World Cup Reflections
I don't really understand soccer, but the World Cup is full of awesome political subtexts. Today's Iran-Mexico matchup, of course, posed a perplexing dilemma for the American right. My actual soccer fan sources, however, informed me that Mexico is the USA's traditional soccer rival, whereas Iran is merely a traditional geopolitical rival, so I decided to root for the Iranians (and, yes, I favor appeasement -- what can you do?) who, sadly, lost.
The other good reason to root for Iran is that word on the street is President Ahmadenijad is going to come to Germany to cheer the team on if they make it out of the pool round. This will give some enterprising reporter the opportunity to ask him a question about the Holocaust while standing on German soil where Holocaust denial is illegal. You don't see enough opportunities for "gotcha" questions to provoke international incidents.
For bonus political subtext, at one point during the game I switched over to Univision's coverage where it seemed to me that the announcers were taking Mexico's side. Yes. Even though Mexico is our traditional soccer rival and Univision is an American company. Whose side are these immigrants on? Someone call Sam Huntington. All good patriots had a duty to root for Iran.
Even better, right now we're at halftime in a match between Portugal and Angola. I wasn't entirely sure, but I looked it up and it's true -- Angola won its independence only after a 14 year guerilla war against Portugal. So I think you could say that there's no love lost between these two rivals. Sadly, the ESPN commentators aren't talking enough about the awesome post-colonial context here. They did, however, take the time to explain Angola's odd flag. The red is for the blood spilt in the struggle for independence, the black is for Africa, and that wheel-machete icon is for the workers.
I have no opinions on the world cup, but i will mention that i figured out today that Jane Hamsher likely worked with Matthew's dad.
Also, her parents misspelled Hampshire.
And finally, she's easy on the eyes in that casually but excellently put-together movie biz way.
June 11, 2006 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay so let me get this straight: you don't follow soccer, but because you want someone to ask a question of someone else, you decided to root for a team.
Too much free time? Wonderful belief in your own personal ability to affect the world? Too high a self-regard? No trees to cut down this afternoon?
How come you aren't using this power to heal, heal, you are healed, now get up and walk!
June 11, 2006 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or are you just trying (too hard) for that Easterbrookk chair at Slate?
June 11, 2006 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think somebody needs a hug.
June 11, 2006 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you mean that you wanted more history during the halftime that's one thing, but if you meant during gameplay I would have to disagree.
I watched the Mexico/Iran game on ABC and was a little surprised to be illuminated on the subjects of the a nuclear tension with Iran and an immigrant problem with Mexico. One of the commentators went so far as to ask how the Iranian team must have felt to see the remnants of the sites of the Nuremberg rallies. All that with a game in play. That sort of current events filler is just as awkward during a soccer game as it would be during a basketball game. And maybe it wouldn't have been quite so grating if the commentators had a little more awareness of the individual players' histories on the field. They were able to reel off players' stats, but were noticeably low on fleshing out the players' personalities in the game.
Maybe it's a matter of taste. When I want good analysis of the Iranian and immigration situations I come here, and I usually don't expect too much talk about soccer. When I want to watch a good game of soccer I expect to hear about the players and coaches and owners, but I don't expect to hear much of anything at all about peak oil or the riots in Paris or whether or not Tony Blair is dragging Labour down in the polls.
On the other hand, if politics is what it takes to get you more interested.......
June 11, 2006 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I watched the Mexico/Iran game on ABC and was a little surprised to be illuminated on the subjects of the a nuclear tension with Iran and an immigrant problem with Mexico. One of the commentators went so far as to ask how the Iranian team must have felt to see the remnants of the sites of the Nuremberg rallies. All that with a game in play. That sort of current events filler is just as awkward during a soccer game as it would be during a basketball game. And maybe it wouldn't have been quite so grating if the commentators had a little more awareness of the individual players' histories on the field. They were able to reel off players' stats, but were noticeably low on fleshing out the players' personalities in the game.
That's because the play-by-play commentator was Dave O'Brien, who knows little about the game. Geopolitical speculations and meaningless stats is all he has.
Matt, you should have definitely been rooting for the Iranians, because World Cup success ever so slightly undermines the hardline clerics in power there. When they beat the United States in 1998, there was a mass celebration of young people in Tehran, during which women took off their headscarves and people danced to Western-influenced music. Although Ahmadinejad professes to be a fan, the ruling clergy secretly want the Iranian team (many of whom play professionally in Germany) to fail, because they didn't want a repeat of these scenes. There was a nice NYT story on this topic earlier today.
Sadly, of course, they lost, and their chances of success look bleak unless they can get a result against Portugal.
The Postcolonial Bowl was a little disappointing, both in terms of the quality of play and the intensity: last time Portugal and Angola played, four men got sent off for fighting and they had to abandon the match!
June 11, 2006 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
You shouldn't say things like that without a link to a picture. Now I'm going to go a little nuts till I find out what she looks like.
June 12, 2006 3:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Times have changed. There was even a white guy on Angola, unless my eyes deceived me.
Iran was expected to lose to Mexico and it was always going to come down to their game against Portugal, although the 2-goal deficit really hurts them.
June 12, 2006 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink