No French Court for The Beckhams

The Beckhams will not be setting up their French court much to the chagrin of Paris society.

The French elites had been predicting which side of the Seine the Court of Beckham would be established. Existentialists in cafes debated whether this important choice would determine whether he played in left or right midfield for Paris St.Germain, the club he was destined for. Couture houses were giddy with the prospect of a new saturnine era of shadow with the popular designer, Mrs. Beckham, set to ring the runways with her moody cuts. Would the Beckhams be at the opening night of the Opera? Would Becks become the latest motif for post-modernist lectures at La Sorbonne? French comedians were polishing off jokes about l’escargot and Beckham’s pace. Mais, non!

The ticker reports that Beckham has decided to go into the sunset boulevard of his playing career in Los Angeles. The immigration lawyers at the LA Galaxy may now be filing for the work visa extension, perhaps even green cards will be in the post for the Beckhams. Citizenship could come later, then a run for governor, or perhaps a reality show – Down With The Becks- or the lure of the silver screen. A small role in the next Sherlock Holmes could surely be arranged. And with Los Angeles just so bright, Mrs. Beckham may finally break out a smile for the cameras, adding more sparkles to the white heat of Los Angeles. It’s a diamond possibility.

The good news for US soccer fans is that Beckham has more to offer as a player. Last season, he played some of his best soccer in his long career. He will wish to exit on a high. And hanging up his boots playing in America is an endorsement for Major League Soccer. More brand players will follow his legacy. Aspiring American kids will see him as a great example of what it means to be a dedicated professional in a major league, par excellence. Should it all be true, it is a good day for American soccer. Surf and sun has won. The French court has lost.

The Unhappy Soccer Crowd

Time for a bit of the armchair psychoanalysis. Take a depressed crowd and lay them on Dr. Freud’s couch. These mobs are suffering from a condition known to shrinks as SimonandGarfunkelitis – symptom – the sound of silence.

December 2011 presented us with an excellent case study in this horrible affliction that curses certain teams. The Bernabeu stadium in Madrid can be a noisy cauldron, a witch’s brew of Royalist Spain thrashing the weak. It seats many thousands of people. But during December’s El Clasico, 99 per cent of them sat for most of the game in depressive silence, not the silence of shock, but the silence of resignation and hopelessness. Real Madrid was given a lesson in soccer by their nemesis, Barcelona, and not for the first time. Madrid’s collective ego, already bruised by years of Catalan kicking, fractured into despondency, hello darkness my old friend.

The mood of dejection spread to the Real players, all good-looking narcissists with serious haircut issues stuck to blobs of gel. The likes of Cristiano Ronaldo were deflated and lethargic, and probably relieved when half the stadium departed after Barcelona had stuck their third goal in the net. At the post-match press conference, Real Madrid coach, Jose Mourinho, attributed the team’s loss to bad luck, which translates as Denial.

English club, Chelsea, are another unit vulnerable to crowd depression and low voice. Their stadium, Stamford Bridge, can seem more like a venue for the unhappy to jump from. Previous Chelsea coaches have begged the fans to get vocal; current coach, Villas-Boas, admitted the crowd was making the team anxious during a recent run of bad form. Some have suggested that Chelsea’s SimonandGarfunkelitis is not due to miserable soccer results but is caused by the fact that the currently loathed social group known as the 1%, and their friends, occupy many of the seats at the Bridge. Chelsea’s owner is a Russian oligarch. Rich people don’t really go in for communal singing and solidarity with strife. They much prefer status displays like being seen, and not necessarily heard.

Check out the book, Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won. This scientific cobble examined why home field advantage usually shoes in a win for the hosts. The noisy crowd! They scare the ref; the timid middlemen keen to please the locals by handing out penalty kicks, extra time and dodgy decisions that aid the home side to victory. You can’t influence the weak when you are quietly sitting on your hands.

Dr. Freud recommends that soccer crowds express their emotions no matter what. Get angry when the team sucks, if you can’t sing, then boo. Irrationally abusing the officials is a balm for any repressed authoritarian fantasies. Sing-a-long for the jolliness. And perhaps the joy will spread to those vulnerable millionaires moping and flopping around on the field.

Check out The Header, the new online soccer magazine

Socrates Remembered

Socrates, the great Brazilian soccer maverick, has died at age 57. Those who saw him play were moved by his style. He glided over the grass, his intelligence working the angles, carving space, inspirational and beautiful. He was unlike the other midfield maestro of his era — Maradona. The Argentine was a short squat explosive; Socrates embodied elegance and poise, something special, the man with the golden heel. In the Beautiful Game, Socrates was the Beautiful Player.

Soccer was art to Socrates, it was never about winning and losing, “victory breeds conformity,” he said. He possessed contradiction, conflicted like so many great artists. He was a rarity amongst the soccer professional; an intellectual and writer, a qualified medical doctor, smoking packs of cigarettes each day during his playing years. His demon was the drink, so often the hemlock of the visionary. It helped kill him, and his reputation suffered, “They don’t want me to drink, smoke or think?” he said, “Well, I drink, smoke and think.” Off the field, he was an advocate for Brazilian democracy playing his part in the country’s democratic renaissance as it emerged from military rule.

His philosophical name was a perfect fit. He asked many questions of opponents and they rarely had an answer when he was in full flight. He captained Brazil in the 1982 World Cup Finals in Spain, now acknowledged as the best team never to win the tournament. Arguably, Brazil ’82 were the best Brazilian squad of all-time. He wished for Brazilian football to return to it golden era of flair and freedom. He had little patience for the modern game’s tactical methods, dull and bureaucratic, players hampered in confining roles. Socrates was a man who stood for freedom of expression, on and off the field. When will we see his likes again?

The Spanish Soccer Civil War

When a self-righteous man becomes obsessed with a powerful enemy, flames are almost a certainty. Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho, self-described as “the special one,” is setting fire to Spanish soccer with dangerous fireworks that some fear may spark a bigger conflagration on the parched tinder of that fractured entity called Spain.

In this Spanish soccer civil war the insurrectionist, Mourinho, who is not even Spanish, he is Portuguese, has morphed into the Madridista Generalissimo battling against the rival aspirations of Catalonia, Spain’s restive eastern province, symbolically embossed in the spirit and institution of FC Barcelona, the world’s greatest soccer team, pride of the Catalan nation. The most recent match up between the clubs ended in a punch up with players and coaches brawling. Mourinho was photographed lancing his finger in the eye of a Barcelona assistant during the melee. Three players were shown red cards. Post-game, Mourinho threw gasoline on the flames by belittling Barcelona, a chariot of fire he has ridden since being appointed coach of Real in 2010. Diplomacy seems to be dead. Peace impossible. As if the hurt of history never healed, seven decades after the last shot in the Spanish Civil War was fired.

Barcelona coach Josep Guardiola, a frequent target of Mourinho’s abuse, fears the symbolic rage of the soccer contest could breach the stadium and hit the streets. Volatility is not only spewing from the soccer vent. The nation is in crisis: huge sovereign debt, mass unemployment, people getting poorer and facing grim austerity packages. As the pressure on the soccer gauge hits the exploding point, is it a forewarning that Spain itself may rupture?

Certainly in Catalonia, the moves towards self determination have been growing in recent years. FC Barcelona is a lightning rod in the drive for autonomy. In the past, the club has sponsored programs to expand the use of the Catalan language. Its foreign players are expected to know the local culture; the symbols and flag of the Catalan nation are visible at the Nou Camp, the club’s stadium. Conservative Madrid and Spanish nationalists have been irked. With Barca dominating Real on the field, and Barca players comprising the core of the world champions Spanish national team, Catalonia is now pulling more strings than ever in Spain’s destiny.

Many will be hoping wiser heads will prevail in this battle for dominance in Spanish soccer. The “special one” needs to become the “cooler one.” Barcelona may have to search for its own hand of peace, hard for a club that was attacked and suppressed by Generalissimo Franco’s fascist troops during the Civil War, and after, harder still when Real Madrid were ostensibly Franco’s team. Memory is long in Spain. And grudges continue to bake.

Homeless World Cup Set To Kick Off

Starting this Sunday, in Paris, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, sixty-four countries are gathering for World Cup soccer action. But don’t expect to see the likes of Lionel Messi or the studs in Cristiano Ronaldo’s ear. Booting up in the colors of the nations will be athletes from the margins of society, as far away as possible from the Porsches and the bling — welcome to the Homeless World Cup.

A decade ago, Scottish social entrepreneur, Mel Young, and Austrian Harald Schmied were seeking an international language to raise the word on homelessness. Soccer, the sporting engagement for the world’s poor, married itself to their mission of ending homelessness around the planet (estimates suggest 100 million people globally are homeless.) With corporate partner, Nike, and funding from European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, the annual event quickly expanded. The organization claims that 70% of the event’s participants have gone on to change their lives. Add to this, the spawning of scores of street soccer organizations around the world.

The Homeless World Cup is the patch where the street scrap and the beautiful game merge. The 4-a-side games are executed on a 22 x 16 meters court with sudden death penalty shoot-outs to break ties. A “sin bin” imprisons fouling transgressors for two minutes, a long stretch in games with two seven minute halves. Fair play is encouraged, indeed rewarded with a trophy at the tournament’s end. Besides the men, sixteen women’s teams will compete for the Women’s trophy. All the games will be broadcast on the web with commentary in numerous languages. English Premier League coach, Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger, and 1998 French World Cup winners, Lillian Thurman and Emmanuelle Petit, are supporting the cause. Wenger, in his endorsement, advocated that soccer has the power to change lives. But some things never change. Brazil is among the favorites to win.

The summit for all soccer players is lifting a trophy for their country. That desire resonates deep amongst the homeless squads, rivaling the intensity of the pros. This is serious stuff. FIFA trained refs are employed to keep order. A Disciplinary Committee sits in judgment for those who really lose their heads. It’s all about winning, a preserve normally associated with the lucky, the rich, and Charlie Sheen. But the joy of jamming an opponent sticks to any soul. Attach the label of nationhood, wrapped in flags, the solidarity and competition of the Homeless World Cup is a reminder that goals, for however brief a moment they appear, is a release worth striving for.

Tune into the Homeless World Cup to cheer your country’s margins, and their hopes of returning to a home with the Cup, crowned world champions.

The Homeless World Cup, Paris 2011, kicks off Sunday August 21.

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Imperium Barcelona

They are the imperial power of world soccer, from a Spanish region of rebels and independents, an elite and the deepest example of soccer dominance in years – here is a possession stat from their most recent Champions League fixture: roughly 70% Barcelona 30% Arsenal – this is more impressive than the Roman Empire’s field control at its peak. The little legionnaires – Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Villa – have subjugated to their will that most elusive of radicals, the soccer ball. It is a servant to their fancies. Barcelona’s opponents seem like sad slaves chasing a dream, demoralized, wondering if the Barca Empire will ever fall. You can’t beat Barca by playing soccer. General Jose Mourhino, when he was in charge of the Inter Milan legion last year, managed to find victory against the Catalans by not playing soccer. He brought a wall of eleven defenders to Barca’s fort at the Nou Camp in the semi-final of the Champions League and withstood the siege. It is the only way. The ancient Italian principle of catenaccio – the bolt on the door – is the last hope of the subjugated.

Scotland and Ireland’s Hot Soccer Ticket

If you are small and are forced to wear a big overcoat things can get hot and dizzy and you can find yourself out of place. This best describes the intimate bedfellows of Scottish soccer, Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic. Scotland’s biggest clubs thrive on a fierce, globally supported rivalry rooted in another country’s past troubles — Ireland. Their most recent match-ups have resulted in team coaches squaring up to each other, brutal field play and hundreds of post-game arrests for violence, sectarian crimes and domestic violence. Sections of Scottish society and the police are calling for the game to be either banned or played behind closed doors.

It is almost impossible to write about Celtic and Rangers fairly without drawing derision from all sides. The weaving historical plays of Irish immigrant Catholics with Scottish Protestants and its part in the jigsaw of keeping the British political Union intact is tough territory. The danger of sparking more unrest is ever present in Scotland’s largest city. Best to wait for things to blow over after the game, after all, this decades old recurring Glasgow fever only lasts a short while. The city’s big Irish overcoat absorbs the blood, sweat and tears. Glasgow is famous for its swagger. The dizziness caused by the heat of the divide rolls into the city’s walk. Glasgow never falls down. It staggers on.

Condemnation. Why bother? It produces more of the same. Better to think outside the box.  Rangers and Celtic could play against each other wearing each others strips. That would be funny. Glaswegians like to laugh. The minority of fans who are violent, and it is a small minority, could whack tartan piñatas placed at the stadium gates. Pick up the candy with a message — Be Nice — We are all Glaswegians. Instead of the players coming out of the tunnel holding the hands of a child doomed to repeat the past, they could hold each others hands, and walk around the field together waving to the fans. And instead of the songs of the Irish tribes, the clubs could broadcast Glasgow’s national anthem over the PA system before, during, and after the game – I Belong to Glasgow, Dear Old Glasgow Toon - Of course, all this nonsense might ruin the profitable tsunami effect of the rivalry.

Maybe in a hundred years, maybe a thousand, maybe never, the city can stop going round and round and switch its green and orange Irish overcoat for one made of plaid.

Welsh Rare Bit and more…

Today is Saint David’s Day – that would be the Welsh equivalent of St. Patrick’s Day, noted more for picking daffodils than drinking with the leprechauns. In Brit soccer, there is one unique Welsh rare-bit, and this week he celebrates his twentieth year with one club, loyalty almost unheard of these days – they sing his name in the Welsh valleys, his sublime soccer skills run like poems – he is Ryan Giggs (left) of Manchester United. Soon, he will surpass the legend Bobby Charlton in playing more games for the club. Some say his statue will be sculpted and set in the grounds of Old Trafford. They don’t cast icons like Giggs anymore.

Old boy David Beckham returned to the Galaxy last week just in time for the Oscars. Watching the sun setting over Santa Monica Boulevard can be quite dreamy and one has to wonder if Becks is ready to step on to the red carpet in the near future. Hollywood is hot for Brits! Tom Cruise stars as the soccer coach who hires an English assistant – that be Becks – as they conquer the world, leading Team USA to World Cup glory, defeating Iran in the Final, and stopping a nuclear war in the Mid-East as the Presidents of both countries decide to settle the issue with a soccer game instead of pointy hatted bombs. Where’s the storyboard! Call the agent!

Speaking of great thespians, Eric Cantona, another Manchester United legend in the Giggs and Becks tradition, has taken up the role of Director of Football with the New York Cosmos. The Cosmos brand is alive and well and the entrepreneurs who bought the franchise name are hoping to add a team to MLS. First off, they will need footballers and a place to play but Cantona is already speaking of “revolution.” Known for his searching role in Waiting for Eric, a film by socialist film maker Ken Loach, and his philosophical oeuvres in the tradition of Sartre – “When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea.”  With Pele installed as Cosmos club President, the glory days of American soccer are up ahead in the past.

Despots – Don’t Let the Boy Run the Team

It has been reported that Egypt’s soccer “ultras” played a significant role in fomenting the revolution. Next door in Libya, Colonel Gadaffi sent his “soccer star” son, Saadi, into the streets with cheering fans from Tripoli’s two clubs, Al Ahly Tripoli and Alittihad, implying that Libyan soccer was not revolutionary but the vanguard of the status quo. The message failed to get through to the fans in Benghazi.

Whenever the top chicken in a repressive regime has his young cock ruling the nation’s soccer roost, it is almost a guarantee that the results will turn out to be rubbish. Al Saadi al-Gadaffi is a good example. In 2003, with crude oil as his choice of expensive cologne, he managed to sign a contract to play in Italy’s top league with the club Perugia. Here was the son of liberated Libya exercising his athletic prowess in the boot of the old colonial master. His other interests went beyond mediocrity in cleats. They included partial ownership of a famous Italian team. Naturally, he was captain of Libya’s national team and a top official of its soccer federation. The results on the field? Not too good. Libya has never qualified for the World Cup Finals. Saadi, the soccer player, only has 102 friends on Facebook. And as another “Facebook revolution” ignites the Maghreb, being driven around Tripoli saluting to soccer fans may not be enough for Saadi to save his dad.

Saddam’s boy, Uday Hussein, also got the nod from the old man to take charge of soccer. While too fat to play, he was bloated with enough rage to take his soccer management techniques to new levels. Floggings, beatings and being forced to kick a concrete ball around the prison yard were the sure results for players who failed to live up to the standards of the glorious leader. Unhappy Uday got the bullet from the job, and the Americans. The message for despots — don’t let the boy run the soccer team. It ends in defeat.

For good reporting on Middle East soccer’s pivotal influence on events, check out the excellent blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Sir Alex Ferguson’s Hair Dryer

They call it “the hairdryer.” It is one of the most feared spectacles in soccer. Manchester United’s coach, Sir Alex Ferguson, ignites his temper with a blast of scalding curses blistering his trembling victims. Over the years, many players have felt the burn, the latest being star Wayne Rooney.

Wayne Rooney, man of many parts, is set to leave Manchester United after Fergie, Sir Alex’s nom de guerre, switched on the fury. Fergie seethed when he saw newspaper pictures of a drunk, smoking Rooney staggering from a nightclub at 5am, followed up by a performance with hookers as his pregnant wife sat home alone. Naturally, Rooney’s goal scoring prowess went flaccid after his nocturnal exertions. Sir Alex, being an old school soccer master, brought the caning to an end by dropping his shooting star from the team.

To understand Sir Alex, visit a neighborhood called Govan in Glasgow, Scotland, where in 1941 on New Year’s Eve, Alex Ferguson was born under a tenement roof shaken by Hitler’s bombs. Govan, on the River Clyde, was the heart of the world’s shipbuilding industry riveted to the consciousness of Glasgow’s working class. The neighborhood was uncompromising, filled with revolutionaries and militants and fiercely independent, yet hostile to Glasgow’s immigrant other half, working class Catholics from Ireland who settled in the city’s eastern end, up river. Govan was Protestant. Rangers played there, the city’s Protestant soccer team. For most of the twentieth century Rangers refused to sign Catholic players. The atmosphere in their stadium was like a furnace of fury forged from the shipyards nearby. Ferguson’s father worked in the yards, Alex followed, his socialist creed formed on Red Clydeside. He was a trade union shop steward. But socialism, like God, had to wait in line behind soccer.

Fergie played for Rangers in the sixties. His steeliness grew from there. But Fergie became an outsider in Govan in one crucial way. He married a Catholic girl and while he claims this did not affect his career at Rangers, other Rangers players who married across the divide soon found themselves looking for a game somewhere else. It is hard not to believe that Fergie’s next chapter, shaking Scottish soccer to its foundations, was not inspired in some way by this awkwardness.

Sir Alex Ferguson is arguably the most successful and influential coach in club soccer history. His glorious record at Manchester United speaks for itself but his brick-minded Glasgow born toughness flourished from his years in charge of the Scottish club, Aberdeen. It was from the oil rich city in Scotland’s North East that Ferguson loosened the stranglehold that the two massive Glasgow teams, “Protestant” Rangers and “Catholic” Celtic, had held on the Scottish game for a century. Fergie was born to take on the all-powerful. No one would stop him and his hairdryer. Provincial Aberdeen became the dominant Scottish club in the eighties. Manchester United followed. Player legends like Cantona, Beckham, Van Nistelroy, Giggs, Ronaldo and many more came under the wing of soccer’s toughest nut.

So when a spoiled ego like Wayne Rooney wants to bolt and insults Sir Alex in the process, it’s really no contest. Fergie learned to put down the show offs and the powerful in the shipyards of Glasgow. The hairdryer will blast Rooney out the door.