Benny Feilhaber (left) playing for the USA U-20 national team

When American midfielder Benny Feilhaber signed for Hamburg in 2005, he returned to the part of the world his grandfather had left over half a century ago. But Feilhaber’s trip from UCLA to Germany was only the latest voyage in a life filled with twists and turns.Benny Feilhaber was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1985. His Jewish grandfather had fled to Brazil from his native Austria in order to escape the encroaching Nazi regime (though the Jewish population of Brazil is not as large as in Argentina, there are an estimated 100,000 Jews there today).Two generations later, young Benny grew up playing soccer in the streets of Brazil. He described the game there as “the most carefree soccer in the whole world. You kind of just play, do what you want with the ball and if you lose it and you just try and get it back.” Feilhaber played futebol in Brazil until, at age six, his family moved to the United States.

In Southern California, Feilhaber was a stand-out on local youth teams. He had a standout career at Northwood High School, but not enough to earn a scholarship to college soccer power UCLA. Feilhaber decided to try his luck as a walk-on at the Los Angeles school and earned a spot on the team. He experienced some success at UCLA, including being named to the Pac-10 second team, but his big break would come when he was named to the U-20 team for the 2005 World Championships.

Feilhaber’s inclusion on the U-20 team was a surprise because while he was successful at UCLA, he had never played for a youth national team. Good luck graced the player, as he told Andrea Canales of Soccer365:

I think the most surprising fact was how [then U-20 coach] Sigi (Schmid) heard about me to bring me in to the national team. His son attends UCLA and knows all the soccer guys. He told him I had been playing well and so Sigi decided to watch some games toward the end of my sophomore year.

Feilhaber’s play at the 2005 World Championships proved that his inclusion in the squad was deserved. He played so well that he was FIFA waxed poetic about his “silky skills and bags of creative energy” and named him to the all-tournament team, along with Leonel Messi, Philippe Senderos, and Jon Obi Mikel.

Feilhaber left such an impression at the tournament that he received offers from Mallorca, Heerenveen, and Kaiserlauten as well as Hamburg, with whom he eventually signed. The fact that Feilhaber had an Austrian passport smoothed his passage to Hamburg (with it, he wasn’t counted as a foreigner).

Feilhaber in his presentation for Hamburg

Feilhaber says he does see it as “a little bit ironic” that he now plays his soccer in the country which once forced his grandfather to flee his homeland (he is not the only Jew to return to Germany in recent years; see this Christian Science Monitor article about a “Jewish renaissance” in the country). And he says that most people in Germany “don’t [realize] I [am] Jewish, but if they asked I would be first to tell them.” Feilhaber identifies as Jew enough that he traveled to Israel with the American soccer team to take part in the 2005 Maccabiah Games. Doing so postponed his joining up with Hamburg, but Feilhaber says he doesn’t regret the decision. While there, he led the US team to a silver medal along with Chivas USA’s Jonathan Bornstein. (Bornstein, child of a Jewish father and Mexican mother described the tournament thusly: “Outside of my UCLA teammate Benny Feilhaber, I never really thought there were other high-class Jewish soccer players out there. With the Maccabiah Games, I definitely got the chance to experience a good thing. I realized there are a lot of really cool and really good Jewish athletes.”)

While Feilhaber began his Hamburg career with the reserves, this year he has seen extensive time with the first team. Playing along with world-class players such as Juan Pablo Sorí­n (also a Jew) and Rafael Van der Vaart (married to Dutch MTV presenter Sylvie Meis, who is Jewish) has improved Feilhaber’s play enormously.

Bob Bradley brought Feilhaber into the US squad this past week and gave him his first start in Sunday’s 3-1 victory over Ecuador. Feilhaber’s technique, passing, tackling, and stabilizing play were lauded by many. Said Landon Donovan (whose man of the match performance was due in no small part to the dirty work Feilhaber put in behind him), “He’s very good on the ball, and has as much potential at that position as anyone I’ve seen. He’s in a spot where he could find himself playing there for a long time for the US.”

One problem Feilhaber has is figuring out where “that position” is. While Feilhaber has played mostly as a defensive midfielder in recent years, he is far more skilled and creative than a typical “destroyer” in the mold of Claude Makelele. Some, like Paul Gardner, worry that Feilhaber’s “talent [may] wither away in the restricted world of the holding midfielder.”

But this view ignores the fact that a defensive midfielder need not only be a destroyer. In fact, Feilhaber resembles Italy’s deep-lying distributor Andrea Pirlo, a comparison both Feilhaber himself and Marc Connolly have made. Indeed, the US national team may have to reshape its tactics to match Feilhaber’s talents. (In this they could take a cue from the Argentines, who love a “number 5″ described by Marcela Mora y Araujo as “both marker and playmaker” who often pushes into an inside forward position too).

Feilhaber battles against Arsenal’s Julio Baptista in a 2006 Champions League match

Feilhaber’s unique skill set may stem, at least in part, from his eclectic upbringing. Landon Donovan says he has a “German bite” and Feilhaber agrees, saying he has “learned to be an aggressive ballwinner” in his time at Hamburg. But underneath he still retains some of what he learned on the streets of Brazil. The six years he spent in South America were important in teaching him “to keep the ball for my team and not to give it away easily.” Putting together this strength and technique has been key to his success. “Once I was able to use both these qualities in my soccer, it helped me become a much better player.”

Benny Feilhaber’s life has taken him to many continents, but he has never forgotten the country of his birth. He still speaks Portuguese, drinks matte (a Brazilian tea) every day, and told the website Even Is On that Brazilian music prominently placed on his iPod. And despite the success Feilhaber has achieved, he says that his dream is to play for the Brazilian club he supports, Botafogo.

Feilhaber is truly a man of the world. He makes a living in a country far from home, but claims the distance doesn’t bother him. “I’ve been really exposed to many different lifestyles so [playing in Germany] is definitely a new experience for me but nothing has been too unusual that I haven’t seen before.”

Slowly but surely, David Beckham is showing why MLS shelled out the big bucks to bring him to the US. In the days after his signing was announced, the Galaxy announced they had sold 5,000 season tickets. And when the Los Angeles team announced on Friday that they had signed a five-year jersey sponsorship deal with “nutritional products” manufacturer Herbalife, the $3.5 to $5 million quoted was due, in no small part, to a certain Mr. Beckham sporting the company’s name.

Since MLS decided this season to allow its teams to sign jersey sponsorship deals, four teams have done so. In their bids to secure corporate sponsorship, a pattern has emerged. Whether by choice or necessity, several MLS teams have reached deals with companies whose products and marketing strategies are not the most reputable.

Real Salt Lake was the first team to announce a jersey sponsorship deal, when they signed with XanGo. XanGo paid an estimated $4 to $5 million dollars to have Jeff Cunningham and the rest of the RSL team promote their brand.

Dave Checketts gets hooked up with some mangosteen juice

This raises the question: what exactly is XanGo? Well, according to its website Xango is

A delicious dietary supplement, XanGo Juice harnesses the nutritional power of the whole mangosteen fruit through a potent proprietary formula. Just one to three ounces each day unleashes a concentrated rush of xanthones, a vigorous family of phytonutrients. The best part: sensational flavor that’ll keep you coming back for more and more.

What XanGo is still seems a bit murky (Mangosteen? Xanthones? Phytonutrients?). But it is not the first slightly sketchy drink to find itself emblazoned on an MLS jersey.

That honor goes to Red Bull, whose logo has been seen on the jerseys of the team of the same name since it was taken over by the Austrian beverage company. Wooed by Red Bull company head Dietrich Mateschitz’s billions, the league changed the name of the franchise formerly known as the MetroStars and allowed Mateschitz to put his logo on the team’s uniforms before other teams were permitted to sign such corporate sponsorship deals.

The 2006 New York Red Bulls

So, what is Red Bull? Well, the official website is a bit murky, claiming only that “All ingredients used for Red Bull Energy Drink are synthetically produced. Most ingredients are produced by pharmaceutical companies. This guarantees highest quality.” A bit vague.

Wikipedia clarifies a bit (though not much for those without advanced degrees in chemistry), claiming Red Bull contains “Water, sucrose, glucose, acidifier sodium citrates, carbon dioxide, taurine (0.4%), glucuronolactone (0.24%), caffeine (0.03%), inositol, vitamins (niacin, pantothenic acid, B6, B12), flavourings, and colours (caramel, riboflavin).”

So, highest quality synthetic ingredients such as taurine, glucuronolactone, inositol? Thanks, but I’ll pass.

New LA Galaxy sponsor Herbalife is also not quite mainstream. Though it markets itself as a “premier nutrition and weight-management company” with “life-changing products,” every product it sells carries the disclaimer “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

Many of Herbalife’s products deal with weight control. One, called Snack Defense, claims to be

A scientific advancement in snacking control, Snack Defense … works all day to reduce the desire for sweets while it helps prevent the urge to snack between meals. Formulated with a blend of natural ingredients, including Gymnema sylvestre, a cutting-edge herb that targets the body’s response to sweets, plus chromium polynicotinate and Garcinia cambogia extract, Snack Defenseâ„¢ takes weight loss to a whole new level.

Gymnema sylvestre, chromium polynicotinate, Garcinia cambogia extract? Delicious!

(The one counterexample to MLS teams signing deals with producers of sketchy products is the expansion team Toronto FC. Their deal with the BMO, a bank, seems straightforward enough, even if Maurice Edu is a bit skeptical about their mascot.)

The ingredients of XanGo, Red Bull, and Herbalife products are enough to give me pause about those companies. But the sketchiness doesn’t end there.

All three companies have had their business practices questioned publicly. XanGo was issued a warning letter from the FDA telling the company to stop claiming health claims about its product, such as fighting depression, Parkinson’s disease and cancer. Red Bull was banned from being sold in Canada until 2005 and a CBC investigation headlined Raging Bull found that “two people have reported serious adverse health reactions after consuming the Red Bull energy drink.”

According to a 2000 article in Salon, since its founding in the 1980s, Herbalife has “courted its share of regulatory nightmares. Some health experts questioned the effectiveness of the company’s nutritional supplements; Herbalife claimed to increase energy and cure a range of illnesses from venereal disease to bee stings.” Other have criticized Herbalife for being a pyramid scheme (see Dan Loney’s in-depth discussion), though a wildly successful one that made founder Mark Hughes over $400 million dollars by the time of his 2000 death by overdose (ironically, by anti-depressant pills: wasn’t there an Herbalife cure for what ailed him?).

The companies whose logos will be on the chests of David Beckham and fellow MLS players this season are not quite mainstream. But, then again, neither is MLS. It is a ten year-old league struggling to succeed on the field and on the balance sheet. Real Salt Lake is about as well as known to the general public as is XanGo, so in that sense, the teams and the sponsors are at an equal level in their respective fields. But as a fan who hopes to see MLS become a long-term success, I can only hope that XanGo, Red Bull, and Herbalife will be on teams’ uniforms only until they can find more reputable sponsors.

For my weekly roundup, I generally try to choose stories that fly under the radar. Which is a good thing today because one of the stories that interested me most was about the Israel vs. England game, being played as I type. By the time this is up, you’ll probably know the result of the match, but did you know that some English Jews are not sure whether to support England or Israel? At least that’s what the headline of a Guardian article (Lion or Zion?) would suggest. In fact, though, the text of the article suggests that most English Jews have little trouble making their choice to go with England. Jamie Levy of London sums up the collective feeling:

“There’s definitely a conflict of interest, since I’ve got a tremendous affinity for Israel, but I’ve supported the England team all my life. There’s no question of switching sides – it’d be as heinous a sin as going from Spurs to Arsenal.”

Sticking with the Euro 2008 qualifiers, the Estonian blog Itching for Eestimaa covers that country’s game against Russia. The game itself is not likely to be a classic, but the political undertones are fascinating. The blogger Giustino describes the conflict that have emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as Russia has struggled to come to terms with the newly independent republics who were once a part of it.

It’s not a qualifier, but Montenegro’s friendly with Hungary is worthy of attention because it’s the first game ever for the newly independent Balkan republic. Jonathan Wilson at the Guardian describes how the country is preparing for its first ever match. As the country that produced the former striker (and current Real Madrid sporting director) Pedrag Mijatovic, Montenegro has the pedigree to punch above its weight.

Mijatovic in his playing days for Real Madrid

Moving to Asia, the AP had a long piece on why (men’s) soccer hasn’t caught on in China. The current Olympic coach, Ratomir Dujkovic, suggests that soccer hasn’t made it because the Chinese need a winner to cheer for and the national team has only a single World Cup appearance (in which they failed to score) to its credit. Corruption and mismanagement in the domestic game have also caused a problem. Interestingly, however, Chinese fans can and do criticize those in charge of the game. As Chinese soccer expert Rowan Simons says, “Football is open to a level of criticism you won’t see elsewhere.”

Until things are cleaned up, the Chinese face the distasteful prospect of seeing their Korean and Japanese neighbors and rivals succeed. Perhaps it will be this desire to become a global competitor that will bring success to Chinese soccer, much as it has done for the economy there. Journalist Yan Qiang says, “If the Japanese and South Koreans can do a better job, it leads the Chinese fans to wonder why its team doesn’t perform better.”

Simon Kuper, author of the classic Football Against the Enemy, focuses his weekly Financial Times column on television viewing figures around the world. A few of the most interesting findings:

• Smaller and more homogenous countries have larger television audiences for their matches. In Holland, for example, “Dutch regional, linguistic and class divides are relatively small. The nation as family feels represented by its team.”
• The number of fans watching Spain’s national team is relatively low, which supports the idea that regionalism in that country leads to a lack of support for the team (and possibly its historical underachievement).
• Soccer fans in South America are some of the most dedicated TV viewers of their teams. Kuper doesn’t explain why this may be the case, but I would guess that, because their club teams are often seen as selling clubs to the wealthy teams in Europe, a country’s national team one place where South Americans can compete on equal footing with the rest of the world. Their players clearly have the talent (or else they wouldn’t be bought up by European club teams) and national teams give them a chance to show this off to their compatriots.

Part of the problem with the domestic game in South America is poor organization. In many countries, this lack of organization has led to extreme levels of violence by fans. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Argentina. The Washington Post ran an article in their World section this week on the problems that country is having cleaning up the violence waged by extreme elements of the barra brava fan groups which provide support for their teams. The teams are not without blame, though. The Post writes that :”such gangs are rumored to receive money, tickets and jobs from the clubs.” Most worryingly, these Argentine fan groups are sharing their “expertise” with like-minded folks around Latin America.

According to a report this week in Olé, an Argentine daily newspaper devoted to soccer, leaders of some of the country’s major barrabravas have shared their methods with fan groups in countries including Colombia and Mexico, charging money for courses in how to extort from team officials, use weapons and generally wreak havoc. The article quoted Rafael Di Zeo, considered a leader of a barrabrava of the Boca Juniors club, as saying that groups such as his are considered “the Harvard” of hooligans worldwide. “They come here to learn,” Di Zeo said, according to the article.

Argentine police arrest fans tied to violence in that country

The Argentine official in charge of cleaning up the soccer-related violence in the country is none other than former referee Javier “The Sheriff” Castrilli. Castrilli was known as one of the most strict referees around during his time in black, but in his new role in the Interior Ministry he faces far larger problems.Eliminating entrenched problems that may stretch to the top of Argentine soccer is far more of a challenge than controlling twenty-two professional soccer players (and that’s no easy task).Big-ups to my friend Keddy who alerted me to the new movie The Offside about female Iranian fans who sneak into soccer stadiums (they’re officially barred). Both the New York Times and NPR review it (trailer available at Rotten Tomatoes). It’s only showing in New York and LA now. If it comes to Washington, I’ll definitely check it out and review it here.

An Iranian girl pretending to be a boy in order to watch the national team play

With March Madness in the air and college basketball mascots shaking their money-makers on the hardwood, the New York Times had a piece titled Fuzzy Madness: Mascots Gone Wild. There is a soccer mention in the article:

In British soccer, there were the infamous hooligan mascots of the 1990s. They include Cyril the Swan of Swansea City, who ripped the head off Zampa the Lion of Millwall and kicked it into the stands.

Cyril plays rope-a-dope with Zampa

I’ve played soccer in some amazing locales (the top of a 4000 foot mountain in Guatemala being my favorite), but never one like this. From an NPR story about a small community in Maine trying to reinvigorate itself by hosting a training center for winter athletes comes this picture. The original caption reads “Students on a field trip to The Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle, Maine, play a game of soccer in the snow.”

Finally, a mention of a great website I’ve come across. It’s called Albion Road and it is a soccer encyclopedia of sorts, with information on clubs, national teams, and leagues around the world. Definitely worth a visit.

Although many stadiums in recent years are being outside of urban centers, many clubs continue to have home grounds based in the neighborhoods where they were originally founded. The connection between club and neighborhood is often strong, and nowhere more so than in the Buenos Aires neighborhood that is home to Boca Juniors.

La Boca is literally and figuratively an extremely colorful neighborhood. Much of its character comes from the brightly painted buildings, especially those along the famous Caminito street. The bright colors of these buildings hide their shoddy construction. Quantity of housing was more important than quality, as these sheet metal structures were built to house the masses of Italian immigrants who came to populate La Boca in the 19th century.

The local color (literally) of La Boca

These Italian immigrants came largely from the city of Genoa and La Boca took on a Genoese identity. The name La Boca was in fact a shortening of the Bocadaze neighborhood in Genoa from which many of the immigrants came. When La Boca briefly seceded from Argentina in 1882, the residents raised the flag of Genoa (which, ironically, is identical to England’s St. George’s Cross).

Flag of Genoa / La Boca / England

La Boca has long been is seen as the cultural center of Buenos Aires. Many tourists visit La Boca to see tango performances (the dance was invented in this neighborhood) as well as the many artists who call it home.

A street performance of tango in La Boca

Not all is pretty in La Boca, however. It has long been host to the city’s meatpacking industry and the putrid smell that long characterized it came from industrial waste dumped into the Riachuelo River.

The polluted Riachuelo River, part of La Boca’s “charm”

Though it has been cleaned up recently, La Boca remains a largely working-class identity. As Lonely Planet puts it, “La Boca can be very rough in spots, so it’s best not to stray from the riverside walk or the tourist sections” (130).

The La Boca locals whom Lonely Planet advises its readers to keep away from are almost undoubtedly Boca Juniors fans. The club was founded in 1905 by five Italian immigrants in La Boca and has remained there ever since (further evidence of the Genoese influence: Boca Juniors fans are often referred to as xeneizes, which means Genoese in the Italian dialect of that city). Just as the neighborhood has historically been and remains to this day largely working-class, the Boca Juniors’ support is seen as coming from modest means (fans of their wealthier rivals, River Plate refer to Boca fans as bosteros, or manure handlers).

One of the most iconic symbols of Boca Juniors is its stadium, La Bombonera. Located in the middle of La Boca, the area that surrounds the stadium is colorful, but with a strong emphasis on blue and yellow, Boca Juniors’ colors. Many buildings surrounding the stadium are painted in homage to the local team.

A building that leaves no doubts about the allegencies of its inhabitants

La Bombonera is one of the most impressive stadiums in the world. Its name (bombonera means chocolate box) comes from its rectangular shape, though its most distinctive feature may be the nearly vertical stand that houses luxury boxes (Diego Maradona often shows up here and his passion nearly leads to him falling over the edge of his luxury box to an inglorious end). The atmosphere in the stadium is raucous to say the least, and Boca’s fans (La Doce or the 12th man) are known around the world for their passion.

There are few teams with as strong a connection to their local neighborhood as that between Boca Juniors and La Boca. As many clubs move, literally and figuratively, from their local communities, it is worth celebrating those that have not done so. Over a century after being founded there, Boca Juniors remains tied to the colorful neighborhood of La Boca.

When Japan defeated China 3-1 to win the 2004 Asian Cup, then-China coach Foppe de Haan was fuming mad at Kuwaiti referee Saad Kameel. The Dutch coach accused the referee of erring in allowing all three of Japan’s goals and, in a symbolic protest, refused to accept his second place medal.

Japan celebrate their victory in a nearly empty Chinese stadium

But the real protests of the 2004 Asian Cup were far from symbolic.

Throughout the tournament, Chinese fans repeatedly booed the Japanese team, burned Japanese flags, and even at one point surrounded the Japanese team’s bus, which sped off in panic, momentarily leaving behind two terrified players.

After the final, the protests became all-out riots. Reuters reported that, “Trouble flared outside the stadium after the match, however, with police in riot gear battling to restore order among furious Chinese fans amid wailing sirens and flashing police lights. A bus carrying delegates was attacked, with bottles and garbage thrown, and police charged the crowd with batons and riot shields to clear a path.”

The BBC offered further details: “Fans burned Japanese flags, shouted obscenities and sang patriotic songs outside the stadium as more than 5,000 police lined the streets.”

Chinese fans make their anti-Japanese feelings known

Where had the anger come from that led to such passionate and violent protests? Sport is one thing, but vitriol like that seen at the 2004 Asian Cup did not come from performance on the pitch. The anger that the Chinese protesters exhibited stems largely from Japan’s occupation of China from the 1930s through World War II.

As Reuters reported, “Chinese harbour bitter resentment over Japan’s military invasion and brutal occupation of parts of the country from 1931 to 1945, when tens of millions died.” The Rape of Nanking, an infamous Japanese bombing and murder campaign that killed 300,000 Chinese, occurred during this time. In the past few years, mustard gas dump sites dating back to war have been discovered in northern China, not coincidentally the location of Japan’s opening round games.

Perhaps most infuriating to the Chinese, many in Japan refuse to acknowledge the wrongs their country committed in China. As Robert Marquand wrote in the Christian Science Monitor wrote at the time, “Unlike postwar Germany, postwar Japan was never able to face its brutal wartime record in Asia in any serious, self-reflective manner.” Some Japanese history textbooks used today don’t mention Japanese occupation of China. And then-Prime Minster Junichiro Koizumi’s visits (as well as those by others before and since) to the Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the remains of World War II Japanese war criminals, have been a constant source of anger for many Chinese.

Junichiro Koizumi visits the Yasukuni Shrine in 2001

But the protests are not just about atrocities committed over half a century ago. As China has risen to become a global economic and political power, it has challenged Japan’s regional supremacy. More than one commentator suggested that the anti-Japanese protests of 2004 were permitted or even encouraged by the Chinese government in order to unite its people against a common enemy. Again, Robert Marquand: “[Anti-Japanese sentiment] gets raised when there are tensions in the region, and also when Beijing is seeking to unify its domestic patriotic base.”

A Christian Science Monitor editorial opined that, “After years of trying to befriend China with huge loans, Japan has begun to realize that Beijing finds it useful to unify the Chinese behind the Communist Party by occasionally letting loose nationalist and historical resentments against Japan.” This nationalist and historical resentment was never more obvious than at the 2004 Asian Cup.

So, what is the solution to this problem? To do so it is necessary to define the problem, or, as I see it, the problems.The two main problems that the 2004 Asian Cup protests exposed were: 1) lingering animosity of many Chinese toward Japan over its conduct in the World War II, and 2) the Chinese government’s willingness to exploit anti-Japanese animosity for its own benefit (i.e. uniting its people).

First and foremost, the Japanese must acknowledge their role in some of the most appalling events of the 20th century. The only thing more heinous than having brutally occupied and ruled China is the fact that many Japanese refuse to admit to having done so. A growing tide of nationalism in Japan makes this prospect unlikely, as recently elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is firmly in the nationalist camp, even supporting “revisionist history textbooks that teach students to take pride in their nation rather than focus on accounts of Japanese wartime aggression and atrocities.”

Bodies piled up after being killed during the Rape of Nanking

But China is not entirely without fault. Its control of nearly all media in the country meant that anti-Japanese issues raised in newspapers (such as the discovery of mustard gas) must be approved for publication by the government. That the 2004 Asian Cup protests were not shut down immediately suggests that the authoritarian Chinese government at least tacitly approved of them. The official China People’s Daily article headlined “Civility and reason: excitement likely for Chinese fans” sounded like the misleading propaganda it is when it said at the time, “There have been some overacting fans occasionally in major international games, who, however, are not what we want to copy.”

Ultimately, soccer tournaments should be about sports, not politics. Japan should apologize for past atrocities and China should responsibly discuss sensitive issues with its neighbor rather than encourage violent anti-Japanese protests. But both of these things should occur in discussions between politicians, far from the soccer field. Leaders in Japan and China would do well to listen to Chinese captain Li Weifeng, who said before the Asian Cup final, “Sport is the symbol of friendship so there are absolutely no political feelings or thoughts involved in our minds.”

Li Weifeng: Asian peacemaker?

The always excellent Global Game blog this week covered the topic of smoking in soccer. Apparently, the British government has passed a law to ban smoking in stadiums. Having attended games at Ajax’s Amsterdam Arena, I can say that the amount of smoke in the stadium was appalling (it didn’t help that the retractable roof was closed). Hopefully, other countries will follow Britain’s lead.

I recently finished reading the book A Long Way Gone by former child soldier Ishamel Beah. His story is tragic: Beah joined the government army in Sierra Leone after his parents were killed by rebels, yet inspiring in that it shows the amazing degree of resilience humans are blessed with. Like Beah himself, Sierra Leone has walked a slow path to recovery. A photo gallery this week on FIFA’s website showed that one of the most normal childhood activities, playing soccer, is alive and well in the west African country.

Soccer games in the Freetown townships of Kroobay and George Brook (Courtesy FIFA)

A couple of stories in which soccer shows up in seemingly unrelated contexts:

Javier Zanetti has done a fair amount of humanitarian work with his PUPI Foundation (see this International Herald Tribune article for more information). One area in which he has focused his work is on the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. In 2004, he donated money to people fighting for the rights of people in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, which led their leader, Subcomandante Marcos, to hold up an Inter jersey at a press conference. The article in Spain’s El Mundo quotes Marcos saying, “Brothers and sisters of the Italian team, I wish you the greatest success in the season” (translation my own).

Subcomandante Marcos showing love for Javier Zanetti

From the blog Nerevta River comes the story of Croatian restaurants in Japan. I love random stories like this (Croatian restaurants in Japan? Really?), and I love it even more because it has a soccer angle. Apparently, these restaurants were begun during the 2002 World Cup in the city of Tokamachi, according to the LA Times. The restaurants begun in 2002 have survived until today, as has the connection between the city and Croatia.

Tokamachi also has a lovely glass trophy donated by the Croatian Football Federation for which local youth teams compete, and a soccer field named for a Balkan country. The field is maintained by 100 or so volunteers of the Crotia supporters club run by [local resident Yutaka] Wakayama. “The Croatian team is like a family to us,” he said. Such are the unexpected footprints a World Cup can leave behind.

Speaking of Japan (by way of Du Nord), an article in that country’s English-language newspaper, the Japan Times, quoted MLS officials saying they would like to bring in J-League players. Said MLS’s Takehito Nakamura, “I deal heavily with teams, agents and the Japan Football Association and, through conversations and being introduced to different players, cases of players coming over can happen.” Nakamura also talks about the mutual lack of respect the Japanese and American league have for each other as an impediment to bringing Japanese across the pond. He also suggests what I believe to be the most important reason: “If a player craves fame, then maybe it is not the place for them.”

Having lived in Japan for four months, I witnessed the adulation of fans in that country for their players. Leaving that atmosphere has been hard for many players and former national team coach Phillipe Troussier lamented this in 2001, saying “We only have two players based in Europe. Technically and tactically, the Japanese can’t get much better, but they won’t get experience playing in the J-League.”

I wonder whether any strategy to draw Japanese players to MLS can be successful. Europe has the draw of high salaries and the highest standard of play. What can MLS offer to draw players from their Japanese fans? The chance to share hairstyling tips with David Beckham, perhaps?

Yuji “Bomber Head” Nakazawa, owner of best hair on the Japanese national team

The Guardian had a piece by Steven Wells about soccer leagues made up of communists and anarchists in the US. Wells writes of the rise and recent decline of this particular brand of soccer:

American anarcho-commie soccer is alive and well. It’s just been hibernating. Now it’s spring they’ll start once again changing America – one democratically refereed game (with rolling substitutions) at a time.

I’m glad to see Wells (a Brit) writing about soccer in this country using more than the typical cliche that Americans don’t like the sport. It’s great that he’s highlighting a particular niche of American soccer culture, but I have to question the relevance of the anarchist and communist soccer leagues he discusses. I once knew someone who later showed up in a newspaper article as the founder of the Dayton (Ohio) Anarchist Soccer League. She never struck me as much of a soccer fan nor much of an anarchist. If she is representative of the anarcho-commies Wells writes about, I don’t think they are likely to impact American soccer or world politics.

A few quick hits to finish off:

• Courtesy of my brother, an amusing look at tactical plans from around the world.
• Tottenham’s brilliant Bulgarian Dimitar Berbatov eulogized in haiku at Who Ate All the Pies.
• Also from Who Ate All the Pies, Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini proves that bigotry is multifaceted. He said that Fiorentian’s “[Adrian] Mutu, like a good gypsy, has tried to be slick. Then again, all Romanians are slick, they have it on their DNA.”
• Barcelona owns a house called La Masia, where many of their youth prospects live. It was profiled at the blog La Galaxia de Estrellas.
• The New York Times did a piece on the top ten video games of all time. The list includes Sensible World of Soccer, a game which I have never played, but am now tempted to find.

Sensible World of Soccer