My fears that we were facing a summer without top-class futbol have proven unfounded. The Confederations Cup tournament, now underway in Brazil, has been a nice reminder that in just over a year or so, there will come a moment when 30 or 40 percent of the world’s population will be simultaneously engaged in the […]
Archive | Soccer
Football Over Soccer
An Englishman makes a confession: He prefers American football to soccer. In its energy and complexity, football captures the spirit of America better than any other cultural creation on this continent, and I don’t mean because it features long breaks in which advertisers get to sell beer and treatments for erectile dysfunction. It sits at […]
Soccer Update:
So I know that faithful readers have been patiently waiting for my take on the current goings-on in the world of international soccer … Though this is the off-season, of course, for most of the world’s leagues (other than our own MLS), there’s a fair bit of action out there, in particular (a) the Women’s […]
You Knew I’d Say Something About This:
A somewhat dispirited series of highly-anticipated matches between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid was elevated to high art through the remarkable play of the remarkable Lionel Messi. If you didn’t see his goals in Wednesday’s game — the second one in particular is a thing of sublime beauty — check them out here (the UEFA […]
If It Seems Too Good To Be True, It Probably . . .
. . . is.** [see note below] But on a day when our sports pages are filled up with loads of nonsense — about whether Barry Bonds knew what every 12 year-old in America knew (that Bonds was taking steroids), and about whether Kobe Bryant’s utterance of an “anti-gay epithet” that is apparently so nasty […]
Straordinario!!!
I’m here in Torino, Italy, getting ready for my talk tomorrow at the Nexa Center of the Torino Politecnico on “Thomas Jefferson, The Internet, and Egypt” — the talk will be livestreamed Friday at 0830 EST here, if you’re interested. I’ve been thinking a lot about the events in the Middle East, and what they […]
A Tasty Treat for VC’s Soccerphiles:
Inasmuch as I feel it has become my duty to inform VC readers of extraordinary happenings in the world of international soccer, I’m writing to announce what those of you who follow these matters already know: today, at 245 PM (EST) (televised on Fox Soccer Channel) Barcelona travel to the Emirates Stadium in London to […]
Mighty Barca!
Sports Fans!: Brian Phillips, over on Slate, has a nice piece on “the special feeling of euphoria, a kind of Olympian giddiness, that soccer fans experience while watching F.C. Barcelona.” Even for those of you who care little for the game, you should make at least a small mental note about what is happening over […]
Soccer Perfection:
As Sam put it here, “If you are a soccer fan–but especially if you aren’t–do yourself a favor and watch the Barcelona-Madrid game from Monday afternoon” (still available for replay viewing on ESPN3.com). Paul Gardner over at Soccer America has a good description of the game, too — but just watch the game if you […]
Should We Teach Kids to Play to Win?
Political scientist Barry Rubin has an interesting column criticizing the modern tendency to teach kids that playing to win is bad: My son is playing on a local soccer team which has lost every one of its games, often by humiliating scores. The coach is a nice guy, but seems an archetype of contemporary thinking: […]
Copyright (and, of course, soccer):
Looking for opportunities to segue from my recent obsession with all things soccer-related to the more mundane matters of copyright law that I usually focus on here on the VC, and lo and behold . . . . Two opportunities, actually: 1. For the “Content Owners, Knee Jerk Protection Responses Of” file: I found the […]
And, In the End . . .
The World Cup final (and the Dutch) are both taking well-deserved beatings in the blogosphere – it was not a very beautiful game to watch, thanks largely to the unrelentingly nasty play of the Dutch. Jonathan Wilson over on SI.com summarized it nicely: At least after an ugly, unpleasant game, the World Cup had the […]
Into the Home Stretch:
So we’re down to the final question: Who to root for on Sunday? [And who will win? See below] It’s a pretty complicated tangle. If it were a simple question (as it usually is, for me) of “Who’s playing the most beautiful and creative football?,” it would be easy to get behind Spain, who were […]
Crimes and Punishments (World Cup Edition):
Uruguay’s loss to the Netherlands in yesterday’s World Cup semifinal may perhaps have been foreordained, given how deeply they had offended against the gods of soccer. For those of you who missed it, at the very end of the previous game, the Uruguay-Ghana quarterfinal, a tense back-and-forth affair which was tied 1-1 in the closing […]
Cup Musings, Cont’d:
Having just returned from 10 days bicycling in France, away from my computer and therefore unable to share with you my thoughts on the developments in South Africa, it’s time to catch up. France was an unfortunate place to be, as it turned out, for the second round of the Cup; while it was pretty […]