04/23/24
May 31, 2006
National Geographic article: about a beautiful game.
posted by Samsonov14 to soccer at 11:21 AM - 6 comments
Perhaps the link has been fixed? It works fine for me.
posted by blarp at 02:46 PM on May 31, 2006
From Hornby, a most telling point for me: "And by 1998 soccer was a different game. Many of the players in our top division came from outside the British Isles. The globalization of the transfer market was beginning to rob international football of much of its point. In the old days, you'd look at the best players in the club teams and think, What would they be like if they played together? And the answer was they looked like the national team. Now, Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, AC Milan, and Barcelona have replaced the national teams as fantasy soccer teams. "
posted by billsaysthis at 03:04 PM on May 31, 2006
Now, Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, AC Milan, and Barcelona have replaced the national teams as fantasy soccer teams. He's wrong, though. Fantasy teams are just that: they exist in our imaginations. By contrast, the Champions League has over-familiarised us with star-saturated teams playing one another every single year. Perhaps Hornby's judgement is affected by being a Gooner and watching sides composed of ten foreigners and Ashley Cole for the past few years? There's an alchemy which occurs when a team plays under the flag. The US national side is an example of this. It's not going away. Now, you can argue that there was once a mystique about the South American sides which showed up every four years, since few of them played in Europe. And it's true that the sheer joy of seeing Falcao, Socrates et al on the TV, returning like a comet, won't return. But I can't wait to see the Ivory Coast or Togo.
posted by etagloh at 08:00 PM on May 31, 2006
Meanwhile, Chelsea do theur best to become that fantasy team, adding ND Kalou to their team and some guy called Shevchenko who is, I'm told pretty handy. £30,000,000 for Sheva.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 08:12 PM on May 31, 2006
Plus Ballack and a new number keeper, Mr Bismark. They not only signed the two strikers but will apparently keep Drogba and Crespo and switched to a two striker formation. Duff and Gudjonsen ought to be available, one would think, and good buys at that.
posted by billsaysthis at 10:49 PM on May 31, 2006
The link doesn't seem to be working, but it's not Samsonov's fault, as it was when I saw it on MeFi earlier. It works if I c&p the link : http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0606/feature1/ Interesting stuff on there too, about Spain '82 and the English national team, from Nick Hornby.