Football. The Beautiful Game? 10 reflections on Soccer and the World Cup, from a non-fan

It's World Cup time again. And while everyone goes into ball-fondling histrionics over the world’s favourite game, what is a non-fan like me supposed to do? Ignore it, like a sane person would? Not a chance - Instead, I’m going to blog just some of the many things that even I find interesting about this most mainstream of sports.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/fifa-world-cup-2018-when-it-starts-how-to-watch-schedule/

1. Foot-brawl

https://verbalistseducation.com/2014/11/10/mob-football-a-forerunner-of-modern-football/

This game was born out of an all-out brawl whole towns used to organise once a year. In dark ages Britain, at one time of the year, towns up and down the country of England would descend to their main square and one half would fight the other - no holds barred - while trying to get a ball into their own goal. The mob game went on all day, until one team scored just a single goal, meaning it was a higher scoring game than a significant proportion of modern soccer. An incarnation of the game still exists, and is played every Shrove Tuesday in the town of Ashbourne. The rules are few, and include:

• Committing murder or manslaughter is prohibited. Unnecessary violence is frowned upon.
• The ball may not be carried in a motorised vehicle.
• The ball may not be hidden in a bag, coat or rucksack, etc.
• Cemeteries, churchyards and the town memorial gardens are strictly out of bounds.
• Playing after 10 pm is forbidden.
• To score a goal the ball must be tapped 3 times in the area of the goal.
  https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/royal-shrovetide-football-2018-1185539

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/02/ashbourne-royal-shrovetide-football.html

2. Toff Ball
Once the industrial revolution rolled around, and England put its serfs to work in factories, the only people with free time for sports were boys at Private Schools. They took the basic principle of that original Football, and carried out a kind of Cambrian Explosion of formal sport creation with it.

http://spartacus-educational.com/Fpublic.htm

They invented Rugby, and Football, of course, but indirectly, those games ended up influencing American Football, Gaelic Football, Aussie Rules, Basketball, and probably, I dunno, Ultimate Frisbee? Once the students at those posh schools left, but they still wanted to play their games with guys from other schools, they found that none of their rules matched up. So, the Football Association was born, to codify the game of Football into something we might recognise today. And also something that proved extremely popular around the world, exported by British imperial power. This led to the formation of Football Associations in other countries, and eventually to the creation of FIFA… and the World Cup! Not a bad effort for a bunch of posh kids messing around at school. Incidentally, the word 'soccer', which is so disdained by many fans nowadays, is derived from this period... it's a slang twisting of the word 'Association'.

http://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/what-we-do/history

3. Copa Nostra
Inspired by the FA, other nations made their own Associations. These eventually got together to create FIFA. And the World Cup was born. But the history and ethics have been far from admirable... It truly is staggering the level of Mafia style dodgy dealings we've allowed FIFA to get away with over the years, and how much FIFA has used the goodwill of football itself to carry out its ascendancy: accepting extravagant bribes from host candidates, demanding tax free status in the host nation, reductions in worker rights that lead to deaths especially among construction workers, and that all of their negotiations are kept secret by the host nation, so the rest of the public is kept in the dark about what kind of organisation FIFA really is.

https://www.thenational.ae/sport/fifa-corruption-storm-brings-fake-money-showers-for-outgoing-president-sepp-blatter-1.89783

This all came to a head in the early 2010's, and even led to some convictions in the US, but still, this World Cup in Russia, and the next in Qatar, of all places, are most certainly the result of these shady practices. Given Russia's reputation as harsh negotiators, Did FIFA actually meet their match for once on the negotiation table? We’ll never know… the computers with all the records of those meetings were promptly destroyed by Russia before anyone on the corruption investigation could get hold of them.

4. No Man’s Land Match
There’s a story that gets bandied around a lot about World War One and a soccer game in No Man’s Land between enemies at Christmas time.

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-11-05/schools-to-recreate-wwi-christmas-truce-football-matches/

The story goes that when the first Christmas came on the Western Front, and soldiers from both German and Allied sides, in the spirit not only of the festive season, but also the spirit of football itself, declared an impromptu cease fire, came out of their dank claustrophobic trenches, and met each other in No Man's Land to exchange gifts and have a friendly game of football... only to return to their respective trenches and resume the killing the very next day.

It's a heart warming tale of compassion and the unifying spirit of the common man, in one of the worst situations humans have ever been in.

But did it actually happen?

Well, according to records of the time, something similar did indeed occur, but temporary truces were not unheard of. With the brutal grind of the trench warfare, it was regularly necessary to declare cease fire, and send troops into No Man's Land to retrieve the dead and wounded there. This ceasefire on Christmas day was an example of a more extensive one. Opposing troops in some parts of the front did indeed meet each other, exchange gifts, and it is said that there may have been a bit of a kick around with a football, or an empty tin can - but far from a team game of football that the story suggests.

reference: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zxsfyrd

5. Bread and Circuses
If you think I’m a football hater, I’ve got nothing on Linguistic Professor and Elder Critic of Western Imperialism, Noam Chomsky, who just can't stand soccer... or any sport for that matter.

https://medium.com/@Dissension/is-noam-chomsky-controlled-opposition-9c5e296031cd

In a lengthy interview, he excoriated the negative influences of spectator sports on the populace, claiming that the reason sports are supported to the degree they are by the state is that they are extremely useful for distracting and pacifying the people. People who could be paying attention to politics and other more important things, but find that they can't have an influence on that, so Sport is offered as a replacement. It also functions as a tool to foster chauvinistic values, and irrational loyalty to authoritarian systems.

http://www.ditext.com/chomsky/power.pdf pp.98-101

I guess what I'm saying is, I might not be the best company to watch a game with... but I'm far from the worst.

6. The Beautiful Game
Alright, so I might find the game itself a little dull overall, but I’ll watch the heck out of a football highlight reel. I guess it’s because goals can be so few and far between, that when they happen - when any standard of goal happens - it’s an event. But sometimes, some spectacular stuff is happening on the field and you’d have to be in an opioid induced stupor, not to appreciate it. Going back into history, the way Brazilian teams have danced around all opposition; Some of Beckham’s centimetre perfect passing in his prime; Rene Higuita doing some kind of scorpion jump save back in the day; what a Messi or a Ronaldo is capable of on the field… and lately breathtaking genius of the much missed Zlatan Ibrahimovic…

but my pick for all-time most epic World Cup viewing experience has to be the utter dismantling of Brazil by Germany in the 2014 semi-final. I’m no expert in the game, but the way Germany was using a series of parallel passes to setting up goals, outmanoevring the defense, and putting them on the back foot… and the when you think they’ve done enough - 2-3 passes that have completely put Brazil on the floor - and they could easily score… they just maintain cool and add a 4th, and a 5th sideways pass, before sealing the deal. They pulled this off a whole bunch of times, and it just seemed like an unstoppable strategy. I’m out the loop now, but did this take off as a strategy? Why were they able to pull this off? Anyway, to me it stands as a supreme moment in sport, and one I still load up on YouTube when I need to be reminded of strategic brilliance.

7. Fair Play?
One of the themes of the 2018 World Cup that even an outsider such as me has picked up on is the use of the video referee. Clearly it’s leading to some improvements, and a different batch of brand new controversies in its application. Is it any improvement on a human ref, with all the inevitable flaws that is going to involve?

In any case, one of my all-time most revered figures in soccer is not a player at all, but a ref. The imposing Italian Yul Brynner look-alike, Pierluigi Collina.

https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-dirty-tackle/napoli-fans-plan-horrifying-protest-lazio-fans-just--soccer.html

This guy was a towering figure on the field. Super scary looking, with eyes that just drilled through players and dominated the most cocky of prima donna players, but with a healthy dose of humour and charisma for good measure. For me he just represents an avatar of fair play and benevolent authority, in a world that often seems riddled with injustice. Miss that guy!

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9311256/uefa-proposes-new-rule-of-temporarily-removing-player-who-injures-opponent

Recently a professor of Finance and Economics looked at sport from a statistical point of view, with a focus on ‘home team advantage’. He found that in soccer there’s the most extreme variance of any team sports, in this regard. So what is going on? Is it the crowd influencing the way the players perform? When the whole crowd was removed from an Italy At Home game, they players performed exactly as if the crowd has been present… so that wasn’t it. But, it turned out, when the home crowd is present, the person they can influence, is the referee, especially regarding the adding of stoppage time at the end of the game - the time that is needed to make up for time taken to deal with injuries, etc. So, the pressure from the home fans subtly influenced the refs to add more time, if the home team was down one goal… and less time, if the home team was up. Given the amount of times refs have been attacked by angry fans, this is a perfectly natural reaction, when you’re in their city, and need to get out alive.

reference: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/world-cup/

8. Dive Bar
Speaking of fairness, one of the main reasons I’m not into soccer is the wussiness on display among many players, and the main way it manifests is in the propensity they have to take a dive to try and get a free kick or penalty.

https://afrisciheroes.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/the-%E2%80%9Cdiving-habits%E2%80%9D-of-footballers-and-other-meanderings-in-football-science/

Nothing is so infuriating for a spectator. Especially for a weakling like me. Come on, guys - if I want to see someone fall over and scream in overly dramatic pain, I can just film myself on an average walk across the living room. If I do have time for some sport viewing, I want to see the equivalent of gladiator gods butting oversize heads until they have concussion (cf: Rugby League/Union). Is the video referee stamping this out in this World Cup? Personally, I reckon a new punishment should be brought in for divers. Take a fake dive: Take a swan dive off the outside of the stadium.

It might be less common than other cheating… and possibly less serious, even. But in my opinion it damages the image of the game irreparably. Sends its reputation diving, if you will...

http://outsideoftheboot.com/2014/06/05/world-cup-moments-rivaldos-dive-an-early-instance-of-simulation/

9. The Great Global Equaliser
So, there’s plenty to say about FIFA’s gangsterism, and Oligarchs and Tycoons taking over the club game, but still, football remains a game that can be played by anyone, with minimal equipment. So, if you want to excel at Olympic Cycling - like the Brits do at the moment - the infrastructure and technology that is required is staggeringly expensive… all to send some Mr Hyde looking freak around a velodrome on a pushie 0.0000001 seconds faster than the other guy. And there’s no doubt that money can help soccer success too, of course. But it’s still a game where a kid can learn it bare foot on some dusty open ground in their shanty town, and become one of the greatest players ever seen.

https://www.thenational.ae/sport/football/in-pictures-football-in-rio-de-janeiro-s-favelas-1.246536

Same for national teams. It’s a sincere joy watching 300,000 population Iceland succeed on the world stage… and even more joy to see Senegal and other African teams kick Northern hemisphere ass on the field.

https://ze-africanews.com/en/world-cup-2018-senegal-validates-its-ticket-for-russia/

10. Fooligans

https://www.hindustantimes.com/football/german-police-arrest-russian-hooligan-for-attempted-homicide-in-euro-2016/story-09cTp9hVrs1FV9QkFIuwUK.html

All too often when football teams meet at club level or national level, some of the most interesting action is off the field. Since its inception, football has been beset with a trend of the fans of respective teams wanting to meet up en masse and beat the shit out of each other. Now that we know the origins of the game, I think we can tell why… those hooligans are possibly just trying, on some subconscious level, to resurrect the spirit of the original Shrovetide Mob Football. Its only fitting then, that historically the most notorious football hooligans have been the English. But the trend spread almost anywhere the sport did, and in recent years, another force of ultraviolence has come onto the scene in a big way… Russia.

image from The Express Newspaper. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/943011/World-Cup-2018-Russian-football-hooligans-ultras

These guys seem to have take hooliganism to a whole other level. Regimented, disciplined, rigorously trained in Martial Arts, and unspeakably tough and violent, it was almost poetic when they rocked up at the last European Championship, and tracked down the English football fans (who have long since abandoned the worst of their hooliganism) and mercilessly destroyed them in French back streets and town squares, and filmed the lot on GoPro.

(https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2016/06/16/the-kremlin-backs-brawling-soccer-hooligans-in-france/)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/euro-2016-violence-gopro-footage-shows-russians-hunt-down-attack-england-fans-marseille-a7081236.html

The phenomenon is obviously a blight on the game, and so it’s good to see that the Russian authorities seem to have managed to contain it this World Cup. But in my opinion we’re missing a trick here. We should copy the Russian model of massed organised hooligan fights and take it international. Lay down some rules for a new sport that respects the ignored ‘extreme violence’ aspect of the original sport. Each country could field 100 of its worst hooligans, in a stadium, and go head to head with each other country in turn in a (literal) knock out tournament, to find the most brutal hooligans in the world. Maybe we can throw in the host country’s riot police, fully tooled up with whatever paramilitary equipment they have, as a team in a wild card round, for good measure. We’d get thoroughly good entertainment, and get rid of some of the worst elements of all our societies at the same time...

Now that’s a sport even I would tune into.

Alright, there it is. The first of my blogs on Steemit. Bit of a weird topic for me, I guess, but I strongly believe that there's interest to be found in almost anything, and if I want to regularly blog here, what better way to 'kick off', than with a somewhat unfamiliar subject.

Hope you enjoyed reading it! What are the things you find most interesting about this sport? Educate me!

Thanks, Steem-Players! See you soon
H