FILTER
Book Browse: How Soccer Explains The World: An {Unlikely} Theory of Globalization
- Author: Min-Q Kim
- Posted on: Thursday November 5, 2009 at 6:00 AM
- Filed under: books, how soccer explains the world, franklin foer, sports, exclusive
Obama is a known Chicago White Sox fan. George W. Bush was once part owner of the Texas Rangers. Imagine, for a minute, a world in which the White Sox subsequently come to represent the Left Wing Democratic ideals and agenda, while the Rangers and its fans take on the Right Wing. Now picture the stands at White Sox - Rangers games breaking out in bitter, virulent, political warfare – with the color of your jersey enough to identify which side of the violence you’re on.
Such is the wouldn’t-believe-it-if-it-weren’t-true realm detailed in How Soccer Explains the World: An {Unlikely} Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer. He starts with the infamous Serbian club, Red Star Belgrade, whose hooligan supporters are officially sanctioned and paid by the team. Here, the most violent fans police the players, and any of those players who shows lack of effort faces physical danger. Red Star Belgrade gangs, in fact, had a hand in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, and that's not a cheeky sports adaptation of war terminology, like the "Battle of the Beltway" or "the Shot Heard Round the World." They were literally recruited by the Serbian government to stage a paramilitary offensive against the Croatian army. By comparison, the notorious English hooligan tradition seems a bit hollow, but no less violent. Foer gets into that too.
Let's call this... one extreme.
Red Star Belgrade's fans light torches during the Serbian First Division soccer match against Mladost Lucani in Belgrade, Serbia on March 29, 2008. (REUTERS/Ivan Milutinovic)
On the other extreme is the chapter on the standing of soccer as a bourgeois novelty game here in the United States. Foer points to the merits of the relatively safe, team-oriented game as a perfect esteem-building activity for our children. But that's as far as it will go, most likely. I mean, this is a country where youth leagues ban headers for fear of potential brain injury. Aren't we adorable? Culturally, there is a sense, he says, in which soccer threatens American identity. It's European, and Europe's cosmopolitan, morally lax culture has no place in Puritan 'Merica. The 'These Colors Don't Run' Americans want no part of "getting with the world's program." So, while other countries battle getting Nike-ized and McDonald's-ized, the U.S., as it turns out, is battling globalization in its own little way.
Cartoon by Joe Cannaday / courtesy joecannaday.com
With those two polar bookends, Foer covers pretty much everything in between: the Protestant vs. Catholic struggle manifested in Glasgow's Rangers vs. Celtic rivalry, the corruption that exports the best of Brazil's vaunted soccer talent to European Leagues, and the dubious officiating that favors clubs owned by the Italian oligarchy. He also examines the dynamic between Nigerian players brought in to play in an alabaster-white post-Cold War Ukraine, and the glory days of the world's only all-Jewish soccer powerhouse.
It's all fascinating stuff. But if I learned anything from this book, it is that, thankfully, any political advantage or influence garnered by those who invest in football clubs generally does not last. Sports fans, you see, are a very fickle bunch. I would know. I'm from New York. Further proof? How about this great CBS News Piece featuring Foer himself, talking about the favor won (at the time) by Iranian President Ahmadinejad for allowing women in soccer stadiums.
So how does all of this 'explain the world,' you ask? Explain might be a bit strong... But the title is so darned snappy. What this book does, ultimately, is give an insightful look at the game's standing outside our borders. Soccer provides an identity for people -- a conduit through which they can project their love for their people, their beliefs, their countries. It is a symbol of progress to those who are looking to Westernize, and a symbol of stalwart tradition to those who seek stability in an ever-changing, homogenized world. To wit, this is no child's game. It is a way of understanding the way things are.
Just not for us, am I right?
