What I’m Reading: July 29, 2007

In case you haven’t heard the news (but you probably have; it’s been everywhere), Iraq won the Asian Cup today, beating Saudi Arabia 1-0. The story is, of course, good news in a country that has known little of the sort in recent years. Perhaps the best coverage of the tournament came from the New York Times’ Goal blog, which had several posts from correspondents in Iraq and in the region. I would also recommend the website Global Voices, which collects the accounts of several Iraqi bloggers offering first-hand accounts of the post-game celebrations. Yahoo! has some great pictures both from the game and from fans celebrating the victory. Reading about and seeing the outpouring of emotion almost makes me want to be in the country, just to experience it.

Iraqi goalkeeper Noor Hassan falls to his knees after the final whistle is blown (photo: AP / Irwin Fedriansyah)

The degree of hyperbole surrounding this victory is perhaps as incredible as the victory itself (Iraq was an underdog in today’s match, as they were throughout the tournament). While the Asian Cup has clearly brought Iraqis together to celebrate victory, the victory is, after all, in a game. Many papers Monday morning will likely run stories talking about the unifying effect this victory is having on the country, as if the daily violence and despair could be erased by a man heading a ball into a net.

Even the Iraqi team, often celebrated as a successful blending of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, turns out to not to have been such a harmonious unit. As Jeff Klein writes on the New York Times Goal blog, the team was often racked by the same divisions that plague the country as a whole. The genius who molded these players into a unit that could make their entire country proud was a Brazilian coach named Jorvan Vieira. As Shourin Roy writes at SoccerBlog.com, Vieira’s “influence in unifying this team has been nothing short of miraculous.” (Sadly, Vieira has already resigned his position, citing the difficult demands of the job and his desire to “to go home and then to the beach.”)

Jorvan Vieira with his team (photo: AP / Vincent Thian)

Sadly, however, the national team’s success has led to more violence in Iraq. Four people were killed by celebratory gunfire after the final. The scenes after Iraq’s semifinal victory over South Korea were even more disastrous, as 135 people were killed by bomb attacks while celebrating their team’s achievement. In the lead-up to the final, Rob Hughes wrote for the International Herald Tribune that

Iraqi soccer players are in a no-win situation like no other. They will strive to beat Saudi Arabia for the Asian Cup in Jakarta on Sunday evening. And should they win, it will release another bout of mass revelry back home and possibly more deaths on the streets of Baghdad, Basra and elsewhere.

There don’t appear to have been any attacks on civilians after today’s victory. Perhaps even potential suicide bombers were celebrating Iraq’s victory.

Iraqi fans in Basra celebrate their team’s victory (photo: AFP / Getty Images/ Essam Al-Sudani)

While the Iraq story has been number one in much national news (not just on the sports pages) – it even led NPR’s All Things Considered this afternoon – I found Simon Kuper’s column, headlined Team Colours, the most interesting piece of the week. Kuper, a Dutchman who spent his early years in Uganda, writes about the effect of sports on views toward race and national identity. Kuper writes that “[n]ations used to be forged on battlefields. Today, they increasingly try to make themselves on sports fields.” He continues: “For many people, the national football team in particular is the nation made flesh.”

Kuper then takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the world, discussing ways in which questions of national identity and sports interact. He ends up in South Africa, where sport is being used as a way to unify a country still dealing with the legacy of apartheid. Kuper writes that in 1995, South Africa’s victory in the Rugby World Cup, brought the diverse population of the country closer together. The national soccer team, the Bafana Bafana, won the 1996 African Cup of Nations, and in doing so furthered the unifying process of South Africa (it is a situation somewhat reminiscent of that which Iraq is witnessing today). Kuper writes that “[i]n most countries, sport is the greatest unifying activity. But can it bear a nation’s weight?” The 2010 World Cup will be the biggest test yet.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela with the World Cup trophy (photo: 2010safwc.com)

Some quick hits to finish off:

• The Global Game blog has a great post on Hispanics in Atlanta. This population is soccer-obsessed and this interest has been capitalized on by Spanish-language newspapers that cover soccer and the local pro team, the Atlanta Silverbacks, who are reaching out to these immigrants. There is also a podcast.
• The blog Two Hundred Percent had a fascinating post titled What’s in a Name? Apparently, the chairmen of Farsley Celtic in England is trying to capitalize on neighbors Leeds United’s financial troubles by renaming his team FC Leeds or Leeds Celtic, and thus “steal” some of its fans.
• I was unaware until this week that California has a ban on kangaroo leather products. Apparently, so many soccer shops in the Golden State are also unaware of this law, and continue to sell cleats made of the stuff. I’m taking my kangaroo leather Lotto Stadios into the state in a month or so. I hope I don’t get detained at the border.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 10:19 pm and is filed under What I'm Reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.