How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer

Author:Franklin Foer [Foer, Franklin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Popular Culture, Social Science, Sports & Recreation, General, Soccer, Football, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780060731427
Google: _PIKFebe0ZUC
Amazon: 0061978051
Goodreads: 10395
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Edward rose. Following his teammates, he walked to the gold altar. In front of the icons, he went down to his knees. He crossed himself, folded his hands, closed his eyes, and prayed. p

H o w S o c c e r E x p l a i n s

t h e N e w O l i g a rc h s

I.

Pierluigi Collina’s fame defies all the laws of sporting celebrity. His haunted-house looks include a Kojak pate, tubercular gauntness, and Beetlejuice eyes springing forth from their sockets. He runs like an ostrich. There is, however, something far stranger about his celebrity: He is not a player but a referee.

To be fair, he isn’t just any bureaucratic enforcer of the rulebook. Collina is roundly considered the premier practitioner of his trade. He has presided—with a combination of exceptional hardheadedness and sensitive diplomacy—over World Cup finals and heated rivalries like the Falkland War rematches between England and Argentina. His renown is now such that he appears in Adidas ads alongside David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, and other virtuosos. GQ fashion spreads, and countless magazine profiles, capture him in his manicured villa, playing lovingly with his pet dogs.

Not just in America, but in any country, this adoration would seem strange. But Italians have endowed their referees with celebrity. Collina’s colleagues have stood for parliament and retired into comfy careers as television commentators. Referees have achieved this notoriety, because Italian media devotes so much careful attention to every yellow card disbursed and every sweeping tackle ignored. Newspapers use star rating systems to judge their work, as with restaurants or movies. They regularly publish statistical analyses—

down to the second decimal point—that try to uncover the true biases of referees. A highly watched television program called Il Processo, the trial, sits a jury of journalists and retired players that vivisects the minutiae of controversial calls. In refereeing the referees, the jurors rely on an array of technological tools. Super slow motion can show a player onside by sixteen centimeters. Like a Cindy Sherman art film, Il Processo endlessly repeats footage of falling players, so that the jury can precisely determine if he faked his plummet.

To understand the importance of refereeing requires a brief word on the paradox of Italian soccer. As everyone knows, Italian men are the most foppish representatives of their sex on the planet. They smear on substantial quantities of hair care products and expend considerable mental energies color-coordinating socks with belts.

Because of their dandyism, the world has Vespa, Prada, and Renzo Piano. With such theological devotion to aesthetic pleasure, it is truly perplexing that their national style of soccer should be so devoid of this quality. HOW SOCCER EXPLAINS THE NEW OLIGARCHS

Starting in the 1960s, the Italians began practicing a highly defensive strategy called catenaccio, the lock-down. This formation adds an extra layer of defense, a sweeper, bringing up the rear of an already robust back line that marks man-to-man. O¤ense doesn’t usually receive many resources in this arrangement. Goals are scored in bursts of counterattack, with the ball quickly sent up the field in flashes.

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