I hope those of you who are paying even cursory attention to the World Cup Soccer championship in Germany are enjoying the experience so far. (Too bad, Team USA played an uninspiring match today to lose 0 – 3 to the Czech Republic). But there is much more going on off the playing field in the area of global politics, cultural rivalries and even which brew is suitable for the world’s biggest sporting extravaganza. The celebrated German beer drinkers, are upset that the championship’s main sponsor is Budweiser, the lowbrow American beer that most German bars don’t even sell. It is safe to assume that the Germans are drowning their contempt and sorrow in steins overflowing with the local "real" stuff although they can’t buy anything except Bud inside the stadium. But beyond the beer snobbery, there are also many undercurrents of history and politics that make this championship interesting to watch.
Soccer is a truly international game. Everyone from Mongolia to Chile plays it. It is an egalitarian game, not the bastion of the well heeled or the well trained. Superior physical stature of an opponent can be effectively neutralized with speed and co-operative team work. All you need is a ball. You can play it anywhere – even in a war ravaged country side. And the game has a flamboyance and natural feel to it which is only possible when you are not geared up in ridiculous space suits or tight, starched pants. (It also helps that soccer players for the most part, look like real human beings.) And with more nations from Africa, Asia and the Caribbeans making it to this year’s World Cup, the game is also no longer the sole prerogative of European and Latin American teams.
This brings up interesting possibilities for match ups that are fraught with factors other than just athletic competition. Do the players only think of the game when playing a particular team or are there other scores to settle? World War II is more than sixty years in the past but most of Europe still bears the scars in their minds. So what do the Polish, Czech, French and English teams think of when facing off with Germany? I am not at all surprised that Germany has enlisted John Cleese (of Fawlty Towers fame) to exhort the Brits not to bring up WW II during matches. There are several past colonizers and colonized in the mix. Think of the possible match-ups (not supported by most odd makers for a final showdown). England against Ghana or Trinidad – Tobago. France against Ivory Coast. Portugal opposite Angola. Japan and South Korea. Given the current immigration debate, even Mexico versus the USA. (Iran and the USA may be the two countries whose team members are much better liked in the international arena than their elected national leaders.)
Emotions will run strong and perhaps along the lines of past and present politics and memories of old war wounds sustained both on the battle field and the playing field will spur on the enthusiasm of players. I am not saying that all that is necessarily good (in fact those British fans need to be put in cages.) After all, it is only a game. But it is also understandable when this exciting event watched by billions, provides a level playing field for the wealthy and the poor nations, blacks and whites, democracies and dictatorships. So it is to be expected that minor wars or major mayhem may indeed break out.
In recent years, soccer too has been transformed by globalization. The international nature of soccer is even more "international" now because most players on the national teams of competing countries, play for foreign clubs during the pro-season. And due to the presence of European born children of Arab and African immigrants, European teams no longer have the lily white complexion of yore.
"Today, a match in London between Arsenal and Manchester United involves players from Latin America, much of West Africa, the Arab world, northern, southern, and eastern Europe, and Asia. The global TV audience it attracts is good news for the marketers of players’ jerseys and other soccer paraphernalia, even if it’s a tad bizarre for a British army squaddie patrolling Basra in southern Iraq to encounter a Mehdi Army militiaman sporting the shirt of Arsenal, the soldier’s "local" London team…. But there’s nothing "local" about Arsenal anymore: When it played Real Madrid earlier this year in the Champion’s League, there were only two Englishmen on the field, both playing for the Spanish side.
Despite the urge of fans to invoke national mythologies from a distant past, many European national teams now reflect the continent’s increasingly cosmopolitan makeup. Thanks to postwar economic migrations into Europe from former colonies, many of the best players available to a European national team are second- and even third-generation immigrants. France fields a team in which all but one, sometimes two, players are of African or Arab origin. The racist politician Jean Marie Le Pen actually complained in 1998 that the World Cup winners were "not a real French team." Some English fans are more accepting of their cosmopolitan fate, as reflected in one of their chants that extols Britain’s new national cuisine: "And we all love vindaloo…"
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