Football, politics and life: all one in the same. Plus, a World Cup preview!

Keene State v New England College, Sept 2009: I believe their opponents opted for the classic American 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 approach


I originally started writing this post in September of 2009, just after I had started my semester at Keene, and just days after watching the men’s university football/soccer team play. It had been an awfully long time since I had watched a non-professional American soccer match, and I was struck by a great many things. More than anything, it led me to put together the following piece. It’s been sitting festering away on my computer since then, but I’ve now finally dusted it off, and added/edited large swathes of it – at this point, pretty much all of it - much of it based on more recent research. And at the end, as a sort of means of summing it all up, I’ve offered my pre-World Cup thoughts as well as a few predictions.

[…] the match inspired me to at long last put pen to paper and offer up a little theory I’ve been banging on about for years: the intertwining of a nation’s style of football and its politics and culture. In other words, how is a country’s distinctive style of football reflected in its politics, way of life and culture, and vice versa. As a disclaimer, I really must mention that this idea is not originally mine, and though I have tinkered with it a bit, it can be tricky to avoid stereotyping and crass generalisations, which are more often than not dangerous.

My theory, which is still a work in progress, takes into account more of the political and economic angle. For though I’ve made a reference to the ‘politics’ in the previous paragraph, I’m hardly about to delve into explicit detail right now about how France’s shift to the right under Sarkozy is reflected in its style of play, or how having a coalition government for years on end has influenced the Dutch and their passing, how North Korea’s trademark style is a reflection of the Communist one-party state, or how Turkey combines secularism with certain traditions in its movement on the pitch. Nor will I stray into the economic sphere. Not yet anyway. One of these days I may entertain the notion of doing the additional research I need to work out the political and economic side of things.

Works of Inspiration

Simon Kuper’s Football Against the Enemy, which remains the benchmark for the link between football and nationalism, first turned me onto this idea. Other influential books have been David Winner’s Brilliant Orange, which details Dutch football and how it reflects Dutch society, and Jonathan Wilson’s Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football, which is mesmerising in its scope and offers arguably the most penetrating insight into football in the Balkans, not to mention vast swathes of the former Soviet Union. I highly recommend all three books. (under no circumstances go near Franklin Foer’s How Football Explains the World)

And more recently, I’ve discovered Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics and Kuper’s collaboration with sports economist Stefan Szymanski, Soccernomics: Why England Lose, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey – and even Iraq – are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport.

According to Simon Kuper, there are two views of what a national team is for. The first view is more practical: the object is merely to win games (and/or entertain your audience). The second relates to nationalism: the national team should be a reflection of your country, society and culture: the ‘team must be the nation made flesh’.

Thus…

Brazil play football in its trademark flee-flowing, rhythmic, adventurous style reflecting its national character as the home of the samba, a relaxed, dance-happy carefree people. Then there’s Germany, with its rigidity and what some call a Teutonic efficiency, always planning ahead, doing what is required to get the job done but nothing above and beyond that, and never deviating from the game plan, players always following orders; Italy, with its anxiously calculated defensive posturing intermixed with the flamboyant individuality of its cast of alice band-clad prima donnas (witness the typical Italian goalscorer’s celebration of turning his back to the crowd and pointing with both thumbs to his name on the back of his top); England, with its exquisitely well-crafted game plan and supremely organised tactics, only to see it all fall apart when it comes time to implementation on the pitch, but with that always present indomitable fighting spirit replete with blood, toil, tears and sweat; Portugal, who like Spain, always considered a perennial underachiever, full of potential, promise, but with a nation full of individuals leading to showboating and too much pointless dribbling on the pitch, a team doomed to tragic failure, though the country does love misery; Hungary, once a proud and mighty footballing nation who only through bad luck didn’t win themselves a World Cup or two, were then brutally repressed and saw their footballing prowess almost buried and have been stutter-start ever since, every now and then offering a dawn of promise which inevitably and tragically turns into false hope; Belgium: soporific, tedious and dull and somewhat artificial feeling; the Dutch: gorgeous, free-flowing total football, lots of interchangeable parts, players backing each other up, picking up the others’ slack, multifunctional, adaptable, consistently entertaining yet often coming up short when it really matters; the Soviet Union with its highly systematized football reflected also in its pressing style, requiring supreme levels of fitness and dedication to the cause (also seen in one of its great club sides in the 1970s and 80s, Dynamo Kyiv); now, in Russia, Ukraine and a couple of other post-Soviet countries, individualism is coming back only slowly in society and the team, though they do show tendencies of not getting back up after a hit; the Scandinavians and their strict adherence to the 4-4-2, which of course is very egalitarian and a reflection of social democracy.

Some naysayers like to criticise the British and Scandinavians for years of playing reckless kick-and-rush football. This style is also referred to as Route 1 or Scandinavian Long Ball, the aim being to score as many of your goals as possible in moves consisting of 3 or fewer passes; it has worked well for the likes of Watford and Bolton over the years, but at the international level, it hasn’t been as effective.

There’s also another school of thought that examines the changing fortunes in a country’s status on the world stage vis-à-vis the performance of its teams. For example, Britain’s decline in empire coincided with the downfall in the fortunes of the home nations in football. And conversely, the decline in its football has been mirrored in a decline in its power, prestige and status in the world.


Beitar Jerusalem v Maccabi Haifa, Sept 08: A lot of unpleasant anti-Arab chanting from Beitar's fanatical right-wing supporters

My analysis does get a bit more nuanced than the above examples suggest, but I’m long past the point where I could wax incessantly about every country in the world. At one point, around the time of the 2002 World Cup where South Korea made that astonishing run to the semifinals – generously aided by the referees it must be said – I was certain I had a grand theory more firmly in place, talking about this Asian tiger’s miraculous growth and emergence onto the world [football] scene, reflected in its dynamic, adventurous and vibrant approach on and off the pitch. I grouped the likes of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus together, all newish nations whose sporting histories were naturally characterised for decades by having their finest athletes represent the Soviet Union, and all caught in a situation where at independence they were struggling to create their own identity and style after years of repression.

Latvia, FC [Riga] Olimps v Daugava, Oct 07: Not systematized, not repressive and certainly not exciting


West Africa, or more specifically Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Senegal, with their chaotic, poorly organised, ill-disciplined but usually entertaining football, with no structure whatsoever in the heart of defence, and rash and reckless goalkeepers who come flying out of the 18 yard box and get caught in no mans’ land (that, or they flap at the ball on a free kick or corner). But the potential is massive and the future is loaded with promise; only the politics are murky, with football associations interfering with the football, pay for the players going missing, and no transparency to speak of in the hiring and firing of coaches or the recalling and dropping of players.

[there’s another fascinating colonialism angle here, that of all the European coaches drafted in to lead these nations, supposedly introducing a bit of stability and discipline to the tactics; I should also point out that I’ve really started to distance myself from the above accounts, which though years ago would have been unquestionably accepted, today feel quaint and even somewhat offensive, racist even.]

The big gaps in my account

For a supposedly truly ‘globalised’ game, how is one to account for all of the big nation’s not even being represented at this World Cup? No China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Iran, Egypt, Turkey - that’s well over half the world’s population, and outside of Brazil and Argentina, this is still a Western European dominated sport. How much longer will these big nations remain on the periphery, and if they do so for too long, what risk that basketball will start to creep in and take over as the world’s most popular sport, following the Chinese lead and their rapidly increasing euphoria over the game? Surely, though, it’s only a matter of time before China is regularly qualifying for the World Cup, though for many of the other nations, their footballing futures look pretty bleak, those massive populations notwithstanding (more on Turkey and Egypt in a minute).

The Indian subcontinent is certainly cricket country, but at the same time, the English Premier League is massively popular and getting bigger by the day. Will this rub off and affect the development of football? And the Middle East certainly merits a closer examination; we know football is already massively popular, but do the teams’ styles of play bear any reflection on their politics and cultures? Further research is definitely needed in these areas.

As for the teams that will be represented that I know little about, I suppose if I closely examine North Korea’s approach, I might see parallels with their repressive one-party state, though something tells me I won’t learn much. Same could be said for the likes of Australia and New Zealand.

I’ve always struggled to come up with a way of characterizing the US approach. If I take just what I’ve seen from the Keene match, I had no idea that at the amateur level in the US unlimited substitutions are allowed (to draw a parallel: one can recklessly go all out and expend all the energy necessary, safe in the knowledge that a respite will be coming up; no need to plan too far in the future, spend now, pay later). No one ever tackles anyone (though it’s a dog-eat-dog world, everyone gets a second chance). And sure, there is definitely free-flowing passing, albeit sloppy and misplaced much of the time, but for long periods the game consists of individuals making their moves and optimistically punting balls in the direction of whatever play is furthest forward (that eternal American optimism that the times ahead are always going to be better than the past?). All the while, as the match ebbs and flows, mothers and friends from the crowd punctuate the play with cries and shouts of ‘nice try, son!’ and ‘great hustle, kid!’ (it’s not the winning that counts, but the effort).

Austria, Austria Vienna v WIT Tbilisi, Uefa Cup, August 08: Rabid, passionate Austrian supporters in full voice for 90 minutes


But alas, the times they are-a-changing

Over the years, many countries, instead of altering their styles and adjusting to play to win, get stuck with the weight of expectation and fail to adapt. For many fans, and this goes as well for teams at the club level, it is still far more important for your team to stay true to its roots and play the kind of football that is expected, to adhere to tradition. Thus, the Dutch are stuck with total football and the Italians get flack for straying too far from catenaccio. Even when Brazil won yet another World Cup in 2002, many of their own supporters derided them as being too boring and a paler imitation of their former glorious selves from the 1970s (the 1994 team faced similar criticism, but in 2002 many were hankering for the ‘glory’ days of the mid 90s).

But alas, the times are changing indeed: the world is becoming increasingly smaller as globalization marches on, and teams are moving away from the way they’re ‘supposed’ to way. Whereas before no one would countenance the idea of England having anything but an English coach, here they are abandoning their all men to the front, no holds barred approach for the refined continental style introduced by their Italian manager. The Dutch, who for so long stubbornly held onto their wingers glued to the touchline, finally dumped them after some serious countrywide angst and debate, and have improved all the more because of it. And Italy have even incorporated a bit more adventure, though maintaining their defensive rigidity as the core to their approach. Globalisation’s impact on football is such that, not only are more and more players from around the world coming to play in the most prominent leagues in Europe, but national teams are ditching their indigenous styles and are moving to something more cosmopolitan, the ideal recipe perhaps consisting of Italian defending, German organization, English spirit and Dutch passing. Just to keep some of the old stereotypes going.

The southern fringe of Europe – specifically Portugal, Greece and Turkey – for years have been or were characterized by too much individualism and pointless dribbling. In fact, it was my Greek friend Magnus who recently lamented the decline in dribbling skills and individual flair, though would even he quibble with Greece’s stunning Euro 2004 success – over, ironically, Portugal in the final – even if it did mean wisening up and introducing more tactical organization in the form of a German coach?

The great 80s Milan coach Arrigo Saachi said of Italy: ‘When I started most of the attention was on the defensive phase. We had a sweeper and man-markers. The attacking phase came down to the intelligence and common sense of the individual and the creativity of the number ten. Italy has a defensive culture, not just in football. For centuries, everybody invaded us.’

The importance and influence of the playmaker has rapidly deteriorated in the footballing world. For years the Argentine number 10 – just to give one example - was the pivot point, the maestro orchestrating the midfield. But once teams cottoned onto the idea that by stifling the playmaker you would emasculate the other team’s attack, teams started adapting and opting for a more collectivist, team approach. As brilliant as Zidane was in his heyday, when he had an off-day, France had an off-day and that says nothing about how one-dimensional of a player he was in his later years, hardly bothering to track back and defend and worrying more about his positioning on the pitch to instigate the next attack.

Midfielders have become much more multi-functional now. Jonathan Wilson reckons we might be on the verge of a new era of tactics where the 4-6-0 (or, as I think more likely, a 5-5-0) becomes the norm, with no out-and-out easily recognizable forwards and a collection of equally versatile midfielders complementing each other in their formation. Football is becoming a more of a harmonious entity, with less of the old formula of two or three specialists balanced out with three or four exceptionally talented players, with a couple more thrown in to plug the gaps.

For some, like Magnus perhaps, could this mean the decline of the beautiful game, where there’s not so much dribbling anymore and players are merely cogs or components in a system? Is the era of individual battles over? One could easily argue that because the so-called ‘single-creator’ is too one dimensional, that yes, we are going to see more of the pragmatic, ‘team’ approach, though no one in the world could conceivably stifle the likes of Ronaldo and Messi in the near future. Thank goodness.

Enough of the tactics and on with the closing thoughts.


Slovakia v Northern Ireland, World Cup qualifier, Sept 08: in the minnows versus the minnows, the minnows undeservedly came out on top


An ode to those not here

Despite the rash of recent big-name players – Drogba, Essien, Mikel, Ballack, Ferdinand, Pirlo, Robben – set to miss out on the World Cup due to injury, it has to be said that most of the great traditional footballing powers are here in attendance. Portugal and France managed to squeak through, though Russia unexpectedly fell to Slovenia in the playoff.

Purely selfishly, I was disappointed not to see Sweden qualify, as I’m a huge fan of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Though I don’t lament the failure of Turkey to qualify, they have to be considered a nation on the rise, with two major semifinal appearances in the past 8 years (World Cup 2002, Euro 2008) and now Guus Hiddink as their manager. Russia didn’t deserve to qualify, neither did footballing-mad Croatia (according to Soccernomics, they are the most rabidly passionate footballing country in the world).

The most glaring and tragic – not to sound too melodramatic – absence has to be Egypt, though one could argue that they too didn’t deserve to qualify if they couldn’t beat Algeria in their playoff. But here we have the winners of three straight African Cup of Nations not playing on the biggest stage of all. It has to go down as a mystery as to how they continually struggle to qualify for the World Cup, yet so thoroughly dominate on the African stage, most of the time anyway. But something has to be said for fierce rivalries, and getting past such a bitter adversary like Algeria is never going to be an easy feat.

In my book, two things seem to happen at just about every World Cup. First, we can expect an unfancied, surprise team to make it at least to the quarterfinals, possibly even the semifinals. In USA ’94, we had Bulgaria and Sweden in the semifinals; in France ’98, Croatia snuck through to the semifinals; Japan/Korea 2002 featured Turkey and South Korea in the last four; Germany 2006 stayed truer to form, though Ukraine’s insomnia-curing approach did see them sneak into the quarterfinals (in the Euros, there have been a couple of stunning surprises: Denmark in 1992, who only qualified as a last-minute replacement for Yugoslavia, and Greece in 2004). I think the same will hold true this year. Along with so many others, I’d love to see one of the African teams make a decent run, though the Essien, Mikel and Drogba injuries have seriously dented Ghana’s, Nigeria’s and Ivory Coast’s respective chances. Cameroon aren't the powerhouse they once were, though at least they are fairly injury-free, Algeria are unlikely to pick up a point, and South Africa will probably become the first host nation not to advance into the 2nd round.

My pick for a surprise run is Serbia. I can see them getting at least to the quarterfinals, maybe even sneaking into the semis. They’re one of the better ‘surprise bet’ teams. They could also play England in the 2nd round.

(disclaimer: much like when I play Scrabble – which I don’t particularly like – I’ve failed to look ahead and plan past the 2nd round’s potential matchups. This is terribly irresponsible and lazy of me, I know, but I’m on the road at the moment and have limited internet time to do the adequate research.)

Second, one of the so-called big traditional powerhouses, despite not being in the best of form, somehow sneak through into the latter stages, and often the final. Rarely does it seem that the ‘best team’ actually wins. How many tournaments have we routinely seen pundits declaring Holland to be the ‘best team’ at the end of the tournament? How many actual tournaments have they won? Exactly.

Often the best teams don’t win, and a big team in lousy form sneaks through to the end. We had France in 2006, there was Germany in 2002. Could this be the year when one of these unfancied traditional powerhouses actually wins it? I think it will be – my pick in a moment.

First, those who won’t win

• Germany: no Ballack, no chance, plus their strikers are in patchy form
• Spain: for the perennial underachievers, no way do they win the World Cup just two years after peaking and winning the European Championship. They’ve had their glory and can surely now expect a few more years of misery before winning another.
• Portugal: well, their shaky qualifying form is one thing; the fact that they’re in the group of death with Brazil and Ivory Coast is another; and my personal bias (I don’t like them) is the third. Add them all up = failure to get out of their group (that opening match against Ivory Coast could all but eliminate one of the two immediately).
• Italy: no one in the mold of Totti, Cannavaro is a shell of his former self, and they’re lacking pure goalscorers up front – I don’t see where their goals are going to come from.
• England: sorry, just don’t see it. The injury to Ferdinand hurts, they’ve only got one recognized right back, and if Barry isn’t fully fit, where’s the midfield muscle?
• Argentina: with Maradona in charge? They were lucky to qualify, and if they win anything, it will be despite the manager, not because of him.
• Holland: again, another devastating injury (Robben), plus an awful lot of faith in Van Persie, who missed the bulk of the season, up front, as well as a combination of shaky and unproven defenders.
• Brazil: simply because everyone expects them to win this, whether expert or layperson, and I can’t go with the masses here. By nature, I’m a contrarian. But I also see a couple of key weaknesses. First, their strikers don’t scare me as much as years past. Second, I know Brazil often resorts to the attack-is-the-best-form-of-defence approach, but their back four make me nervous. I’m always sceptical of people who label the likes of Alves and Maicon as the ‘best backs in the world’ when they can hardly defend, nor even bother to. Both are terrific bombing forward, but questionable when asked to defend. Between those holes – good teams will exploit this – as well as Lucio’s tendency to pick up silly bookings, don’t be surprised by a situation where in the latter stages Lucio is suspended and a team with good wingers and a well-disciplined defense exposes this. Italy perhaps?

(goal of the season, arguably, comes from Maicon - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsCbXu5it6Y

Also, for what it’s worth, it merits a mention that no European team has ever won a World Cup on anything but European soil. Other minor prediction, regarding group C: as much as I’m going for the US, something tells me they may not make it out of their group. I have such a soft spot for central and eastern European minnows, and I see Slovenia sneaking out of this group in 2nd spot, behind likely winners England. I hope I’m wrong, but harking back to my heavy sports gambling days (almost entirely American football), I would sometimes bet against my teams as a way of hedging my bets. If my team won, I was happy; if they lost, I’d made a bit of money to ease the pain. Though there’s no money involved this time, if I were a betting man, I’d put money on Slovenia finishing 2nd. On paper, the US team looks weak in the midfield (where’s the muscle?) and there are huge question marks over the forwards. Of course, we all know that ‘on paper’ means nothing when it comes to actually playing the game. As Sir Alex quipped about the Scotland team: ‘great on paper, shite on grass’.

And had Egypt qualified, we can safely assume that they would have replaced Algeria in this group, making it significantly more cumbersome to progress out of.

Anyway, onto the winners

Like I alluded to, I think this will be the year that a traditionally ‘big’ though unfancied and unexpected team will actually pull it off. And the team I expect to win it all are a far cry from the champions of 1998 and Euro 2000 and the finalists of 2006. From what I can tell, some are predicting them to not even make it out of their group – they could be looking at a 2nd round match against Argentina. Call me crazy, and call this a rather unconventional pick, but here’s why France will win it:

• The unjustness of it all: France hardly deserve to be here after that shocking Thierry Henry handball over which the Irish are still crying foul. I was just as disgusted, but football often has a perverse whiff of the unfair about it, and I think that will carry over during France’s run. It could well also motivate them; they’ll want to prove to the world that they do belong here. (If they manage to win it, I can only imagine then what the Irish will be saying then.)
• It’s Domenech’s last hurrah. And yes, he’s been an under-fire, far-from-satisfactory manager (to put it mildly), and I’m not claiming that he will have a grand part to play in it, but like 2006 when Zidane was effectively in charge, this will be a year when he’ll delegate the bulk of the responsibility to his players, and let them dictate more of the tactics and pace. And that’s a good thing.
• But…keep in mind that this is the same Domenech that took Lyon out of the 2nd division in the late 80s and turned them into the powerhouse of French football. Don’t ever forget that.
• From what I can tell, for the first time in the history of French football, they seem to have a natural, debate-free starting XI. I haven’t heard too much bickering from their camp and I love their balance:

Ribery – Anelka – Govou
Malouda – Gourcoff
Toulalan (or Diaby)
Evra-Gallas-Abidal-Sagna
Lloris

Despite the presence of the combustible Gallas in the centre, the rest of the back four are dependable, solid, and are as good going forward as tracking back. Toulalan, from the limited matches I’ve seen of him as the holding player, is terrific. If there’s a weakness as far as responsibility goes, it has to be Ribery’s unwillingness to track back, which means Evra will have to be a lot more cautious on the left flank.
• In normal World Cup years, fitness would be a factor amongst players coming from the bigger teams. Any English-based players, almost half of the starting eleven, have faced a plethora of games and history tells us that as the tournament progresses, these players fade. That’s why it’s minnows like Slovenia and Serbia who can sometimes make runs: their players are fresher. And despite the fact that no European teams have won a World Cup outside of Europe (assuming that heat and humidity are a big factor), this is a different year, simply because it’s winter in South Africa, and fitness won’t be the issue it has been in years past. Thus, the normal advantage that the smaller teams enjoy is effectively neutralised.
• France’s most important players have been in the form of their lives: Ribery, Anelka, Malouda and Gourcoff. Despite Anelka’s patchy international goalscoring record, he banged them in all season for Chelsea, and he’s the clear, out-and-out target man in this lineup. At odds as high as 66-1, I’d definitely put money on Anelka winning the golden boot. You can also get France at 20-1.
• A strong supporting cast: the bench has a few decent names on it. Diaby is a more than viable replacement for Toulalan in the holding role and may even start a couple of matches. Djbril Cisse had a monster season in Greece and is eager to show that he’s back to his very best. And if they’re losing late on and need a reprieve, you can always bring on Henry and ask him to work his, uh, ‘magic’. Let’s not forget his dive that won France the free kick that knocked out Spain in 2006. This guy has a history of this stuff, and I wouldn’t put anything past him again.

And that is that. I’ve been disastrously wrong before, but I did pick Italy to win it four years ago. Let’s hope the hot streak continues.


Sources
Football Against the Enemy, Simon Kuper
Soccernomics, Simon Kuper & Stefan Szymanski
‘Why Argentina chose ‘ganas’ and ‘pibes’ over winning’, Financial Times, Simon Kuper
Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football, Jonathan Wilson
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, Jonathan Wilson
Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic History of Dutch Football, David Winner