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CultFootball’s Best (and Worst (and Random Medium)) of 2013

January 1, 2014 — by Suman

2013 was a relatively quiet year on the pages of CultFootball. A mere 20 posts (which is actually more than I would’ve guessed), and the majority of those in Q1. Keeping us afloat with quality content, to a large extent, was Tyrannosoccer Rex‘s ongoing (we hope) Dictators and Soccers series.

We have grand plans to pick things up in 2014, in particular in preparation for our 4th anniversary, which happens to coincide with a little footy tournament to be played in Brazil this summer (or should we say winter? That’s going to be confusing)

But for now, here’s a group-post–our best and worst of 2013:

Via PoliticalFootballs:

Best moments of the year I will send over soon, but I’d be able to give you the worst ones much quicker.

West ham 3-0 at the lane

Liverpool 5-0 at the lane

City 6-0 at the Etihad

One of the best was bale last minute winner versus west ham. Pure class.

Via trunchfiddle:

My memorable moment was this morning when J sassed S in the liga fabulosa thread.

Backstory: too long to recount here.

But Liga Fabulosa, and in particular it’s email listserv, is the source of one of my personal memorable moments of the year: when a woman we’d never heard of or from wrote our weekend game listserv with the following link: http://thevillager.com/2011/12/01/me-and-the-soccer-guys/

(The detailed and erudite match reports mentioned therein are crafted by infrequent CultFootball contributing writer Edinho–you can sample one his match reports from the previous year here, when he paid a visit to Craven Cottage.)

Via Tyrannosoccer, in his Gunnersaurus mode:

Worst of 2013:

Getting Baled in Spurs match before Bayern match that turned everything around. Followed by June, July, most of August. Learning we did not succeed in ridding ourselves of Bendtner. Learning we bid on Suarez (this is complicated–he is incredible, but we were never going to get him, I wish we hadn’t been seen to be wanting to sign him, there is to me definitely principle involved…), dithering about on Higuain, learning Higuain dived face-first into submerged rocks (ok, this I just found painful to think of, but didn’t affect me much).Best of 2013:Discovering AVB’s “negative spiral” was an accurate prediction, just about the wrong North London club.
Learning Ozil signed.
Successfully enduring the 2 wk intl break to see if Ozil would survive to play for Arsenal and seeing he was even better than I thought he was.
Ozil masterminding Napoli blitz, his goal for the 2nd (goal, not match).
Ramsey.
Actually, miraculously in first not only at year’s end but for 90 days or whatever. Unheard of, in my fanship.Random medium 2013: Chicago bartender diss yesterday unwitnessed by me.To timed perfection, I’ve been an Arsenal fan since fall 2005, which makes me the same as the 8-year Arsenal veteran douchey suds purveyor Larry encountered yonder morn.

THC offers up audio and video:

Best of 2013? Best of the decade?

Or if everyone has seen enough of it, how about the audio? The collective awe as it unfolds, the cheer, and the satisfaction of the replay.

Coach Larry’s “best of”:

Suarez staying.
NBC doing a good job, even showing low table matches on NBC itself.
and of course, Port Vale promotion! Up the Valiants!

Snow Game

In reply to the last line, THC follows up–since he was there:

Ah, good one. Forgot about that–seems like more than nine months since then.I was just showing pictures of the snow game to my 8 year-old niece during Christmas. She was confused: the dry field when I arrived, snowplows to keep the lines visible, grown men in patriotic spandex at the concessions, Alexi Lalas being paid to speak…

Via hiphophorey:

My best of 2013 is the departure of Ken Bates. There is an optimism in the air and it shows in the support from the fans and I think even from the players. An injection of investment from the new new owners may go a long way in the promotion fight.

We’re sort of a lazy bunch, so we may still get some best of last year submissions in the new year. Check back for updates!

Commentary England World Cup

Suárez Scores Goals, Rocks Boats, Alienates People—–Breaking News

December 6, 2013 — by Rob Kirby

Liverpool striker Luis Suárez is in amazing form, the kind of form that makes a Big Red fan forget about the summer past. That whole lark about the Uruguayan wanting to leave the club, doing anything to leave the club, saying he had a verbal agreement with the club that he could leave, and then the manager Brendan Rodgers essentially called him a liar. None of this matters now at LFC, because he’s in the form of his life, leading the goal charts in England despite missing the first six matches of the season by dint of violent conduct (with his teeth).

Suárez’s run has displayed the sort of impeccable form you can’t help but admire, possibly with jealousy, as an opposition fan, though it doesn’t remotely trigger the Red Liverpuddlian amnesia regarding his back-to-back biting incidents at Ajax and Liverpool. Nor his alleged punch on a Chilean defender in World Cup qualifiers, unseen by the ref at the time, left to slide afterwards. The deliberate handball to block an extra-time inbound header, denying Ghana a goal and ultimately (with a missed penalty) passage to the next round of the 2010 World Cup. And lastly, the man who said that what he said to Patrice Evra wasn’t racist in Uruguay but, upon learning the English connotation of “negro” (Spanish pronunciation), still decided to blank Evra in the next Liverpool-United handshake. He intentionally dumped fuel on the fire in now-full knowledge, he refused to back down despite the fact that both club and manager ordered him to shake Evra’s hand.

Anyhow, just watching the 90 minutes in the midweek match against Norwich, 4 goals and an assist for the fifth, the first and third goals of the most insanely incredible quality, leaves you convinced. Luis Suárez has undoubtedly ripped the mantle of best striker in the league from whomever held it last (Robin van Persie has a hurt shoulder socket in addition to his ongoing groin and/or toe problem). He receives nothing like the service of Agüero, but it doesn’t matter. He ultimately scores when he wants. Despite missing the first six matches of the season through suspension, he’s the league’s high scorer, at 13. He’s scored more goals than games played.

Liverpool fans see his work rate, his final product, their place in the table, and assorted clips of him as warm and fuzzy with his young family and generally think, serenity now, summer water under the bridge. And Suárez does give a hundred percent in everything for the team. He’s just not necessarily as tied up in what that team is at the moment. The Suárez agitation in the press was first portrayed as possibly mistranslated words to the Uruguayan press. That is, until he gave an interview with the Guardian officially announcing a desire to move and a supposed reneging on a verbal promise with Brendan Rodgers and the management. Brendan Rodgers outright denied the claim, declaring Suárez would have to apologize to the team and the manager about what was presumably a bald-faced lie.

All this, of course, transpired through not only an interminable summer with bizarre £40,000,001 bids but also during his 10-game ban for unprovokedly and inexplicably biting Branislav Ivanović in the late Spring matchup against Chelsea. Which followed a November 2010 chomp on a PSV player while at Ajax. Ajax promptly sold Suárez–he had, after all, come to them after a highly-public, acrimonious departure from his former club Groningen, whom he took to an arbitration court but against whom he lost as the court found against him. Everyone recognized a genius with a trouble streak. And with the genius came the occasional Mike Tyson special.

If Suárez gets a pass for a different original cultural connotation to what began the furor with Evra/FA racism charge, he can’t claim that for directly countermanding the orders to club and manger to shake Evra’s hand–a question of interminable interest to the prematch proceedings. He served his eight-game suspension, he coughed up an £40,000 fine, but he chose not to shake Evra’s hand, despite now knowing the public opinion, which ranks as insubordinate, if nothing else. It smacks of acting bigger than the club, something Liverpool fans perennially claim the club will never tolerate, despite all present evidence to the contrary. Yet, as with Stoke and the fans’ continual booing of Ramsey for appallingly forcing Shawcross to act recklessly, break Ramsey’s leg and sideline Ramsey for over a year, club loyalty can cloud the vision, especially with regard to a far-and-away star player like Suárez. The man literally creates goals out of nothing. Who doesn’t love a magician?

Suárez and his goalie’s instincts helped Uruguay claim 4th at the 2010 World Cup. (He later said of the goalmouth handball, “I made the save of the tournament.”) After steering Uruguay to its 15th Copa América in 2011, he won player of the tournament. He’s Uruguay’s all time highest scorer and leads the Barclay’s/English Premier League in goals with 13, despite having missed the opening 6 matches thanks to his summer-spanning biting ban. Uruguay go the the 2014 World Cup in Brazil on his shoulders, and Liverpool’s top-four ambitions rely on him just as pivotally.

As a serial disciplinary case and goal muncher, however, he has no compare. But unlike John Terry, he’s not sleeping with wives and girlfriends of best friends/teammates. So, there’s always that. And he scores more goals, slips less hilariously, has a better pistolero goal celebration.

He’s a great player who acts periodically violent/dirty towards opposition players and has an on-again, off-again relationship with his club. He will almost undoubtedly turn on Liverpool again at some point. If and when that happens, we’ll see how everyone feels about the man who currently divides so much opinion. Liverpool fans may then remember a couple things that bugged them at the time, something naggingly disloyal, perhaps, which at present they can’t quite put their fingers on.

Commentary

Jacques and The Brothers G

October 14, 2013 — by Tyler

The story begins with young Jacques, a troubled lad with three older brothers named Barry, Robin, and Maurice.

Commentary

My first, and last, afternoon as a Fulham fan

September 25, 2013 — by Edhino

[Editor’s note: Edhino, although a supporter of Arsenal (since around the time of Fever Pitch) and Leeds (since watching them during their heyday on the sole televised match of the week as a boy in Singapore), scored tickets to Chelsea-Fulham for his extended London layover last weekend. Certainly he couldn’t support the Blues–hence the headline.]

But before I disparage Fulham, first let me say that Chelsea pies are terribly disappointing. All those millions spent on players and they can’t muster a decent pie?!? (Pies: a quintessential part of the footballing experience. To date, the pies at the Joburg stadium still the best in my limited experience…)

My 1st row seat turned out to be upper tier but awesome nevertheless a mere 30 feet from the goal posts so close I could smell Petr’s deodorant when he raises both arms up in that surrender pose that keepers do at corners. Unfortunately I was at the wrong end and got to watch Chelsea attack impotently in the first half and then get both goals on the other side in the second. It also meant I didn’t get a close view of errant Darren miss his one-on-one with Čech.

Chelsea looked miles better than Fulham, as they should, and that is just in simple things like ball control and sensible movement in support of each other. Fulham on the other hand played like a middling Singaporean league team – heavy on their touches, giving up balls even when Chelsea didn’t want them, and running far from each other so that the player with the ball had to try to beat 2-4 Chelsea players on their own. Much as I sang along to the spirited Fulham chants of “stick your blue flag up your arse”, “John Terry your mother’s a ho” “Mourinho you’re not so special anymore”, etc, it was downright depressing after the tenth time Sidwell loses the ball, or Parker or Duff run themselves into blue cul de sacs or Dent huffs his way after balls headed for the touch line. I could only think – how horrible to be a Fulham fan to have to watch this drivel weekly? Berbatov wasn’t playing so perhaps he makes a difference but on other hand how horrible for him to have to play with such drivel??

Commentary History Italy Long Reads News

Dictators and Soccer: Popes, PR and the Vatican Soccer Sin Bin

May 17, 2013 — by Rob Kirby

[Editor’s note: This is the 4th installment in the ongoing Dictators and Soccer series. See also the previous installments on Kim Jong-il and North Korea (or Football, Famine and Giant Rabbits), Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania and Mobutu Sésé Seko of Zaïre. Stay tuned for Col. Gaddafi next.]

Sovereign city state nations with populations less than 1,000 find themselves irresistibly drawn to soccer. Or perhaps that pertains only to one-man rulerships like Vatican City, right smack in Rome, that can’t help but intersect with soccer and watch it blow up in their faces. When soccer runs amok, it self-inflates beyond all suggested parameters and eventually explodes, pressure pumped beyond the limits. (Picture serious, furrowed Vatican eyebrows in 2012, of which more to come.) But after a period of Catholic guilt, soccer redeemed itself when the offbeat priest-and-seminarian Vatican league called the Clericus Cup came to the papacy’s rescue in 2013, relaunched and refrocked from the previous spring’s flat-lining of the tournament. “Rescue” may overstate the case. Puff pieces on the unofficially taglined “Vatican World Cup” may not have substantively changed hearts and minds or effectively deflected scandal from the Vatican, per se, but they did and do provide comic relief, so you have to take that in consideration.

And now we find ourselves with a likeable Argentinian pope and a Saturday, May 18 Clericus Cup final match at the Pontificio Oratorio di San Pietro, in the hills overlooking St. Peter’s Basilica. Vatileaks, who? Sex scandal, what? Once upon a time, however, the future did not look so bright in Vatican City.

Pope Benedict XVI, previously known as Joseph Ratzinger, the battle tank Panzerkardinal enforcer of Catholic orthodoxy, “God’s Rottweiler,” abruptly and inexplicably resigned on February 11, 2013, the first living pope to do so in 600 years. The surprise announcement put the Vatican under intense scrutiny. Theories abounded, with topics trending on corruption, cronyism, blackmail, male prostitutes and a clergyman allegedly caught on video chatting it up on a gay dating site. The scandal had set up shop not simply within the Church but within the sacred walls of the Vatican itself.

Unprecedented in its magnitude and wholesale breach of internal security, the scandal had infiltrated the Roman Curia, the elder priest junta that runs the Church. Ratzinger had ridden out the storm when it surfaced that he had joined the Hitler Youth party in 1941 at 14 years old (semi-involuntarily, as the Nazis offered no alternative), but this was another thing altogether. A splinter faction of the curia actively leaked documents to the press in 2012 to undermine the pope and his number two. Meanwhile, high-ranking gay priests allegedly started getting blackmailed by former flings. After the 2012 Vatileaks scandal but before his resignation, Benedict XVI had commissioned three retired cardinals to investigate and report back on their findings regarding the leaks, the attacking faction of the curia and any extracurricular sex scandals involving the curia. In January 2013 the report landed on his desk. On February 11, he announced his resignation.

As all politicians know, it proves handy at times to have a news distraction, even for a semi-untouchable benevolent dictatorship like the papacy in Vatican City, with only 800 residents but a virtual population of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. Fortunately, the Clericus Cup kicked off days after the pope’s resignation news, in a well-orchestrated media campaign. Whether convenient or calculated, the men-of-the-cloth-only soccer tournament would return after getting killed off in 2012. Despite a launch to mass fanfare in 2007 by Benedict XVI’s right-hand man, Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, a Juventus diehard who moonlighted as a soccer radio announcer while Archbishop of Genoa and reprised commentary for some Rome derbies over Vatican radio, the league saw the plug pulled in 2012 for losing sight of its ideals, namely two: not bringing the name of the Church into disrepute and not sabotaging perceived Christian values with questionable tackling, blatant diving and/or thuggery during or between play. PR is a perception game.

Now, however, the Vatican had brought the Clericus Cup back from the dead, and the Vatican doesn’t just do things off the cuff or on the fly. Why disinter the tournament that had so embarrassed the church with unsportsmanlike priest and student priest behavior the previous spring?

Through the press, anonymous colleagues hammered Cardinal Bertone for months with charges of Machiavellian methods, palace intrigue, curia cronyism and Vatican banking corruption. However, they did it by proxy, the sneakiest means of self-same palace intrigue. The anti-Bertone faction of the curia used letters written by others which then got the full oxygen of publicity through international news outlets.

In a scandal that developed into the phenomenon “Vatileaks,” a militant faction of the curia leaked confidential letters written to Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Bertone, many of which stolen directly from the pope’s quarters by his butler. Investigative reporter Gianluigi Nuzzi published them into a powderkeg collection as His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI in May 2012 and all hell broke loose. The documents proved intensely embarrassing and damaging to both Benedict XVI and Bertone, painting a picture of a lax, ineffective pope who over-delegated to a corrupt second in command.

The leaked letters also presented underlings learning too late that any time a whistleblower priest stepped forth about financial corruption within the Church, one of Bertone’s people replaced the letter-writing penpal turncoat. Bertone replaced the governor of Vatican City, the head of the Vatican treasury, and the Vatican’s top bank regulator with his chums from the Piedmont area around Turin (where both he and soccer giant Juventus hail). Any financial malfeasance whatsoever in the Vatican means big money—its portfolio and holdings add up to approximately $6 billion—and international financial bodies have begun to consider the in-house bank as a vehicle for money-laundering and tax evasion. At the moment, it’s safe to say the Vatican bank is not the whitest or most fiduciarily trusted lamb in international banking.

Meanwhile, out of not-really left field, a sex scandal involving high-level priests cinched the vise of his actual day job a few notches tighter. And as Benedict XVI make up his mind to fly the coop stage left, it so happened Cardinal Bertone was about to take charge as the acting head of state. In the interregnum between popes, the camerlengo, or chamberlain, takes charge. After Benedict XVI’s resignation, Cardinal Bertone had the winning trifecta ticket of camerlengo, brainchild of the Clericus Cup and epicenter of vicious controversy. Only two of those three claims to fame did he enjoy.

But surely soccer could lighten the mood. In the annual Clericus Cup five-a-side tournament and its spring-weather soccer Saturdays–Sunday matches understandably verboten—international students from Roman seminaries and plucky older priests playing cup soccer makes the soul smile. The teams’ seminary school fans cheer in Latin, the global aspect makes for interesting contrasts in styles, and scripture in shin pads stops just short of qualifying as official uniform, easily the most pervasive match day routine, hands-down. (Perhaps the verses help stave off bruising with the extra padding.) Add to that a Vatican-only blue card that sends players to a hockey-style penalty box called the “sin bin” for 5 minutes of suspension and reflection on one’s misdeeds, and you’ve got a bona fide sports hit on your hands.

The league came up with a couple minor additional ground rules. First, no games on Sunday, for reasons the seminarians really shouldn’t need to be told (again). Second, matches would conclude not with players in single file, slapping palms, mumbling, “Good game, good game,” but with the teams praying together on field at the center circle. It definitely didn’t scream scandal material, more like bleach-clean Christian fun.

Judging from highlight clips aplenty on the Web, the player-priests from Brazil, Mexico, the United States, Italy, Africa and beyond have some genuine soccer skills. And devoted fans. During matches, spectators chant team-specific songs in Latin, and draw from a deep well of languages to heckle referees, insinuate bribery, shout for dismissals and hurl abuse at players adjudged to have dived. In short, a student priest with a foam finger announcing himself “Number One Fan” behaves like any other soccer fan (excepting Latin fluency).

Matches last two 30-minute halves–more elder-friendly, less ungodly–and teams have one time out per half. The red card theoretically exists for the unlikely scenario of one of the player’s taking the Lord’s name in vain—reflection on that misdeed in light of one’s career choice clearly requires more than 5 measly minutes. Over 300 international seminary students and priests in Rome represent 50+ countries on Saturday soccer fields just outside of Vatican City (given its size, the country has no dedicated soccer pitch) to celebrate discipline, clean-cut values and the occasional wondergoal. The players pose for photographs as upstanding paragons of Catholicism, with the awe-inspiring cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica in the distance. What could be more wholesome?

When the papal resignation announcement arrived, the PR machine sprang impressively into action. Benedict XVI informed the cardinals of his resignation at the Apostolic Palace on the morning of February 11. On February 15, the Cup’s Facebook page started pumping out photos of the picturesque St. Peter’s Basilica background and posts like the sic-worthy, “Big news are coming soon…. New edition is warmin up!” The Twitter account similarly crackled to life the same day with the again-English heads up: “we are warming up for a new edition… are you READY?” Normally both accounts post predominantly in Italian.

The Guardian got a sneak peek video onto the Web before the official announcement–Wired’s online article and video even coincidentally/perfectly came out on February 11, the same day as the pope’s shock news.

Before that, there had been radio silence for months. Why the sudden turnaround? Right, right. Inquisition rules–they ask the questions around here. The radio-announcing canon law power player Bertone knew full well the power of soccer over the flock. The swarming world press preferred salacious tabloid scoops, but the occasional fuzzy feel-good story would do.

A press conference on February 21 featured Spanish national team coach Vincent Del Bosque sending a light-hearted video shoutout to the Spanish team of the seminary Pontificio Collegio Spagnolo, among other chuckle-inducing PowerPoint pleasantries. The Cup began two days later, four groups of four teams each in World Cup-style group stage format, knockouts begin in the quarterfinals and on to the finish-line Clericus Cup final and pomp of the award ceremony. Thus concludes the seamless rollout.

A week before the UEFA Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, the 2013 Clericus Cup final decides a different, more shin-protected victor at the Pontificio Oratorio di San Pietro in those oft-mentioned hills above St. Peter’s Basilica. Before the world learns the European Cup champion, Catholicism crowns the first Vatican World Cup champions of the Franciscan papal era.

On opening weekend, the late February 2013 group stage league games straddled both the first Saturday and Sunday for expediency’s sake, seemingly flouting the Clericus Cup Fight Club Rule #1. Why the special Sunday dispensation? Don’t look for answers from a Vatican press secretary. Strategic silence continues a long tradition for Vatican information givers. Why was the tournament reinstated? The more basic the question, the less it requires direct address from the Vatican HQ. Meanwhile the Vatican perception strike team had leapt into action, executing a laser-focused sequence that activated social media buzz in the week leadup to a press conference that announces the league start two days later, and just 12 since the papal two (or so) weeks’ notice.

Zooming out for a moment, it helps to revisit the people in charge. Both Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone served in the 1990s and early 2000s on the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, an office known for such treasured moments in junta history as railroading Galileo into a heresy conviction and shot-calling the Inquisition. Ratzinger presided as top dog prefect and Bertone as the second-in-charge secretary. Heavy hitters in the curia, both priests took part in the 2005 conclave that transformed Ratzinger into Pope Benedict XVI. On Vatican TV, Bertone the wise palace politician invoked the German legend Franz Beckenbauer of Benedict XVI’s favorite team Bayern Munich and obsequiously exclaimed, “The Church has found its Beckenbauer!”

Bertone went further with the Beckenbauer theme, although his descriptions largely fail to evoke the actual attacking defender. “He pushes us forward with his passes. He knows how best to use his teammates’ talents. He is a reserved director and a reliable midfield player.”

For those not familiar with Beckenbauer, or “Der Kaiser,” in addition to his haul of World Cups, the sweeper collected many Bundesliga trophies with Bayern Munich and a disco 1970s late-career segment playing with Pelé in the NASL with the New York Cosmos. Considering other possible German World War leader nicknames, Beckenbauer fortunately ducked “Der Führer.” Fortunate for Ratzinger, as well, he found himself still semi-embroiled with his association with the Hitler Youth during his wide-eyed Bavarian years.

Swiftly after his gushing comparisons to Beckenbauer, Bertone was appointed by Benedict XVI as Vatican Secretary of State, the second-highest office in the country and the religion, perhaps not in that order. Some even tipped the Italian as the next pope. Not bad for a man whose previous most high-profile moment involved him spitting fire and fuming as the Vatican man who went on the attack against Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, decreeing that believers should boycott the book that spread such egregious lies and gross untruths.

He further mined the vein of soccer goodwill when, in announcing the Clericus Cup months before kickoff in December 2006, new Cardinal Secretary of State Bertone boldly speculated that one day the Vatican could put its own team Seria A team together and pit it against the traditional powerhouses. “The Vatican could, in future, field a team that plays at the top level, with Roma, Internazionale, Genoa and Sampdoria. We can recruit lads from the seminaries. I remember that in the World Cup of 1990 there were 42 players among the teams who made it to the finals who came from Salesian training centers all over the world. If we just take the Brazilian students from our Pontifical universities we could have a magnificent squad.”

Hours of press scoffing later, Bertone chimed in again, clarified he’d been joking and said, “I’ve got much more to do than cultivating a football squad for the Vatican.” The humor of a Catholic youth education based on the Salesian Order had confounded the journalistic laity once again. “It was fantasy fun to spread some cheer and maybe fill a half a page of the newspapers,” Bertone said.

When God’s Rottweiler’s sidekick Cardinal Bertone birthed the soccer oddity known as the Clericus Cup in 2007, it came on the heels of his lifelong club Juventus’ relegation to Serie B after the infamous 2006 Calciopoli match fixing scandal, as well as the infamous headbutt by Zinedine Zidane on Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final, about which Materazzi later copped to goading Zidane with, “I prefer the whore that is your sister.” Italy won that World Cup but Italian football was in disarray. Bertone proposed a better, cleaner model, a seminary league that would exhibit Christian values on the pitch, lead by example.

Then, of course, it had to shut down in 2012 for misconduct and corruption of the original purpose. But nothing substantively had changed. The competition had had scuffles, referee abuse and noise complaints from neighbors about the drums, music and overall decibel level since the beginning.

Whatever the reason, the Clericus Cup got canned. Perhaps it served as the stray dog that wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time, and Bertone engaged in the animal-kicking cardinal equivalent of ripping all the books, pictures and fixtures from the walls in a destructo-tantrum.

Soccer had done what soccer always does in a tightly controlled state of junta or one-man rule. Passions pitched beyond acceptable bounds, the volatile compound exploded, and shrapnel strafed the faces pushing into the publicity shots. It was minimal, but a last straw is a last straw.

It all went swimmingly until got it in their head that the competition was bringing scandal to the church (slight misidentification of the primary target on that one). Reports of unsportsmanlike behavior emerged. Problems had resided in the Clericus Cup from the beginning, however. Nothing about the proceedings in 2012 particularly spoiled the show, but authorities felt aggrieved.

Designed to contrast the match-fixing-embroiled Italian Serie A with a celestially approved alternative, the Clericus Cup prided itself on fair play and the integrity of its players. The organizers selected for its motto, “a different soccer is possible,” and while sometime, somewhere that may be true, the Clericus Cup did not best exemplify that case. News of a pitch brawl spread in 2010, in addition to various Italian press reports of uncharitable chants against rival teams. In the first year, even, contentious calls led to adrenaline-fueled eruptions against the referee, as between Redemptoris Mater and the Pontifical Lateran University in 2007. A questionable penalty elicited protest, chants and a hail of abuse from the crowd. At the final whistle, field indiscipline progressed to off-field antics. The Neocatechumenals of Redemptoris Mater ran to the touchline to rejoice with their fans, which soon escalated into showers of uncorked champagne. Redemptoris Mater, in any crusty priest’s eyes, could have exercised a bit more prudence and moderation in jubilation.

However, in 2012 the main bugaboo for Bertone was Vatileaks, the albatross he couldn’t shake. The Clericus Cup was not top of mind. There was a darker stain on Vatican City than players arguing on the fields. Then suddenly things got worse. His powerful backer resigned. In the fallout from the leaked letters to the pope and the Cardinal Bertone, authorities arrested the pope’s butler and ejected the Vatican bank president for negligence. Pope Benedict later pardoned his butler in December 2012, in what would prove one of his final acts, although no one knew it at the time.

In the fallout, Cardinal Bertone accused journalists of “pretending to be Dan Brown” and channeling the sensationalism of the author’s The Da Vinci Code, ascribing to the profession “a will to create division that comes from the devil.” One wonders why he didn’t just go on an excommunication spree, aside from the Clericus Cup whose primary fault was aligning in time with the prepublication hype of His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI.

Regardless of punished parties, Cardinal Bertone’s reputation took a massive hit. The Italian media skewered Bertone, though Pope Benedict XVI came to his defense in a July 4 letter, subsequently released as a statement by the Vatican. Benedict XVI inclusively called Bertone “dear brother” and thumbs-upped the continued co-sign with, “Having noted with sorrow the unjust criticisms that have been directed against you, I wish to reiterate the expression of my personal confidence.”

In January, after the detective cardinals wrote up the dirt for Benedict XVI, the pope decided not to share the findings with the cardinals entering the conclave, that only the next pope would be shown the dossier. Did Bertone read it? Unknown, but it’s reasonable to assume that unless he featured prominently, Benedict XVI handed it over to him within minutes of reading, before or after asking for some painkillers and a place to lie down. Bertone may have even read it first, in accordance with criticism of Benedict XVI’s hands-off administrative posture, to detractors’ minds the root of the problem.

Even before the pope drafted the three cardinals for CIA op cloak and dagger action, Bertone had set into motion his own investigations. According Italian magazine Panorama, he instructed the head of the Vatican police to tap the phones and monitor the emails of selected curia cardinals and bishops, prime suspects in his dissident roundup. According to a spokesman, someone or someone’s “authorized some wiretaps or some checks.” Simple as that. Just a minor experiment in police state surveillance for more transparency in information flow patterns. Bertone wanted to catch the bastards that burned him with the Vatileaks and the book.

By the time Pope Benedict XVI did his last papal rites on February 28, Bertone had already set into motion the Clericus Cup campaign. On March 1, he transitioned into acting head of state–the official title for the job description he had essentially held all along. The first weekend of Bertone’s interim regime, the Clericus teams generated positive news through respectful inaction, observing the departure of outgoing Benedict XVI with a day of soccer field silence. Before that point, though, they’d granted many smiley interviews and people had stocked up YouTube with the clips. By the time Cardinal Bertone and the rest of the cardinals dipped into the conclave, the teams entered into the last final clutch matches of the group stages, but bantered easily again with eager reporters asking softball questions about who they were rooting for when it came to the next pope. (Brazilians: “A Brazilian!” The Argentines: “An Argentine!” Africans: “An African!”) Hard hitting journalism it was not.

The conclave sent up the white smoke on March 13, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina emerged from the St. Peter’s Basilica balcony as Pope Francis I. In the next batch of Clericus Cup YouTube videos, the Argentines of Incarnate Word seminary team in particular cheered, in vergingly overexuberant fashion, the selection. Reinstated after getting so unceremoniously defrocked, the Clericus Cup returned with the renewed life force of a Lazarus. Reporters canvassed players during the conclave, some of the best press to come out of the Vatican in years.

Before presiding as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio grew up a fan of Buenos Aires side San Lorenzo de Almagro, or “Los Santos” (the Saints). The Saint’s Twitter account reacted to the pope’s announcement with respectable speed. Within hours of Pope Francis’ succession to the papal throne, a scanned membership card with his picture, name and number flew over airwaves. The new pope literally qualified as a card-carrying fan.

Also in the first few hours and also tweeted, a photo of Diego Maradona, grinning while holding a handwritten “The hand of God approves of the new pope.” El Diego later followed up with the media proper. “The god of soccer is Argentine,” Maradona humbly opined. “And now the pope is too.”

Pope Francis I comes across as a good guy, a likeable and as-yet-uncompromised papal figure. Nevertheless, his handlers must urge caution with soccer. To wit, action one: prioritize. Keep the Clericus Cup, ditch Bertone at the first opportunity. (Francis I convened an advisory council with regard to the Secretary of State office in March, but the sooner someone new walks in, the sooner things die down over the Vatileaks incident, the more people read mood relaxers about Vatican football/soccer/futsal, the better. It’s the Catholic Church–what are they going to do? Change?) Action two: unleash a FIFA national team that challenges for world honors, with a merry band of Swiss Guards bossing the upcoming 2018 Russian and/or 2002 Qatari World Cup grounds. But that’s a discussion for another time.

On April 13, with the Vatican riding high on the positive reception to a well-liked pope, the quarterfinals signaled the knockout phase of the tournament. Team knocked out team and now the finals go down tomorrow. Tomorrow, May 18th, it’s the Vatican World Cup finals featuring reigning champions Pontificio North American College, the “Martyrs,” Maria Mater Ecclesiae and the small matter of the Clericus Cup title. And to warm up the crowd for the main event, the battle for bronze between third and fourth (a.k.a., the semifinal losers).

The Martyrs booked the first final spot by edging past Pontificio Collegio Urbano 1-0, whose supporters, incidentally, drape themselves in Vatican City flags. That is, when they’re not manically waving them (it’s their schtick). And then, in the next match on the same ground–the ultimate in the Catholic World Cup doubleheaders—Mexican side Maria Mater Ecclesiae gunned down Redemptoris Mater, the most winningest team in the history of the Clericus Cup, with a solid 2-0 scoreline.

Like the increasingly unrepresentative name “The Martyrs,” the North American seminary can’t honestly claim the plucky-American-soccer tag, since they have an English ringer on the squad that played semi professionally and once belonged to the Blackburn Rovers youth academy, now to a New York diocese. Another squad player is an Aussie.) In five a side, one ringer goes a long way. Perhaps they could change their nickname to something like “The Masked Crusaders” in line with a fan base that demonstrates deep costume wardrobes. Spectators frequently include superheroes like Captain America, Spiderman or Wolverine, the occasional Ninja Turtle, pirate or, in the case of the semifinal match, a giant chicken. Given the level of creativity in their support, one expected more inspiration in the team call sign, “Stars and Stripes,” but to each their own. With both an Englishman and an Australian on the team, whose national flags superimposed have stars and stripes, perhaps a mediator thought it the most team-bonding option.

Maria Mater Ecclesiae clearly have the Madonna on their side, the seminary having explicitly name-checked her with the school name “Mary, Mother of the Church.” And if Christian hype tales of Mary’s beatitude carry any merit, she surely locks down odds-on-favorite for the best bet.

The Martyrs hope to retain the soccer hat in their winner-take-all against Maria Mater Ecclesiae. In the past, Pope Benedict XVI touched a copy of the trophy, albeit as a ceremonial present he probably had sent off to the furthest treasure lots on the premises. Pope Francis I, should he be not find himself on other more pressing papal business, seems like he’d be up to kick it up a level and present the trophy himself. He may even ask for one of the players’ jerseys. (A Jesuit by trade and humble by disposition, Francis has in his short reign racked up an impressive soccer jersey collection. A Spain national jersey signed by all the players, hand-delivered signed jerseys from Lionel Messi and Javier Zanetti, a team-signed jersey from his lifelong club San Lorenzo and even recently another San Lorenzo jersey from someone in the crowd as he drove through St. Peter’s Square.)

Benedict XVI has a replica of the silver soccer priest man silverware, as does Cardinal Bertone. To see the Saturno is to gaze upon the purest in bizarre Catholic-commissioned artwork. The unique specimen sports a giant silver disc of a Vatican flat hat atop a legless soccer ball nestled on a pair cleats, like a metallic, spherical pygmy priest that leaves waddling, spectral, studded footprints. With an extra-wide circular brim like the rings of Saturn, this specimen of soccer trophy awaits the lucky winner that prevails from February to May and takes top honors.

Before its death and rebirth, the Clericus Cup roared onto the scene in a blaze of glory. For a quick six-season primer, the inaugural title in 2007 went to Redemptoris Mater, who defeated the Pontifical Lateran University. Redemptoris Mater played in the tournament’s first four championship finals, winning three. Then, taking the mantle, the Pontifical North American College, the self-styled Martyrs, came into ascendance, losing two finals and two semifinals before finally lifting the odd silver trophy in 2012 against a team that had a bona fide cardinal in its ranks (albeit on the bench, to support the aforementioned Aussie), the Australian Gorge Pell. The Martyrs looked forward to defending their crown.

But in 2012 the Vatican cited failure to fulfill the sworn aim of educating young people about fair play and sportsmanship and withdrew its support. What had been conceived as a living model of the fostering of peace, honor and morality through sport had gone horribly wrong. The Clericus Cup had to pack up and shut down operations, effective immediately. Permission withdrawn, readmission denied. The Martyrs would not get the opportunity to defend their title.

We skip back and forth in time, but fast forward again to 2013 and the tournament’s reprieve. The powers that be rescinded the previous rescinding and the league kicked off again in February, back on that picturesque hillside overlooking St. Peter’s Basilica. Anyhow, just like a secretary of state may on occasion wear his minister of propaganda hat, abracadabra, alakazam, and the league materialized just in time to semi-deflect attention from Benedict XVI resignation news. Whether Bertone is a white hat or a black hat, he surely played his part in the mini-distraction that goes by the nickname of the Vatican World Cup.

The hunt for the Martyrs was back on. Is back on. As for first-time hopeful Mater Ecclesiae. The last stretch remains, but will be settled by mass on Sunday. Hunt in packs and take top prize, or roll over like a conscientious objector. WWBD? What would Bertone do?

He certainly wouldn’t conscientiously object. He’d set up a tournament and craft a compelling narrative. He’d hook the public with a high-definition soccer display. And then he’d make a bid for world domination.

Dictators and Soccer/Football:

Mobutu Sésé Seko (Zaïre)

Nicolae Ceaușescu (Romania)

Kim Jong-il (North Korea)

Pope Benedict XVI (Vatican City)

https://twitter.com/tyrannosoccer

https://www.facebook.com/DictatorsAndSoccer

Champions League Commentary

Two Days of Destruction! (Part Eins von Zwei)

April 25, 2013 — by Suman

The two epic Champions League semifinal ties did produce two memorable and perhaps historic 1st leg matches this week, but not in the way that any of us expected. One wordsmith needed only five of them to sum it up: “Two days of destruction. Unbelievable.”

Tuesday was Bayern Munich-Barcelona, Wednesday was Borussia Dortmund-Real Madrid. The Bavarians were favored in the first match, playing at home and in incredible form this entire season, while Barcelona have been wobbling for months. But surely no one predicted a Bayern’s 4-0 shellacking of Barça, nor Dortmund’s 4-1 decimation of Real Madrid the next day.

On Tuesday, Bayern dominated start to finish, playing with speed, power, and finesse. The first two goals came off corners–which Barcelona were conceding at an alarming rate, indicative of the fact that although Bayern predictably had less possession that Barcelona, their possession was much more potent. Bayern was especially dominant on the flanks, with Robben and Ribery winning their battles with Dani Alves and Jordi Alba–pinning the latter two back for the most part, thus robbing Barcelona of their width in attack. Coach Larry summed up Bayern’s masterclass thusly:

Bayern executed their plan perfectly. Press Barça to force wide at the back, and re-press from all directions if the ball reached attacking areas.

Their sheer relentless effort and physicality won them the match. Not ever have I seen a team play at that pace for an entire match, though perhaps Bayern took a bit of a break for about 15 mins after the 2nd goal.

Of course, they needed the right envirionment allowed by the referee to do so. Plus, the two goals (Gomez offsides on the 2nd, Muller’s pick to set Robben free for the 3rd) they benefitted from bad ref decisions are what ended the tie.

I’m hard pressed to think of a worthwhile contribution by any of Barca’s front players. They had practically zero attempts on the goal, and the only couple of serious chances fell to Bartra.

Much much more tactical analysis from ZonalMarking on his site, as well as in a Guardian column highlighting Spanish deep-lying midfielder Javi Martinez as a key player in the match. Martinez is the starred previously for Athletic Bilbao, and then controversially made the big money move to Bayern over the summer–a move that might have been to Barcelona, who wanted him badly, and could have had him had the Catalans been willing to show the Basques the money.

Excerpt from the Javi Martinez column:

Bayern’s key tactical weapon was Javi Martínez, whose primary job was to track Andrés Iniesta’s runs – but he played a much broader role, imposing his physicality on the game with a dominant midfield performance. He repeatedly dispossessed Barcelona’s midfielders and also stormed forward into attack unexpectedly to drive Bayern up the pitch – he demonstrated precisely why Barcelona were interested in signing him from Athletic Bilbao last summer. This was a landmark performance from the Spanish holding midfielder – he has been widely regarded as a success in his debut campaign at Bayern but here he outperformed his more illustrious international team-mates with an all-round performance Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta might not be capable of.

By Wednesday morning there were of course uncountably many “end of an era” op-eds littering sports pages across Europe. If you’re only going to read one, it might as well be Sid Lowe’s “changing of the guard” piece:

And so this Barcelona generation comes full circle. That, at least, is the conclusion many were drawing immediately after this astonishing defeat. For many this represented the end of an era. That conclusion is premature but there was a kind of seductive logic to it. Few teams have been as aware of their place in the club’s history as this one and, even at their lowest moment, there was a certain symbolism, a symmetry.

Barcelona equalled their worst ever European result, their worst result for well over a decade. They also equalled the result that Barcelona fans will never forget, from 18 May 1994. The Dream Team were the model that Pep Guardiola said all subsequent Barcelona teams sought to emulate. This generation had done so in just about every way; perhaps all that was left was to do so in defeat too.

The Dream Team’s most famous victory, the one that defined them, was a 5-0 victory over Real Madrid; their most famous defeat, the one that brought it all crashing down, was the 4-0 hammering at the hands of Milan in the European Cup final in Athens. This generation’s single most famous victory, the one that Xavi Hernández cites as their best performance, was a 5-0 victory over Real Madrid; could this 4-0 defeat be the one that brings it all tumbling down?

Jonathan Wilson had built up the expectations, writing pregame that this “meeting of the two great sides of the age” had the potential to be an era-defining encounter. And perhaps it was–after the match JW pivoted towards speculating whether now sides all over Europe (the world?) would try to emulate Bayern instead of Barcelona. His lede contains a nice capsule history the eras of European champions:

The sun has set on the age of Barcelona and dawn has broken on the bright new age of Bayern Munich. Bayern’s demolition of Barça last night certainly had the sense of a game that changed the order of things – even in advance it felt like an era-defining game. It crystallised the sense that Barça are not quite what they were, a weary shadow of the team that won the Champions League in 2011, and that Bayern are rising, inspired by a crop of fine young players and German economic might.

As such the victory – aside for all but ensuring Bayern’s place in theChampions League final – has largely symbolic value. That was the moment, historians will say (assuming things pan out as we think they will) when the crown was passed on. Except, of course, that it’s not that simple, not least because eras are no longer so easy to define as they used to be. Look down the list of European Cup winners and there are reasonably clear divisions: the age of Real Madrid separated from the era of Catenaccio and Milanese domination by the Benfica interregnum, the total footballing time of Ajax and Bayern Munich, then the period of English domination that was ended at Heysel. That led to a period of flux before the arrival of Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan.

We’ll have to push a recap of Dortmund-Madrid into a separate post, to be published in the near future. Not only is this post too long already, but we haven’t even finished watching that match.

(Via a Guardian gallery of Spanish newspaper coverage of the historic defeat:

Commentary News The Americas United States

An MLS Moment: What the Chivas USA Controversy Tells US About the State of US Soccer

March 6, 2013 — by Ryan

In a recent podcast for Grantland, Roger Bennett and Roger Davies reflected on MLS’s current fortunes. After nearly two decades, they argued, the league had made it through the leanest years intact, financially healthy, and ready to expand its market share. Indeed, soccer remains one of the nation’s most popular youth sports and perhaps more importantly, among 17 – 24 year olds, as was widely reported last year, soccer ranks second just behind American football in popularity. Undoubtedly, as evidenced by their recent success in the English Premiership, American players, most of them former or current MLS standouts, have become increasingly common. From grunge era throwback Brek Shea’s recent debut for and Geoff Cameron’s starting role in Stoke City’s side, Clint Dempsey and Stuart Holden’s (when healthy) long standing runs, and Landon Donovan’s past successes at Everton not to mention Jozy Altidore’s 24 goals for AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands, the skill level of American players in MLS has risen to the extent European clubs now see promise. Indeed, if one watched the raucous March 3 Portland Timbers/NJ Red Bulls home opener, a cracker of a 3-3 draw, one would think MLS had arrived.

Yet, during halftime of Sunday night’s fixture in Portland, ESPN soccer analysts Taylor Twellman and Alexi Lalas delved into one of the few non-Landon Donovan controversies/talking points of the new season: Chivas USA and their apparently pro-Mexican/Latino recruiting model. The two former US national team members highlighted Chivas’ recent commitment to building the team’s ties to Mexico by openly recruiting and signing Latino, often Mexican, surnamed players. Lalas lamented to Twellman that though the policy fell short of racism it remained “exclusionary.” Though league President Don Garner supported Chivas’ efforts – “We need teams that look and feel different,” he told Lalas – the two analysts clearly disagreed with the commissioner’s policy. “Here’s my question for Don Garner.” Lalas began. “If you were a young boy playing soccer in Southern California and you don’t have Mexican or Hispanic heritage, do you have an equal opportunity to play for both your teams in Los Angeles and right now the answer is no and I don’t know if this is the message the league wants.” As Cultfootball co-editor Suman Ganguli commented in an email exchange with fellow football bloggers, “I think Lalas just played the white man’s burden race card …. Amazing.” Ganguli along with fellow CF editor Sean Mahoney sketched out the perfect film treatment for America’s first MLS oriented movie:

Johnny Football (Futbol?) toiling away in the hot SoCal sun on beautifully manicured fields (thanks to those illegal landscapers working the sprinklers), housekeeper washing his training kits. Just hoping to make it to the big leagues someday (or at least one of the local MLS sides). Maybe use his signing bonus to buy his parents a (2nd) house, say a nice little ski cabin in Mammoth.

As noted by Ganguli, the film’s narrative arc already had its trademark song lined up, Frank Ocean’s “Sweet Life”: “You’ve had a landscaper and a house keeper since you were born/The starshine always kept you warm.” Can we get Ryan Gosling in the lead?

One might also note a bit of irony in Lalas making such statements. Remember, after a star defensive turn in the 1994 World Cup, the flamboyant long-haired, guitar-strumming ginger signed with Padova of the Serie A. Now if everyone is honest, they will acknowledge that Lalas was never even remotely an elite defensive back, just a really good American athlete who scrapped, fought, and competed really hard. If anything, Padova signed the guitar-slinging jugador (his band the Gypsies put out two albums and even opened for Hootie and the Blowfish in the 1990s) because of his novelty: a prototypical American athlete that could play football in the Italian professional league. Padova signed Lalas because of his nationality, not, at least by international standards, because he was good. Sure, he anchored their defense and scored three goals, but Padova barely survived relegation.

Still, despite any implicit irony, others noted that Lalas’s comments and Twellman’s overly enthusiastic agreement held some merit. Fellow Cultfootball editor Sean Mahoney defended Lalas’s comments to some extent: “A club shouldn’t focus on just one ethnic group to recruit,” he noted, “But his delivery was as deft as you’d expect coming from the likes of him.” After all, soccer, in Europe, Latin American, Africa, and Asia, often comes draped in nationalism and ethnocentrism. Sure, it might be the world’s most popular sport and international football leagues contain some of the most diverse locker rooms around the globe, but it also remains rife with racial and ethnic prejudice. One need only look at reference books like How Soccer Explains the World or witness frightening displays of anti-semitism and racism in European leagues to see how these issues often manifest themselves among fans and players. One does not exaggerate when they claim football matches have sparked civil wars and international conflicts. So the fact MLS seems devoid of these tensions, thus far at least, should be seen as a positive, therefore some could argue Chivas’s policy to be a can of worms the league wants to reseal.

While others have highlighted Chivas’s new direction, some writers have noted the strategy isn’t new. According to blogger and broadcaster Jonathan Yardley, Chivas’s recent front office decisions actually reflect a return to previous incarnations. “[T]hey are basically re-starting the club and returning to its original intent: to be an American version of Chivas Guadalajara, playing a Mexican style and fielding a mix of Mexican-Americans, Mexican players on loan, and Californians,” he noted in a recent post. According to Yardley, rumors abound that all front office staff are expected to know Spanish and Chivas jettisoned English-language broadcasts. Still, though he expressed reservations, Yardley also admitted that if Chivas succeeded in putting a superior or at a minimum a very different style of play on the field, it might increase interest as American (though it remains unclear just what “American style” soccer is) and Mexican approaches to the sport “clash.” Moreover, considering the amount of antipathy between Mexico and America’s national teams – between players themselves and fans – Chivas might serve as a the “heel” of the league. A 2013 version of the Detroit Piston Bad Boys of the 1980s, an effective but hated opponent: “They could be a hated rival for every team with a fan base that loves the U.S. national team.” Then again, one wonders if this might slip into unhealthy jingoism that painted every game as some sort of battle between an invading Chivas’s Mexican “other” and whatever random MLS team they play against. While Mexican immigration has dropped precipitously in recent years, to the extent that Asians have replaced Mexicans as the largest group immigrating to the US, tea partiers, birthers, minutemen, and others continue to blow nativist dog whistles and ring xenophobic bells. Soccer as foreign scourge threatening US values may be a diminishing trope (google “soccer” and “socialism” and see what you get), but it persists. Perhaps, Chivas’s new direction might exacerbate this tension.

Of course, one needs to consider Chivas’s financial situation. Professional sports remains a business and when competing with the L.A. Galaxy – even if devoid of the magically inconsequential David Beckham – drawing fans has proven difficult. Remember, the second largest city in America still doesn’t even have an American football team, having failed to keep both the Rams and Raiders. Only 7,121 fans attended Chivas’s home opener this year; the smallest home opener in league history. Even worse, numerous observers alleged that the real attendance may not have even reached 4,000. Granted, league wide attendance for opening weekend declined by nearly 10% but 4,000 spectators at the Home Depot stadium does not spell success. When one considers that NBC recently fell behind Univision in network television ratings, maybe all-Spanish broadcasts of their games makes more sense. In this way, can anyone blame Chivas for trying to capitalize on the millions of Southern California Latino Americans in the Los Angeles and yes, Orange County area (Latinos make up 1/3 of its population and Asian Americans another 1/4)? In its initial years the MLS played with ethnic affiliations in cities like Chicago, purposely placing Eastern European players on its roster in hopes of drawing more Polish and other Slavic residents to home games. Currently, the national team under Jurgen Klinsman has been openly courting American players of German descent to the point that some simply call them the Von Trapps (see Sound of Music). The aforementioned Davies and Bennett frequently joke about the illegitimate offspring of U.S. G.I.s and Germans as the life blood of American national team hopes. If Chivas’s move is so offensive then why does no one complain about a national team that focuses on its German American descendants?

Some of this has to do with MLS’s audience and the league’s grasp of it. This greatly complicates matters. In late January, Lalas provided some water cooler talk with the following tweet: “You’re not a true American soccer fan if you ignore MLS, you’re part of the problem.” Whatever you think of Lalas’s line in the sand, it gets at a core issue: what does MLS mean to American soccer fans? Mahoney expanded on this, pointing out that while the dominant cultural sport in most of the world, soccer’s popularity in America stemmed in no small part to its outsider status. Being a soccer fan in the US, for a particular segment of the audience, includes an aversion to other American “big time” sports. Less generous observers describe these followers as sort of “sports hipsters,” interested as much in a statement about aesthetics and politics than just sports. “In part, the situation is this sort of ‘hip’ subculture that exists as a group of people who are anti-big American sports (which is really anti-all that goes along with big us sports culture, e.g. big fat sweaty (white) guys who are usually some combination of racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic),” noted Mahoney. Unfortunately for the MLS, most of this demographic prefers La Liga or the EPL to MLS. The key, argued Mahoney, lay in finding a connection between this “’underground cred’” and MLS. However, not everyone sees this as a realistic enterprise. “Manufacturing Cred,” fellow football blogger and CF writer Ron Kirby argued, “So you cultivate credibility, and then kids who abhor stadium commercialization will attend? Better to pair underage booze with underground [football] in illegal nightclubs.”

Competing with European and Mexican league sides places the MLS at a disadvantage. No matter what league officials say, the MLS remains a solid but middling league, perhaps on par or near parity with Mexico’s professionals but still greatly apart from the EPL and many other European associations. Convincing white hipsters, immigrants, and others that MLS has the better product continues to be a dicey proposition. Lalas never said ignore those other leagues, but getting people to fill a Brooklyn pub or San Diego beer hall to catch the latest clash between Real Salt Lake and the Colorado Rapids in the same way they do for national team games, the Euros, World Cup, or even EPL derbies, continues to be one of MLS’ greatest challenges. Grantland founder and editor Bill Simmons frequently highlights the fact that Americans like soccer, but they want to watch it at the highest level, no matter where it happens, rather than what some, perhaps incorrectly, perceive as an inferior MLS product.

If you’re wondering about the league’s racial makeup in terms of players, coaches, and administrators, MLS does quite well regarding gender and race. A November 2012 report by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDES) gave the MLS a B+/A- for “racial hiring practices” an A+ for its diversity initiatives and the multi-ethnic/racial background of its players. It also improved representation in management circles. However, it should be noted, while the league went from a D to a B- regarding general managers, it also dropped to a C+ in terms of head coaching positions. Though the percentage of assistant coaches rose from 18% in 2011 to 19% in 2012, last year, Chivas and Colorado were the only teams led by minority head coaches. In the end, the league improved its overall gender and racial diversity enough to move from an overall B in 2011 to a B+ the following year. Honestly, when one thinks of recent incidents in the EPL – John Terry and Anne Hatheway look alike Luis Suarez – the MLS seems a bastion of tolerance.

In America, for better or worse, soccer continues to be a largely suburban sport punctuated by white faces. One of the ironies of Twellman and Lalas’s angst is the way in which they ignore the infrastructure that radically favors these players. Sure, suburbs are changing – more Latino, black, and Asian families have put down stakes in suburbia and by extension this infrastructure. However, under 17 tourneys, regional ODP teams, or local club soccer requires time and a parent willing to chauffeur and pay for this development. MLS officials, thus far, are not delving into working class Mexican American enclaves or inner city communities for footballers. No, for American players, the pipeline to the MLS still travels through the land of soccer moms and SUVs. For Lalas and Twellman to pretend otherwise misses the MLS’ far more complicated, if also promising, predicament.

Africa Commentary

Rounding Up A Busy Day of International Football

February 7, 2013 — by Suman

As we posted to our tumblr yesterday morning, there were at least 10 international matches of interest yesterday, ranging from the Africa Cup of Nations semifinals in the morning, to a bunch of international friendlies in mid-afternoon, and capped off by the 1st three Hex matches.

Here’s a roundup of various match notes and observations from the CultFootball crew:

The two Africa Cup of Nations semifinals: I put on the first semifinal, Mali vs Nigeria, midway thru the 1st half, and quickly saw Nigeria go up 3-0 within the span of 20 minutes. Goals from (1) Elderson, assisted by Chelsea’s Victor Moses (no, Elderson is not a naturalized Nigerian originally from Brazil–his full name is Uwa Elderson Echiéjilé, born in Benin City, playing the last few years in Portugal for Sporting Braga (no, he’s not a naturalized Nigerian originally from Benin–Benin City is in Nigeria); (2) Ideye Aide Brown, a 24yo striker who plays for Dynamo Kyiv, assisted by Emmanuel Emenike; and (3) Emenike, another 24yo striker who also plays in far Eastern Europe, for Spartak Moscow. Nigeria made it 4-0 via a goal from yet another young striker playing in Russia, Ahmed Musa (20yo, CSKA Moscow). Mali pulled one back in the second half, but their inspirational run ended emphatically.

The second semifinal was a huge upset. The conventional wisdom is that the final would be a clash between two West African powers, Nigeria and Ghana. But instead West African minnow Burkina Faso pulled off the shocker, beating the star-studded Black Stars of Ghana. Ghana scored an early 13′ goal off a PK, but couldn’t add to their lead. Burkina Faso’s striker Aristide Bancé equalized in the 2nd half (born apparently in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, but moved with his family to Burkina Faso as a child; now playing for Bundesliga minnows FC Augsburg). Burkina Faso then held off Ghana’s attack through extra time, and won the match in penalties. This match report cites a couple missed chanced by Asamoah Gyan in particular, although Jonathan Wilson’s match report highlights another unfortunate aspect of the match: “Refereeing errors threaten to overshadow Burkina Faso’s dramatic win over Ghana”

The Burkina Faso-Nigerian final will take place on Sunday in Johannesburg, at 8pm local time (1pmET), and will be available for viewing via ESPN3.com.

Among the many International Friendlies, some among us watched Spain-Uruguay, England-Brazil, and France-Germany.

Here are Coach Larry’s observations on Spain’s 3-1 victory over Uruguay:

The match took place in Doha, Qatar at (Wiz?) Khalifa international stadium. pretty sure hex match will have same commentators as BeIN uses the remote setup. Color guy is German but I don’t know who. Then the play by play called him Bodo, and he praised a Victor Valdes distribution, so it’s Bodo Illgner.

No Xavi, no Xabi Alonso. Cesc as false nine, so no Fernando Torres nor David Villa nor Fernando Llorente. Chelsea’s Cesar Azpilicueta wide right with plenty of room as Uruguay started out shading to other side against Jordi Alba, Juan Mata, Santi Cazorla, and Pedro.

Uruguay was all counter attack at the beginning. Cesc scored in the 16′ on a long range shot right through Uruguayan goalkeeper Fernando Muslera‘s hands. A little swerve to it, but Muslera [now with Galatasaray, previously with Lazio] should have held it.

A wrong offside decision in the 29’ denied Spain a 2-0 lead, and denied Carlos Puyol a goal to cap off his 100th Spain cap. Spain played a short corner, which was then played back to 8-10 yards off the near corner. Ball was swung in across three face of goal, maybe a flick but volleyed by a wide open Puyol, who was called offsides.

Spain then lost some concentration, Uruguay appealed for a penalty which was denied, but Spain’s organization broke down and Uruguay found a through ball to the top of the box, spin over turn and slid home by Cristian Rodríguez. [Rodriguez came up with Peñarol, played at PSG and Porto before moving last summer to Atletico Madrid].

They honored Puyol for his hundredth cap with a montage and halftime ceremony. Looking forward to his future as a Bond villain. Plus Sergio Ramos and Torres look very twin-ish with the haircuts.

The second half started wide open. Both teams were stretched and attacked more quickly. Spain attacked down their left, Uruguay snuffed it out but lost it right away in the transition to Pique (who had come on for Puyol). Pique slid in a ball for Pedro, who converted with a slide rule to the far post (51′).

Jordi Alba is bit of a punk. could have had three yellows in one sequence.

Cavani could have converted one but decent save from Valdes.

Multiple subs for Spain through the 2nd half: Malaga’s young star Isco on for Iniesta; David Villa on for Juan Mata; Cazorla exited for debutante Mario Suarez [another Atlético midfielder–in fact, born in a Madrid suburb and a product of their youth system]; Arsenal’s new arrival Nacho Monreal on for Jordi Alba.

Field mics pick up Spain passing:

Thump-
Thump-Thump thump thump- Thump- Thump

Elder statesman Diego Forlan on for Cavani with 20′ to play.

[Larry’s notes ended there. Spain added an insurance goal in 74′, with Pedro getting his 2nd. Via goal.com’s mbm:

SPAIN LEAD 3-1!!! PEDRO WITH HIS SECOND OF THE EVENING!! La Roja launch a blistering counter attack through the Barca trio of Cesc, Villa and Pedro, with the latter of the three prodding the ball home from close range after neat build-up play from the other two.]

Video of that Spain 3 – 1 Uruguay match:

Three interesting intra-European matches took place concurrently, at the traditional (western) European kickoff time of 2:45pm: England-Brazil at Wembley, France-Germany at the Stade de France, and Netherlands-Italy at the Amsterdam Arena.

Check back here for notes on those, as well as the Hex matches: the USMNT’s demoralizing loss in Honduras, Costa Rica battling back to salvage a draw in Panama City, and Mexico listless performance/Jamaica’s suprising performace at the Estadio Azteca.

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