Word: soccers
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Visitors to Ibrox Park, home of Glasgow Rangers, might have been more than a little gobsmacked recently to see the home fans flying the Israeli flag. The Star of David is an unlikely standard for the fans of one of Scotland's largest soccer teams, whose often ferociously sectarian Protestant identity is legendary - for decades, the club would not sign Catholic players no matter how talented. But to understand why the Rangers faithful were seen flying the Israeli flag, one only had to look across the field to the fans of the visiting team, Glasgow Celtic - the pride of Scotland...
...Soccer has, as long as anyone can remember, served as a form of ritual combat onto which neighborhoods, tribes and even nations could project their most passionate enmities. When Real Sociedad, the pride of the Basque country, comes up against Real Madrid, the soccer symbol of the Spanish crown, it's more than simply an athletic spectacle involving 22 men and a ball. And when a Republic of Ireland striker puts one past the England goalkeeper in an international fixture, the roar heard across the Irish Diaspora expresses a passion that long predates the game of soccer itself. But just...
...passions does an IRA anthem stir in the heart of Celtic's favorite forward, Henrik Larsson, whose mother is Swedish and whose father hails from the West African island of Cabo Verde? Once, Rangers only signed Protestant players; today, like Celtic, they've followed the trend of shopping in soccer's global labor market in order to make themselves competitive in the pan-European leagues that are the most lucrative for the continent's clubs. So, while the fans treat the game as a tableux enactment of ancient tribal battles, the "actors" are Dutchmen, Georgians, Danes, Brazilians, Portuguese, Swedes, Frenchmen...
...into this complex, often darkly funny nexus of soccer's traditional role as metaphor for national and ethnic warfare and the forces of globalization that are changing the face of the game that New Republic writer Franklin Foer steps in his new book, "How Soccer Explains the World". It's a compelling and ambitious project that seeks to chart the impact of the crashing waves of globalization on the traditional tribal barriers that have long defined the culture of soccer, at least among fans if not on the field. And as an American, Foer must be further commended for venturing...
What's the capital of Cameroon? How about the atomic weight of cobalt? Do they call it "football" or "soccer" in South America? Help is as close as your mobile phone: just dial 63336 in Britain, type in your query as a text message and for $1.80 a new company called AQA will text you back your answer...