to 2010, it’s impossible not to dwell a bit on the unforgettable ending of the 2006 World Cup final. Here’s a recent essay that goes back to Zidane’s head-butt and to the many interpretations of it that emerged.
Since it’s release in 2006, the film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait has garnered effusive praise from some quarters and sharp criticism from others. While it had a long run in theaters in France as well as being shown commercially in the U.K. and other European countries, in the U.S. it has only been shown… Read More »
