Fans often attempt to show their dedication to their club by claiming that it is truly a part of who they are. In most cases, this is simple cliché. But not with the fans of Swedish club Assyriska. Many of these supporters are members of Assyrian diaspora living around the world. Assyriska has come to represent them, as a national team for minority group with no nation.

Assyriska fans hold up a giant Assyrian flag in support of their team

Assyriska was founded in 1974 by Assyrian immigrants to Sweden. Most of the founding members worked at a local truck factory who formed the club to play soccer in their free time. From those modest beginnings, the club slowly rose through the ranks of Swedish soccer.

In 2003, they made it to the Swedish Cup final, losing to established power Elfsborg. One year later, the team of founded by Assyrian immigrant factory workers won promotion to the Swedish Premier Division. The reaction was pure jubilation. The club marketing director Robil Haidari said, “At that moment we just felt such enormous joy, I figured everybody in the world is Assyrian now, even God is Assyrian, or at least a supporter.”

Assyrian residents of the town of Södertälje, the Swedish town where Assyriska are from, were similarly overwhelmed. Local resident Abraham Staifo attempted to explain his emotions:

It encouraged the young ones to feel pride in being what they are, and brought tears to the eyes of the elderly. It was so much more than just football. The Assyrian people have few opportunities to express themselves. We felt our hearts would shoot out from our chests. That is why the elderly cried.

Reaching these dizzying heights brought recognition to the team, not least among the estimated 2 million Assyrians living around the world. Club president Zeiki Bisso told FIFA’s website, “For all of us who were oppressed in our home countries for many years … this felt superb, it was something every Assyrian wanted to take pride in.”

Indeed, at times it seemed like nearly every Assyrian did take pride in the club’s success. Its matches were broadcast in 83 countries and the diaspora spoke about the team in glowing terms. Assyriska team scarves began to appear far from Sweden, including by Nick Dinkha, a Toronto resident.

The pride fans around the world expressed in Assyriska has everything to do with the often sad history of the Assyrian people. The Assyrians are indigenous to current-day Iraq and have lived there for thousands of years. They were one of the first groups to convert to Christianity. Even as many around them in the Middle East later converted to Islam, Assyrians continued to practice their religion.

Assyrians’ historical relationship with their neighbors is fraught with flare-ups of violence. Assyrians have been the subject of campaigns of oppression that has risen to the level of mass murder on several occasions. In 2003, political analyst Jonathan Eric Lewis wrote in Middle East Quarterly that of the events of 1915 when up to two-thirds of the Assyrian community of southeastern Turkey and northern Iran was physically decimated in a matter of months. Lewis also documents a 1933 event in which nearly 3000 people were killed by Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, the anniversary of which is a national day of mourning for Assyrians around the world.

Ottoman soldiers stand over the bodies of murdered Assyrians

In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, things were not much better. Speaking the Assyrian language and advocating Assyrian nationalism were both criminalized. Many left the country and this exodus has accelerated since the US overthrew Hussein in 2003. The violence in Iraq is often described as a battle between Sunnis and Shiites, but Iraqi Christians have been intimidated and murdered across the country. When prominent Iraqi Assyrian leader Isaac Esho Alhelani was murdered earlier this month, he joined the ranks of many Christians targeted for their beliefs or their perceived wealth. Assyrians account for only three to five percent of the Iraqi population, but have accounted for roughly 40 percent of that country’s refugees.

Those leaving Iraq today are going to countries with established Assyrian populations. The United States has around 83,000 Assyrians, Jordan 77,000, and Sweden is third among diaspora countries with 35,000 Assyrians. Despite the growing numbers of Assyrians living around the world, many wish for their own country.

It is into this statelessness that a small Swedish soccer club founded by Assyrian immigrants entered. entered. Many claim Assyriska’s popularity is due to it being seen as a pseudo-national team. Club president Zeki Bisso says that “Assyriska feels like a national team for the entire [Assyrian] group.”

Assyriska has since been relegated back to the second division in Sweden. Its importance, however, has not been diminished. For the Assyrian population around the world, Assyriska is not just a soccer team; it is the most visible expression of national pride for an oppressed people without a nation.

Assyriska players celebrate after a goal

Further Information

A movie about Assyriska called A Team Without a Nation was made in 2006. I have not seen it, but would love to hear about it if anyone has.

When George Gillett and Tom Hicks recently took over Liverpool in a £175 million deal, some fans of the club voiced their approval. On the BBC’s 606 message boards, one fan calling himself Stevo1973 wrote, “This is surely the news every Liverpool supporter wants to hear and it looks like finally, Liverpool FC may be starting the journey back to the top of English football.”

Other fans were more circumspect. One calling himself Realsportssoccer wrote, “I remember Liverpool teams that won matches with skill, determination, flair and imagination. Now all they have to do is sign cheques.”

Most Liverpool fans seemed to resign themselves to the brutal economic reality of soccer in the 21st century. While lamenting the fact that the club had been sold to investors (and Americans to boot), they expressed hope that Gillett and Hicks would bring an injection of cash that would return them to their former glory. LFCDavem summed up this perspective, saying, “Sometimes change is good and Liverpool are in dire need of success. Who cares about the business changes as long as we get a new stadium, some world class talent and a league title?”

This ambivalent attitude toward outside investors is one fans of many clubs in England have had to take recently. The reality of the Premier League today is that you cannot win without money. The converse is also true: money can bring success, as anyone familiar who familiar with Roman Abramovich can tell you.

The current Premier League standings show how closely related money and success are. Financial firm Deloitte’s annual ranking of soccer’s richest clubs corresponds almost exactly to the table today (February 26, 2007). Manchester United top the table (4th in Deloitte’s “Football Money League”), followed by Chelsea (6th in dollars, or perhaps rubles), Liverpool (10th), and Arsenal (9th).

It is one thing for a team like Chelsea, with a modest history of success, to buy its way to glory. Despite the West London’s team two consecutive Premier League titles, many people still consider them to be unworthy of being considered in the elite of that country’s teams. Chelsea’s (or as they are often derisively referred to, Chelski) success in the last few years is almost always discussed with an implied asterisk. Chelsea are new money in a sport and a country which prides itself on history and tradition.

Russian oligarch and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich

Liverpool, on the other hand, ooze history and tradition, which explains why their jump into the American investors’ hands is done with a certain degree of reluctance. The desire of Liverpool fans to return to the club’s glory days is understandable, given how glorious those days were. Liverpool have won 18 league titles, 5 European cups, and 7 FA Cups.Witnessing Liverpool’s bid to buy their way back to glory, one can’t help but wonder what one of the men most responsible for their success would say about it. Bill Shankly is often considered the greatest ever manager of Liverpool. When Shankly took over in 1959, Liverpool were at the bottom of the old Second Division. By 1962, Shankly helped them achieve promotion to the First Division. In the 1963-64 season, Liverpool won the league title. Shankly would continue at the helm for a decade longer, winning the league again, the UEFA Cup, and the FA Cup.

But many remember Bill Shankly as much for his personal views as for his talent as a manager. And it is these personal views that make one wonder what he would have to say about Hicks and Gillett taking over the club. Bill Shankly was a socialist, at least definitely as it applied to soccer and perhaps as it applied to life. One of his most famous quotes has been memorialized in a t-shirt made by Philosophy Football.

“The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. That’s how I see football, that’s how I see life.”

Shankly’s official biography on Liverpool’s website stresses his socialist views:
His would tell anyone who cared to listen that his lads played to a socialist ethic. If a player was having a poor game Shankly would expect a team mate to cover for him and bail him out like you would do for a neighbour or a colleague down the mine. All for the greater good of the team.

So what would Bill Shankly make of two wealthy capitalists taking over Liverpool and other clubs in the Premier League? The obvious answer is that he wouldn’t like it. Writing in The Guardian, Paul Wilson makes just this point: “Shankly the football man, never mind Shankly the socialist, would be uneasy at the direction the Premiership appears to be taking.”

And while I generally agree with Wilson that Shankly would not approve of the Premier League becoming more and more of a business, it’s worth remembering how devoted a Liverpool fan the former boss was. Shankly famously said “There’s only two teams in Liverpool: Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves.” The WIkipedia entry on Bill Shankly has this nugget describing his love for the club:

One of the most iconic images of all was caught on television, when a Liverpool scarf which had been thrown at Shankly during a lap of honour was flung to one side by a policeman. Shankly pounced on the scarf and reprimanded the copper, uttering the immortal words “Don’t do that. This might be someone’s life”.

Were Bill Shankly alive today, I think he would be torn between his socialist views and his love of Liverpool. He would not want his club to be taken over by wealthy American entrepreneurs, but he would also be disheartened by Liverpool’s relative lack of success in the past few years and want to see that change. A smart man, Shankly would see that success in English soccer today requires money, and lots of it. I wonder whether Shankly would agree with a poster on the 606 message boards who said about the take-over, “It is a shame that clubs have to sell out to investors, but the big clubs have to move with the times?”

That is the dilemma for Liverpool and any team who wants to keep up with the soccer Joneses. Fans may want their clubs to stick to their principles, but they also want them to win. For Liverpool, success in 2007 seems only possible by welcoming the millions of American capitalists Gillett and Hicks. The challenge for the club and its fan will be to celebrate future money-fueled successes while not forgetting the glory days achieved under their socialist manager Bill Shankly.

My second grade students were surprised today when I showed them my blog. Mostly, they couldn’t believe that I knew Levar Burton and that he was around when I was a kid. I’m glad that he still is and that I can continue to promote him among the readers of this blog.

So, without further ado, Levar Burton and I present: What I’m Reading.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Wilson has been writing a series of fascinating stories on soccer in Eastern Europe. He has just published a book called Behind the Curtain: Travles in Eastern European Soccer. Wilson has uncovered a wealth of stories on socccer and culture in that part of the world and his articles definitely make me want to read the book. His latest piece is called The rags-to-riches tale of Banel Nicolita. The story profiles a young Romanian player who is one of the few Roma (aka “gypsy”) players to make it big in soccer. A poster named Liverpoolskyklokan writes in response that “Levski Sofia have a talented young Romany striker called Marian Ognyanov.”

Romany players are to be found not only in Eastern Europe. Southend United’s Freddy Eastwood, a striker whose knocked goal knocked Manchester United out of the FA Cup this season, recently won a court battle to be able to continue living in a mobile home community along with other members of his Romanty community. A Guardian profile of Eastwood also mentions other players with Gypsy backgrounds, a group which includes former Inter player Sinisa Mihajlovic and current Real Madrid winger Juan Antonio Reyes.

A follow-up on last week’s interesting story on Barcelona defender Presas Oleguer, who spoke out on the case of a jailed ETA member and lost his shoe sponsorship as a result. Sid Lowe, the Guardian’s Spain correspondent profiles the “right-back philosopher” and even offers a translation of the article which got Oleguer in trouble. Askedy by Lowe why he speaks out, Oleguer says, “[L]ife isn’t easy. If we want a better world, we all need to roll up our sleeves. It’s easy to moan to your friends and then do nothing.” And one of the few bearded players in soccer today also has a keen awareness of and passion for Barcelona’s status as the symbol of Catalan identity. Lowe writes,

And for Oleguer, nowhere is that more significant than at Barcelona, the club that presents itself as a Catalan flagship, an anti-Francoist resistance force. Oleguer writes in his book that: “When Barcelona win the league, we become the Army of joy finally able to face up to [Franco's troops]. We imagine ourselves halting that pack of tanks, responding to their bullets with song, laughing in the face of the fascist ire.”

It might sound far fetched, and Barca’s history is far less clear-cut than the official version would have it, but at least with Oleguer there’s no shallow lip service to the legend, no ‘Visca Barca, Visca Catalunya! Now, where’s my cheque?. “For me, Barcelona is genuinely special,” he says. “It is the invocation of a country, representing Catalan identity and culture. Barca was a conduit for a feeling when people could not express themselves and for me it’s a dream to be here at such a successful time.”

Can you imagine these words coming from the mouth of Wayne Rooney? Me neither.

The AP had a story on a Nigerian born to parents who had enetered Israel illegally. Toto Tamuz is an up-and-coming star for Beitar Jerusalem. He grew up in Israel and wants to play for that country. The only problem is that he does not have Israeli citizenship. Tamuz has already played for the Israeli national team (he received special dispensation from FIFA to do so, as he in fact possesses no nationality), but has said he will not do so anymore until he is given citizenship. His case is currently before the Israeli Supreme Court and many in the soccer community in that country are supporting him Israel’s identity as a Jewish homeland is being tested by the increasing number of non-Jews living in the country (I recommend the movie James’ Journey to Jerusalem, which deals with the subject), a phenomenon highlighted in the article.

It is when I read soccer used as a point of comparison that I feel good about the sport’s place in this country. Two articles I read this past week did just this, including a New York Times article on rebuilding in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina.”Zwolle [High School] basketball fans are like Brazilian soccer fans” everyone considers himself a coach.”

An article in the Christian Science Monitor on robo-jockeys used in camel races in Qatar is fascinating in itself (robo-jockeys were brought when the young boys previously used in camel races were banned from participating after protests from human rights groups). It brought this fantastic quote from a camel owner in describing his animals: “We had some real Ronaldinhos on the camel circuit.”

Camels aren’t the only animals being compared to Ronaldinho. Deadspin posted a story on an eBay auction for a full-sized sculpture of the buck-toothed Brazilian as a regal white horse. Opening bid is $25,000.

And finally, the AP ran a story this past week which portrays presidential candidates searching for the buzzword of the 2008 campaign. The early successor to 1996’s soccer mom may be “transformational.”

A major difference between American sports and soccer in most of the rest of the world can be seen in the nicknames of teams. American teams generally have nicknames that are imposed on them top-down, while European teams’ nicknames are often given to them by their fans. The Guardian’s tea-time email The Fiver often pokes fun at this difference, often referring to teams that have been bought by Americans with faux-American style nicknames (Manchester United are often derisively referred to as the MU Rowdies).

American teams’ nicknames are given to them by their owners and are part of their official identity. Some names do relate to the areas in which the teams play (see San Francisco 49ers and the 1849 California Gold Rush), but many don’t (see most MLS team names, most hilariously the Kansas City Wiz). Other nicknames were given to a team that made sense when they were based in one city, but lost its grounding when the team moved (the Jazz says a bit more about New Orleans than it does about Utah).

In contrast, many European teams have nicknames that have sprung up organically. They are often firmly grounded in the area in which they are based. This has to do with history, as most clubs were founded far before marketing gurus had the idea to give them “official” nicknames (an idea which strikes me as somewhat oxy moronic). Fans in Europe have often given their clubs unofificial nicknames which have taken on quasi-official status.

The clubs of Spain provide many such examples of nicknames being created in a bottom-up process. Here are some of the most interesting ones:

Atletico Madrid are known affectionately as los colchoneros, or the mattress-makers. This nickname comes from the fact that their red and white vertically striped uniforms resembled the material used to cover mattresses in the early 20th century.

Barcelona’s fans are known affectionately as los culé. This nickname is in fact a shortened version of the Catalan word for rear end (culer). It became the team’s nickname at a time when Barcelona played in a stadium without seating. The fans who went to watch what would later become a symbol of Catalan identity would sit on top of a fence, making only their asses visible. There is a Wikipedia page on the identity of the term culé, but be warned, it’s in Catalan (who knew Wikipedia existed in Catalan?).

Celta de Vigo are known as the celtiñas, which is Spanish for Celtic. I don’t have official confirmation of this but I suspect the nickname was given to the team due to the historical connection between the province of Galicia (where the team is based) and the Celtic people.

Real Madrid are known around the world for their all white uniforms. This strip has also inspired their nickname, los merengues (the Spanish spelling of meringue). An apparent gastronomist saw the resemblance between the uniforms and the lovely French dessert and the nickname has stuck.

Recreativo Huelva are back in the Primera this season after three years in the second division. Recreativo’s nickname, however, comes from its status as Spain’s first organized team. Founded in 1889, Recreativo’s long existence has given them the nickname el decano, or the dean.

Valencia’s nickname, los che, appears to come from an interjection used often by natives of that Spanish city. On the message boards of a professional translators’ website, one member says that the word che in fact comes from the xe in the Valenciano language (it’s in Spanish). The writer says that Valencia’s fans sing “xe que bo, xe que bo,” or “look how great” to urge their team on. One can only assume the team’s nickname arose from these chants.

And finally, the Beatles. More specifically, the song “Yellow Submarine” and its usage as the nickname of the team Villarreal (el submarino amarillo in Spanish). The nickname, of course, comes from Villarreal’s distinctive all-yellow uniforms.

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On a recent trip to the National Gallery in Washington D.C., one work piqued my interest. It, of course, had to do with soccer.

The work is called “Football Players” and was done by the French painter Albert Gleizes in 1912 or 1913. It is done in a cubist style (nothing beats Wikipedia for quickly acquiring knowledge and allowing me to avoid sounding like the art ignoramus that I truly am), seen below.

On seeing the painting and its title, my friend Hope asked a very logical question: is that football or soccer? After all, she said, they are using their hands.

Until last week, I would not have known, but it just happens that I am at the point in David Golblatt’s exhaustive history of soccer, The Ball is Round, to answer Hope’s question.

Goldblatt tells us that soccer in pre-World War I France had to compete against the already established sport of rugby. “Of the winter sports played, rugby was not merely the equal of football in terms of participation but in terms of participation and spectator-appeal marginally its superior” (154).

And as in many countries that played both rugby and soccer at this time, the rules that governed the two were often not clearly defined. Even though the split between rugby and soccer rules had already occurred in 1871, games between teams who played both games persisted. Goldblatt notes that “many teams often chose to play more than one code, often during the same game” (32). This overlapping of rules existed on the continent as well as in the UK.

So, while the title indicates that Gleizes was clearly painting football players, the game they were playing might also have involved aspects of what we know today as rugby. The player in the center of the painting running with the ball in his hands gives a clear indication that the “handball” had not been made illegal.

Another French painting of this same era shows that handling was quite common in the French football of that time. The subjects in Henri Rousseau’s 1908 painting The Football Players are also involved in a game with great differences from the current rules of the sport.

Just ten years after Rousseau painted his football players, another French painter’s work shows how the rules of soccer were becoming more defined. Painted at the end or just after World War, André Lohte’s 1918 Les Footballeurs shows a game with players clearly following today’s soccer rules more closely

The clear demarcation of rules of the new game that occurred around this time enabled “football [to] acquire national coverage and a significant place in the national culture” (159) of France. These three paintings offer an artistic representation of the split in rules which made soccer more easily recognizable, and more popular in early twentieth century France.

In recent years, Iran’s government has not given the world much reason to view it as a bastion of tolerance. The refrain “Death to America” filled the Persian air in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and continues to be uttered to this day. Anti-Semitism is common in political discourse, with President Ahmadinejad in 2006 calling [T]he Zionists and their protectors “the most detested people in all of humanity” and organizing a Holocaust denial conference.

But under the radar there is a story of an Iranian player whose treatment shows the tolerance for which Iran has, in various periods of its history, been known. That player’s name is Andranik Teymourian and, in the Muslim theocracy, he stands out as a Christian.

Andranik Teymourian

Surprisingly, Teymourian insists his religion has never been an issue. “I am very happy that as a Christian I am playing for a Muslim team,” he told the AP during last summer’s World Cup. Teymourian insists that religious issues don’t affect the players in Iran’s dressing room. “In terms of being a religious minority, I’ve got no problem, and relations are really good at the heart of the team.”

And the Iranian people are happy with Teymourian too. When he made his debut for the Iranian national team in 2005, people in that country were initially surprised to see him cross himself. But he has quickly won them over. Despite Iran’s lack of success at last summer’s World Cup, the image of Teymourian collapsed on the field after giving his all has endeared him to many in the country.

Teymourian collapes after Iran’s game against Angola

Teymourian is part of the Armenian minority group in Iran. Their numbers are currently estimated at some 200,000, with the majority living in Tehran and around Isfahan. Armenia and Iran were historically very close, but when their populations converted to Christianity and Islam respectively, the connections grew weaker. Despite this religious split, Armenians began coming to Iran in the 16th century. In the 20th century, Mohammad Reza Shah saw the Armenian population as a trusted source of support, and allowed the community to prosper under his rule. The Islamic Revolution of 1979, however, brought Islamic fundamentalists to power, leading many fearful Armenians to flee the country. Around 100,000 left during the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini. Surprisingly, Iran’s rulers today take a less repressive approach toward their Armenian minority. According to historian George A. Bournoutian,

The current government is more accommodating and Armenians, unlike the Kurds and Iranian Azeris, have their own schools, clubs, and maintain most of their churches. The fall of the Soviet Union, the common border with Armenia, and the Armeno-Iranian diplomatic and economic agreements have opened a new era for the Iranian Armenians.

Andranik Teymourian has shown himself to be a model of tolerance, even toward people still oppressed by the government of Iran. He has two Israel teammates at his club team, Bolton, and has become close friends with one of them, Idan Tal. Tal told Ynetnews in January of their burgeoning friendship:

We’re good friends off pitch as well. We talk a lot, sometimes we go out together. He told me a lot about Iran’s World Cup games. He’s living here alone, with no family, but he has a few Iranian friends who have lived in the area many years, and they were also very nice to me when I met them.

When Tal embraced Teymourian after he scored Bolton’s fourth goal in an FA Cup match against Doncaster Rovers in January, the image was reproduced on both Israeli and Iranian websites and lauded as a symbol of friendship trumping politics.

From L to R: Idan Tal, Andranik Teymourian, Kevin Davies, and Quinton Fortune

According to Tal, “it was just another victory hug.” And what did the Israeli say to the Iranian as they embraced? “We were laughing. We call him ‘Jesus’ on the team, a nickname the manager gave him when he let his hair grow long and he looked like Jesus, so I said ‘congratulations on the goal, Jesus.’”

What does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad think about one of the most detested members of humanity calling one of his countrymen Jesus? We’ll likely never know. But in their embrace and in their friendship, a Jew from Israel and an Armenian Christian from Iran are showing that cooperation on the soccer field can trump odious government policies.

Perhaps their friendship can be the beginning of what is right now unthinkable: reconciliation between Iran and the Jewish people. Indeed, within the country there are currently around 40,000 Jews, down from the 100,000 there at the time of the Islamic Revolution. Historically, Iran has been a place of freedom for Jews, who revere the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great for liberating them from captivity and allowing them to return to Jerusalem.

We can only hope that the current anti-Semitic policies of Iran’s government are a historical blip and that future governments might follow the lead of Cyrus the Great, and not that of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Iran has made some progress on increasing tolerance of its Armenian Christian population; how long will it be until we have a government there that is courageous enough to make peace with Jews around the world, and the Jewish community in Iran itself. If such reconciliation were to occur, what better symbol of cooperation could there be than a player from Iran’s Jewish community representing the national team?