Diego Buanotte’s car after the accident (photo: Olé)

Buanotte is far from the only young soccer player to be involved in a serious car accident. Young American forward Charlie Davies is currently recovering from injuries he sustained in an October crash in which he was a passenger. Like Buanotte, Davies was lucky, as a friend of his died in the accident. Davies is recovering and hasshown signs of progress recently.

Buanotte and Davies were both seriously injured in crashes, but other players who have been involved in accidents have – often incredibly – escaped unharmed. Such is the case of Real Madrid and France forward Karim Benzema, who was involved in a crash the day after Christmas. Benzema smashed up his yellow Lamborghini in a crash with a Porsche. Incredibly, this was the second accident in which the young Frenchman has been involved in the past two months. He also managed to smash his car into a tree on his way home in November. Incredibly, he walked away from both accidents unscathed.

Benzema’s teammate Cristiano Ronaldo was also incredibly lucky to escape without serious injury after crashing his Ferrari into the wall of a tunnel in Manchester nearly a year ago. Images afterward showed a smashed-up car but Ronaldo was still as pretty as ever.

The results of the Ronaldo crash (photo: BBC/PA)

Former Dutch international Patrick Kluivert is another player to be involved in a serious car accident. In 1995, while a young Ajax star-in-the-making, Kluivert plowed his car into Marten Putman and killed the Amsterdam man. Kluivert was eventually charged with manslaughter, though he never served time in prison. Kluivert said later that the incident shook him deeply. He said, “Something inside me is broken. I can never be fully happy again. Before the accident, I was sometimes reckless, but that is normal for my age. Now, in one moment, it is gone. The child in me has been killed. Only when I am on the field can I be myself [and] feel completely free.”

Kluivert’s words indicate one reason why players are often involved in car accidents. Young, famous, and wealthy, they see themselves as invincible, and often act recklessly. Some, like Benzema and Ronaldo, escape without serious injury; others, like Buanotte, Davies, and Kluivert cause serious injury to themselves and to others.

What is the effect of such accidents on the players themselves? For Kluivert, it may have been one of the main reasons why the player who looked a worldbeater at age 18 never replicated that form later in his career. Kluivert floundered at teams throughout Europe before calling time on his career recently. What will become of Diego Buanotte and Charlie Davies? Both face a long road back to full physical and psychological health. They will need tremendous strength to overcome the trauma of serous car accidents and live out the potential both young players have shown on the field.

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The Football Supporters’ Federation protest sign against the 39th game (photo: Football Supporters’ Federation)

The strength of connection between teams and their place of origin may come as a bit of a surprise to American fans. Professional sports in the US became “franchised” so early on that Americans learned quickly that no club was too closely tied to its home to avoid being moved if its owner saw fit. Baseball’s Brooklyn Dodgers fans were heartbroken in 1957 when owner Walter O’Malley took the team 3000 miles west to its new home in Los Angeles. The same fate befell the American football Baltimore Colts, whose owner moved the team to Indianapolis in the middle of a snowy 1984 night. While I don’t want to deny the often strong connection between American sports teams and their homes (Red Sox nation, hold your fire), we in the US have seen teams ripped from one place and moved to another often enough to become quite cynical about the connection between clubs and their homes. Professional sports in the US are, and long have been, as much about business as anything else.

This is not the case in much of Europe, where clubs, from their beginnings, came to be strongly associated with the place from which they sprang. The late rise of professionalism in the UK, in particular, meant that clubs’ players often came from the local community and lived in it the same as any other member. Clubs’ identities came to be closely tied to those of the local community, and separating the club from its community was largely seen as a non-starter (that said, Arsenal’s move from South to North London in 1913 is a huge exception). Indeed, clubs more often served to incorporate arriving immigrants into their new communities. Many Irish men in Glasgow found a home at Celtic, for instance, just as many migrants from southern Spain found a home at Barcelona FC. One recent migrant, Eseteban, told the website The Travel Rag: “When I came here from Andalusia one of the ways I was able to feel part of the city and part of Catalonia was to support Barça. It was hard being a migrant but the club gives you an identity. Now I feel Catalan and I’m proud to live in Barcelona.”

If club teams are closely tied to their homes, one might imagine national teams would be even more so. It can be argued that especially in these times of increased globalization, sports are one of the few arenas in which people can continue to feel a strong connection to their countries. But in the 21^st century, the connection between nations and their national teams is changing dramatically. The bond between national teams and the nations from which they come is, in many cases, no longer as strong as it once was.

At the conclusion of World Cup qualifying last month, Tim Vickery noted that many South American fans must now wait a long time before they will see their teams play at home. Vickery points out that a “gentleman’s agreement” means that European clubs release their players for friendlies as long as these matches are played in Europe. Having the chance to gather their best players is one reason that many national teams play matches outside of their home countries, but it is far from the only one. Often just as important is the chance to make money. When Brazil played England in recent friendly, the game did not take place in London or Rio de Janeiro. It was played instead in Doha, Qatar. Brazil has outsourced the scheduling of its friendly matches to Swiss company Kentaro, leading the seleçao jetting off in recent years to destinations such as Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Dortmund, Montpellier, Dublin and London. Brazil has clearly capitalized on its global appeal, though it is an interesting question to wonder how Brazil’s image may change it the team never plays in Brazil.

Brazil vs. England in Qatar (photo: Who Ate All the Pies)

Other countries have played abroad in the hopes of improving their national teams. This is the approach that New Zealand has employed in recent years, as Colin Peacock outlined on a recent Football Weekly podcast after that country qualified for the World Cup: “They decided: look, no one ever comes to New Zealand to play so we will assemble our team of journeymen from the second tiers of various leagues across the world and Ryan Nelsen if he can make it and play a few games across Europe. They absolutely targeted this opportunity and now they’ve done it.”

While the examples given so far all involve distancing national teams from their fans, there is also an interesting trend of teams going to places where migrants have settled. Mexico is perhaps the best example of this. The Mexican national team often takes advantage of the millions of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States and plays friendlies north of the border. A look at recent results shows Mexico lining up against Peru, Colombia, and Argentina on American soil, not to mention regular friendlies against the United States itself, all of which sell out huge stadiums. The appeal of playing its games abroad for the Mexican federation is two-fold: it gives Mexican fans abroad the chance to see their team play while giving the federation the opportunity to rake in huge sums of money. Indeed, this combination leads many countries with immigrant populations in the United States to stage matches here (see, for example, a recent friendly between Honduras and Peru played in Florida).

Sports are about creating community, as Simon Kuper has pointed out recently. He quotes Michael Oriard, who writes in his new book about college (American) football, that “a college football game at Michigan or Alabama, with its bands and cheerleaders, its pre-game tailgating, and its postgame partying, is something like a folk festival providing a sense of community, meaningful ritual, and sheer pleasure for millions of Americans each weekend in the fall.” Yet what happens when those games occur far from the place from which the team springs? Increased ease of communication and travel, key features of the contemporary wave of globalization, are changing the connection between soccer teams and the places from which they come. While the strong connection that many European clubs have to their place of origin has made moves such as that of MK Dons the exception to the rule, national teams throughout the world are increasingly playing matches wherever they can top-quality opponents, émigré fans or oodles of cash. Ironically, the national teams, whose existence is in part predicated on their connection to specific places, are coming to be less and less tied to their homeland than are club teams.

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Any list of soccer meccas in the United States would have to include Nevada Smith’s. The bar, located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, has bringing in the soccer faithful of New York since 1994. Today, on any given weekend day, the bar shows games from morning till night. Matches from England, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the United States and beyond (catering to a group of supporters of SK Brann, Nevada Smith’s even shows Norwegian league) fill the bar’s many televisions spread over two floors. Weekends are “a constant coming and going of people,” Nevada Smith’s owner Jack Keane told me recently. “On a busy Saturday, there’s no doubt that we have between 2000 and 3000 fans that come through the doors.”

Fans at Nevada Smith’s (photo: New York Daily News)

Keane, a jovial Irishman has been running the bar for 15 years. He recalls the days in the mid-1990s when he could only get one game a day from the Premier League to show in the bar. German and Italian games became available around that time too and he would show them as well. But it was really with the advent of Fox Soccer Channel (then known as Fox Sports World) in 1997 that the number of games he could show exploded. As the number of games shown at Nevada Smith’s increased, so too did its clientele.

Looking back on 15 years in business, Keane points to the 2002 World Cup as a turning point for his bar. “If there ever a time that we really captured something,” he says, “it was during that tournament.” With games kicking off at 2:00 AM, 5:00 AM, and 7:00 AM, it was not ideal for New York audiences. “A lot of bars felt there was no business to be done during Korea/Japan. I had the opposite attitude. I thought it was going to be the biggest party of all time, and I was right.” Indeed, fans packed the bar throughout the month of the tournament.

One reason that Nevada Smith’s has had sustained success is because it has become a meeting place for supporters clubs of various European teams. Most notable are those for English teams, many of which have supporters clubs at the bar. These clubs are often made up of expats living in New York for a time, some of whom have told Keane how important they are to them. “There is absolutely no doubt that the pride in which they take in gathering under their club banners. Many of them over the years have said to me that coming here is the most important part of their week. I’ve heard that story many, many times.”

The New York Gooners at Nevada Smith’s (photo: flickr/Jonathan_Hawkins)

British clubs are not the only ones to have supporters clubs at Nevada Smith’s. There are clubs that support teams from across Europe, and those clubs have often received favorable responses when they have contacted the European teams. Keane told me, “We’ve had lads in here who have made contact with the clubs in Europe and have gotten immediate response. I remember the Barcelona peña was formed 6 years ago. Within 2 years, Joan Laporta was here in the bar. Laporta has visited the bar twice this year.”

While many European expats make up the membership of the supporters clubs, their ranks are filled by many Americans as well. This mirrors a shift in the clientele at Nevada Smith’s, which has gone from 90% expats to a 50/50 split between expats and American fans. Keane notes that several clubs, especially Arsenal’s, have a high percentage of Americans. Wherever they come from, members of the supporters clubs who congregate at Nevada Smith’s often go on to become close friends. “People who met in here under football banners absolutely have become friends outside our walls,” Keane says. “There has been friendships born here that have been life-long for a lot of these lads.”

In his 15 years running Nevada Smith’s, Jack Keane has seen many changes in the American soccer scene. He notes the tremendous growth in interest in the game in the US, and is particularly impressed with the knowledge that many American fans possess. “Soccer fans in this country are very knowledgeable. I’m always amazed. Let’s say they’re a fan of Arsenal. They also know what’s going on with other teams, they know what’s going on in Germany.” Of course, Keane notes, soccer fans in the US are a “tiny, tiny percentage” of the population. Despite this, he has been mystified that the American sports media has not put a larger emphasis on the game, and the national team in particular. “I’ve never understood why the media have not gotten behind the US national team. … They get little respect from the media in general. They could have a wonderful result earlier in the day and that night get little attention.”

But Keane sees things changing. ESPN in particular has changed its tune, doing what Keane calls a “360” on soccer. Keane sees the sport behemoth muscling in on rights to the English Premier League because, while the audience for soccer may be dwarfed by that for baseball, basketball, and American football, it is significant enough for the network to see value in catering to those fans. Indeed, ESPN executives need only take a trip to Nevada Smith’s on any given weekend to see proof of the passion that soccer in the United States can generate. But they had better go soon: Jack Keane says that Nevada Smith’s has nearly outgrown its current Lower East Side location. “We don’t expect to be at this location very much longer. We’re looking forward to expanding. We have a group of investors who want to take us nationwide.”

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This development is perhaps not all that surprising given that the United States is a nation of immigrants. Many of the players who have developed their skills in the US and played for other nations are children of immigrants. The most notable such example is Giuseppe Rossi. Born in Teaneck, New Jersey to Italian parents, Rossi traveled to his parents’ homeland at age 13 to begin playing for Parma. He would later sign for Manchester United before moving on to his current club, Villarreal. Intrigue surrounded Rossi, with American fans holding onto hope that he would choose to play internationally for the US despite his assertions that he wanted to represent Italy. His call-up for the Azzurri in October 2008 sealed his international fate (and, to rub salt in the wounds of American fans, he scored twice against the US in last summer’s Confederations Cup).

Other Americans born to immigrant parents to have played for other the national teams of other countries include Espen Baardsen, and Arturo Alvarez. Baardsen was a goalkeeper for Tottenham, Watford and Everton from the mid-1990s until he retired in 2003 (quoting the BBC: “American-born Norway international who retired aged 25 in 2003 after a spell with Everton, saying he had lost his passion for the game. Spent a year travelling the world and now works in London as a financial analyst for a hedge fund. His preferred reading is Milton Friedman and Immanuel Kant.”). Born in California to Norwegian parents, Baardsen played for youth national teams in the US before representing Norway at the senior level, despite the fact that he never lived in that country.

Espen Baardsen (photo: Spurs Odyssey)

Arturo Alvarez is a Salvadoran-American midfielder currently plying his trade for the San Jose Earthquakes in Major League Soccer. Born in Houston to Salvadoran parents, Alvarez played for the US at youth level, but chose to represent El Salvador at senior level. He took advantage of FIFA’s changed restrictions making it easier for players to represent a country at senior level even if they played for another country at youth level.

The Balkan wars of the 1990s spread people from the former Yugoslavia around the world (many of their children have gone on to become soccer stars), and the United States received many immigrants from these countries. Two players who passed through the US have since gone on to become major stars in Europe, and both chose to represent other countries rather than the Americans. Bosnian-born Vedad Ibisevic, striker for German feel-good club Hoffenheim, came with his family to St. Louis (a city that has received a huge number of Bosnian immigrants) and became a star high school player before going on to St. Louis University. He was then signed by Paris St. Germain, spending one season in the French capital before moving on to 2^nd division club Dijon. He moved across the border to Germany, playing one season for Alemannia Aachen before being signed by Hoffenheim. Ibisevic made his international debut for Bosnia in 2007, but he told the New York Times that he would have considered the US if he had heard from them. “I was happy in St. Louis, got a green card, but I never really heard from anyone from the U.S. national team. I would have considered it.”

Vedad Ibisevic (photo: bundesliga.de)

Like Ibisevic, Neven Subotic is the child of parents from the Balkans, in his case Serbian. The Subotics settled in the US in the late 1990s and Neven played for teams in Utah before being called up to the U-17 national team. He represented the US at that level as well as the U-20 level, but a falling out with coach Thomas Rongen led him to turn his back on the Americans and represent Serbia. He made his debut in March of 2009 and has amassed 7 caps since then.

These types of quandaries in which players eligible to represent multiple countries must choose between them are not, of course, unique to the United States (German international Kevin Kuranyi, for example, could also have represented Brazil and Panama). Increased flows of people across national boundaries in recent years are creating many novel problems to be dealt with throughout life, and soccer is merely one area in which these problems manifest themselves. That said, there have often been debates about players’ eligibility for various national teams, especially in the early 20^th century when European nations such as Italy and Spain made a habit of recruiting South Americans for their national teams. It was this poaching that led FIFA to tighten restrictions on players switching their allegiances. It is only now, with players who represent one country at the youth level having previously lost the right to represent another at senior level, that FIFA has loosened these restrictions. Finding appropriate definitions for defining nationality and determining eligibility has long vexed FIFA and will almost certainly continue to be a problem in the future.

When  Schalke midfielder Jermaine Jones announced recently that he intends to switch his national allegiance from Germany to the United States, it was notable because it has been so long since the United States has had the potential to call on players such as him (Edgar Castillo, a Mexican-American who has previously played for Mexico, may also suit up for the US). The US has arguably become more of an exporter of talent in recent years. The United States’ status as a nation of immigrants means that it is likely to continue to develop players who are eligible and choose to represent other countries. It is less clear, however, how long it will take the US to shed its image as an importer of players and be seen as a country that also develops players for other nations.

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Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci plays soccer with ethnic Serb boys (photo: Visar Kryeziu /AP / Christian Science Monitor)

The 1990s were a particularly bloody period in the history of the Balkans, but far from the first time the region has gone through instability. It is perhaps because of this instability that countries in the Balkans have sent so many of their people abroad. Among these Balkans living outside of their ancestral homeland are quite a number of talented soccer players. Some were born in the Balkans, others to parents who have left their homelands.

If Kosovo does become an independent nation, it will have the right to forms its own national team. As Steve Menary writes in his book Outcasts, the unofficial Kosovo FA has been fielding a team for years. One player they would hope to bring in to the team is Crystal Palace striker Shefki Kuqi. Kuqi was born in Kosovo, although he later moved to Finland, a country for which he earned 52 caps. Should the country of his birth be recognized by FIFA, Kuqi would be able to switch his allegiance to Kosovo.

Barcelona’s 17 year-old phenom Bojan Krkic was recently called up to the Spanish national team. Illness prevented him from becoming the youngest ever player to represent la Furia Roja, but it is only a matter of time before he pulls on Spain’s famous red shirt. Bojan, as he is commonly known, was born to a Serbian father, who played for Red Star Belgrade in the 1980s. Though undoubtedly talented (Bojan Jr. is considered one of Barcelona and Spain’s best young players), the call-up was seen as a way to tie the youngster’s loyalty to the country of his birth. Serbia has made inquires to the Barcelona forward, but it seems likely he will snub his father’s country in favor of Spain.

Perhaps the most talented of all players of Balkan descent is Inter’s Swedish forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Zlatan was born in Malmo to a Bosnian father and Croatian mother, who had left their homeland independently and met in Sweden. Zlatan began his career at Malmo FF, a club noted for its many multiethnic players (they currently have Swedish-Ghanian, Swedish-Iranian, Swedish-Greek, and a Swedish-Kosovar player on their books).

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (photo: BBC)

Sweden is a country noted for its welcoming immigration policies. The country has quite a large immigrant population today, including many from the Balkans. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the country has had several such players represent its national team. These include center back Daniel Majstorovic, midfielder Dusan Duric, and striker Rade Prica, all of whom have families from what is now Serbia.

Australia, as I have written previously, has quite a number of ethnic Croatians in its national team, reflecting the historical connections between the two countries. Aussies of Croatian descent include Mark Viduka, Jason Culina, Tony Popovic, Josip Skoko, Ante Covic, Zeljko Kalac, and Mark Bresciano.

Argentina has traditionally been a country with a large amount of immigration, including many from the Balkans. Some fairly prominent Argentine players of Balkan descent today include Velez Sarsfield defender Mariano Uglessich, Universidad Catolica (of Chile) goalkeeper Jose Maria Buljubasich (try saying that 10 times fast), and San Lorenzo midfielder Daniel Bilos. Bilos was approached by Croatia prior to the 2006 World Cup, but turned down his ancestral homeland, preferring to represent Argentina.

There are several less well-known players internationally, but who have made their name around the world playing in smaller leagues. Former midfielder Dejan Petkovic has played for many years in Brazil and is considered a legend there (quite an achievement for a non-Brazilian). Dragan Stojkovic was revered during his time playing for Japan’s Nagoya Grampus Eight and he is now manager of that team.

Stojkovic is far from the only manager from the Balkans playing his trade outside of his homeland. Vladimir Petrovic is currently in charge of China’s national team, a position previously held by one of the most famous Balkan managers of all time, Bora Milutinovic. Bora holds the distinction of being the only coach ever to be in charge of five different teams at the World Cup (Mexico in 1986, Costa Rica in 1990, the United States in 1994, Nigeria in 1998, and China in 2002).

The latest stop on Bora’s coaching tour of the world is Jamaica (photo: TheReggaeBoyz.com)

Know other famous soccer exports from the Balkans? Post them in the comments below.

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Hilarious parody from Oz City Soccer

While Fulham’s expats are relatively high profile, there are many Americans playing abroad who are anything but. It’s a truly dedicated fan who knows Eric Lichaj of Aston Villa, Michael Enfield of Sydney FC in Australia or Tighe Dombrowski of IK Sirius in Sweden.

But while teams abroad are snapping up American players (among other reasons, the falling value of the dollar makes them a good bargain), they appear reluctant to look at American coaches. Only one native-born American coach has held a major job abroad (Steve Sampson, who was in charge of Costa Rica’s national team from 2002 – 2004). Scouring the depths of my brain and the Internet for examples of American coaches who have worked abroad was only able to come up with three, all of whom are naturalized Americans born in other countries.

Last week, Martin Vasquez’s career got a bit of a jump. Until then, the 44 year-old was an assistant coach for MLS’s Chivas USA. But then, Jürgen Klinsmann, who will take over from Ottmar Hitzfeld as Bayern Munich manager next season, announced that he will bring Vasquez across the Atlantic with him as his number two man. It will be quite a responsibility for Vasquez, especially if Klinsmann takes the type of hands-off approach he did during his time with the German national team, when many credited his assistant (and now head coach) Joachim Löw with being the driving force behind the country’s resurgence.

Martin Vasquez (photo: Juan Miranda/Chivas USA/Soccer America)

Klinsmann knows Vasquez from his time in Southern California. In a statement, the German legend said, “I’ve known Martin since 2003 when he was training at an elite football camp in the United States. I was impressed by his positive leadership style and I recommended him to LA Galaxy.” Vasquez was a Galaxy assistant for one season before moving to LA rivals Chivas USA. That move was nowhere near as big as his upcoming switch to Munich.Vasquez does not lack experience crossing borders. Born in Mexico, he moved to LA at age 12. Vasquez played college soccer at UCLA before returning to Mexico to begin his pro career. He played for several teams in Mexico and even earned a spot on the Mexican national team, playing for El Tri several times in the early 1990s. Vasquez returned to the US in 1996 to join the fledgling MLS. His play for the now-defunct Tampa Bay Mutiny and the soon-to-be revived San Jose Clash (known today as the Earthquakes) earned him a call-up from then US national team boss Steve Sampson (he was eligible having only played in friendlies for Mexico), where Vasquez eventually earned 7 caps.

Another coach making his name abroad is Iranian-American Afshin Ghotbi. Born in the Iranian city of Jahrom, Ghotbi remained in his homeland until just prior to the Iranian revolution, when his familiy left for the Los Angeles area, home to a large Iranian expat community. He continued to play soccer and like Martin Vasquez was a member of UCLA’s college team (in fact, given their similar ages, they would likely have been teammates there).

Afshin Ghotbi during his time with the Korean national team (photo: Soccerphile)

After his college career, Ghotbi was involved with youth soccer in Southern California. He coached several professional players in their formative years, including John O’Brien, who went to Ajax in part on Ghotbi’s recommendation. Ghotbi worked as a coach for the US national team, then spent time with the LA Galaxy before using his connections to Holland to get a job as an assistant to Guus Hiddink during his time coaching Korea at the 2002 World Cup.

Ghotbi’s biggest move, though, came last year when he returned to his homeland to take over Tehran giants Persepolis. Given the state of relations between his homeland and adopted country, Ghotbi was worried what reaction his return might bring, but he was welcomed with open arms. He has had tremendous success with his club team and has been talked up as a future Iranian national team manager.

The third and final American manager to have worked abroad is Alketas Panagoulias. Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, Panagoulias moved to the US to do university studies. While in New York, he became involved with the Greek American Atlas Soccer Club, serving as the team’s coach. At a time of little professional soccer in the US, Pangoulias’ amateur team won three consecutive US Open Cup (the American version of the FA Cup) titles from 1967-1969.

Panagoulias returned to Greece in 1972 to serve as an assistant coach for the national team. He was promoted to the head coaching position in 1973, and remained in that job until 1981. He took over Greek giants Olympiakos and led the team to the Greek title in 1982 and 1983. In 1984, he returned to the US to coach the Olympic team in the Los Angeles games. From there, he became the senior national team manager.

Panagoulias returned to his homeland in the late 1980s, coaching Olympiakos again and Aris FC. In 1992, he was appointed to a second spell as national team boss. Panagoulias led the team to its one of its greatest ever moments, qualifying for the 1994 World Cup in the USA.

Alketas Panagoulias (photo: View Images)

Why have there been so few American coaches abroad? My guess is that there remains a stigma against them, left over from the decades in which American soccer was a laughing stock. Although American players have become desirable for teams abroad, American coaches have not found work abroad easy to come by at all. Bruce Arena, the most successful American coach of all time whose greatest accomplishment was guiding the US national team to the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup, desperately tried to throw his hat into the ring for the Scotland job recently, but to no avail.

This is perhaps not surprising, as many more European coaches have gone to traditionally less powerful countries to play their trade than vice versa (of the 16 teams in African Cup of Nations, only four are African, though the World Cup Blog expresses some hope that this may change in the future). Even South American countries, who, given the players they produce, know a thing or two about their job, have found it tough to break into Europe (the most notable failure of recent times being Wanderlei Luxemburgo at Real Madrid).

For now, it seems, the only Americans able to break into the coaching ranks overseas are those whose foreign birth gives them a degree of street-cred that native-born coaches lack. Only time will tell if American coaches can become as desirable as the players they are increasingly producing.

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Though not nearly as influential as other aspects of Greek society passed down to us today, several top soccer teams have names that make reference to Greek gods and places. In most cases these names suggest qualities to which the teams aspire (though perhaps don’t always achieve). The list I present here is relatively small, though I don’t doubt that there are other teams with Greek-inspired names (I am not, of course, counting Greek teams themselves in this list). If you know teams with such names, please post them in the comments.

One of the most important teams in the development of soccer worldwide was England’s Corinthians FC. The team was one of the top sides in England during the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th century. Corinithians gained fame by traveling around the game, bringing the soccer gospel to many different countries. So taken were the Brazilians by these visitors that they named a local team after them. That team, Sao Paulo’s Corinthians, continues to play professionally to this day (though were recently relegated to the second division) and has recently had players such as Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano on their books. The English Corinthians merged with Casuals FC in 1939 to become Corinthians-Casuals FC, a team that plays in the Ryman Football League (formerly known as the Isthmian League) today.

The Greek city-state of Corinth, for which Corinthians FC was presumably named, once rivaled Athens for power and prestige. Most notably, Corinth hosted the Isthmian Games. This competition was held every two years and has been described by archaeologist Oscar Broneer as “probably the most popular of all the Panhellenic celebrations.” Although the last Isthmian Games were held in the 4th century AD, the name of the city-state which hosted it was revived by an English soccer team 1500 years late, as was the spirit of athletic competition for its own sake that both celebrated.

An archaeological dig being done at the site of the Isthmian Games (photo: Michael Lahanas)

In Italy, Atalanta are a team known for producing young players, including Italian legend and current national team coach Roberto Donadoni. The team today sits in 8th place, one spot away from qualifying for the Intertoto Cup. The team’s blue and black uniforms give them one of their nicknames, the Nerazzurri. That nickname may be shared with current Italian champions Inter, but Atalanta’s other nickname is all their own.

The team from Bergamo is also known as La Dea (Italian for “goddess”). That is because the team takes its name from the Greek god Atalanta. As the myth has it, Atalanta was so beautiful that she had many suitors, but rebuffed all who sought her hand. Her father convinced her to agree to marry anyone who could beat her in a footrace. Atalanta agreed, and ran many races against potential suitors, winning all of them. Finally, she came up against Hippomenes. Finding him attractive, Atalanta sought to convince him not to run, as losers of the races were put to death. Hippomenes did race Atalanta, but had the god of love Aphrodite intervene on his behalf, placing apples on Atalanta’s path, which she stopped to pick, allowing Hippomenes to pass her. Could it have been Atalanta’s pace and beauty that inspired the Italian team to choose her as their name?

Atalanta’s logo incorporates an image of the goddess of the same name (photo: Atalanta BC)

No country has more teams named for Greek gods, heroes, and places than Holland. For a country relatively distant from Greece, this is a bit of a surprise (to me, at least). Sparta Rotterdam, a team which nearly always plays second fiddle to city rivals Feyenoord, takes its name from perhaps one of the greatest city-states of ancient Greece, immortalized for its role in defeating Athens in the Peloponnesian War.

Heracles Almelo may be small potatoes even in the modest Dutch league, but the Greek god from which they took their name is anything but small. Heracles, who the Romans would incorporate into their traditions and rename Hercules, was the son of Zeus. Above all, he was known as a great warrior, whose strength and guile enabled him to achieve a mythic status in ancient Greece. Heracles Almelo, who did win the Dutch league in 1927 and 1941, have, in recent years, shown little of the athletic ability demonstrated by the Greek god from whom they took their name.

The Greek god Heracles in action (photo: Jean Oh)

The most famous team named for a mythological Greek hero, however, is Ajax. That Ajax is written about in the Iliad, most prominently when he argues with Patroclus over who will take Achilles’ shield after that hero has been slain. Ajax loses the argument and is enraged. In his rage, he slaughters a flock of sheep. When he realizes what he has done, he feels ashamed and instead of living the rest of his life with this shame, kills himself.

Ajax Amsterdam, on the other hand, have not died (though their teams in the past couple of years have been pretty poor). The team from the Dutch capital has seen two golden periods: one in the early 1970s when, inspired by Johann Cruyff, they won the European Cup three times in a row (1971-1973), and a second in the mid-1990s when, coached by Louis van Gaal, they put out a team of young players (including Marc Overmars, Patrick Kluivert, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf and others) and won the European Cup (1995). Despite the team’s recent lack of success, Ajax Amsterdam – in contrast to other teams with similarly inspired names – are now more prominent than the original god Ajax from which they took their name.

Peter Lupson’s book Thank God for Football! explores the religious backgrounds of many top English club teams (of the 38 teams that have played in the Premier League since its inception in 1992, 12 have their origins in churches). Churches that founded teams often did so for reasons other than pure love of soccer. David Goldblatt, in his history of world soccer called The Ball is Round, has written of the importance of so-called muscular Christianity in shaping early English football. He writes that “the Victorians were quite convinced of the relationship between physical, mental, and moral health” (27).

Drawings of the first international between England and Scotland in 1872 show some of the virtues of the burgeoning British style (photo: Wikipedia)

Lupson told the EPL Talk podcast last year that churches sought to instill 4 elements of character into their football-playing parishioners: courage, fair play, team spirit, and self-control (20:50). Such qualities are still seen today in the English game. Post-game press conferences with English managers almost always focus on at least one of these elements (Stuart Pearce is my personal favorite, rattling on and on about team spirit but with seemingly little concern for tactics and the like).

As soccer spread around the world, diverse styles of play developed that barely resembled the game played in England. In South America, short passing replaced the long ball made popular in England. In Argentina, this style was offered referred to as criollo. David Goldblatt writes that “criollo football and masculinity came to be defined in opposition to the English” who had brought the game to Argentina, and whose economic system was fundamental in shaping the country’s style of play.

The English were focused and disciplined, combining collective organization and physical force – the prerequisites of an industrial labour force turning out an industrial product. On the Rio de la Plata where industrialization had yet to completely stamp its imprint on the economy, landscape or rhythms of life, masculinity was more restless, impetuous and individualistic, spurning crude force in favor of virtuoso agility (204).

This “virtuoso agility” is still seen today in Argentine soccer. Marcela Mora y Araujo has written of the gambeta, which 1986 World Cup winner Jorge Valdano told her has two elements: “The first is ability: to show that I, with my foot, have the skill to do anything; the second is feinting, I have to deceive my opponent, make him believe exactly the opposite of what I’m going to do. This is also very Argentinian, the taste for deceit.”

Maradona gets his gambeta on in 1986 against England (photo: Telegraph)

Not surprisingly, given its proximity, Brazil developed a style in many ways similar to that of the Argentines, complete with intricate short passing and elaborate dribbling. Tim Vickery, South American correspondent for BBC, The World Game, Sports Illustrated, and World Soccer magazine, told me that “[soccer] was reinterpreted by the South American masses from a game of straight running, muscular Christianity to a much more balletic thing full of twists and turns.”

Alex Bellos, author of Futebol: Soccer the Brazilian Way, offers several suggestions as to how the “Brazilian” style has developed. The incredible technique that typifies Brazilian players may have come from the “informal kickabouts” in which a bundle of socks often substitutes for a ball would lead “their ball skills to be more highly developed and inventive” (34).

“Alternatively,” writes Bellos, “one could explain the flashy individualism by pointing to the national trait of showing off in public.” Tim Vickery concurs with this explanation. He offered me an example: “Say I’ve got the ball and you come and tackle me and I do a little shimmy and you fall on your backside. Even if that move serves no objective purpose and you’re on your feet instantly, I’ve made you look ridiculous, for that one little instant I have humiliated you. And that is the moment that will most get the Brazilian public up.”

Alex Bellos offers a couple of other possible explanations for how the Brazilian style has developed. It may have had to do with race relations, he writes.

Some historians have suggested that reliance on the dribble evolved because of the racism of the game’s formative years. They say that the style was created by black players who improvised artfulness as a way of self-protection against whites. If you were a black, you would not want to have physical contact with a white player, since this could end in retaliation. Blacks had to use guile rather than force to keep the ball. (35)

Or perhaps, Bellos suggests, the Brazilian martial art of capoeira played a part in developed the country’s soccer style. He suggests that the “hip-swinging body language used by a capoeirista is very similar to samba dancers and Brazilian dribblers” (35).

The Netherlands is another country with a unique style of play. The Total Football style of the 1970s, in particular, was unlike anything ever seen (and though not explicitly employed today, remnants of its influence remain). David Winner, in his book Brilliant Orange, claims that this style has much to do with Dutch conceptions of space.

Space is the unique defining element of Dutch football. Other nations and football cultures may have produced greater goalscorers, more dazzling individual ball-artists, and more dependable and efficient tournament-winning teams. But no one has ever imagined or structured their play as abstractly, as architecturally, in such a measured fashion as the Dutch. (44)

Winner claims that Total Football exemplifies the Dutch conception of space. It was “a conceptual revolution based on the idea that the size of any football field was flexible and could be altered by the team playing on it” (44).

Of course, the size of a football field is not flexible, Winner attributes this mentality to the land the Dutch have been given. A small, low-lying country with a long sea coast and a relatively large population, the Dutch have in fact expanded their land through the use of polders and other elaborate water control measures. Winner sees spillover of Dutch attitudes toward land into Dutch soccer. He calls the Dutch “spatial neurotics” and says that “the Dutch think innovatively, creatively and abstractly about space in their football because for centuries they have had to think innovatively about space in every other area of their lives” (47).

A Dutch goalkeeper ponders his country’s water reclamation projects (photo: Roberta on the Arts)

In 2000, I studied in Japan. At the time, Frenchman (and recent convert to Islam) Phillipe Troussier was coach of that country’s national team. The team had long used an all-action, team game (like that of the Koreans in the 2002 World Cup).

A constant refrain from Troussier, though, was that his team was too nice, too polite, too afraid to really mix it up. Japan’s style of play was too team-oriented, as were his individual players, and he told the BBC that “the Japanese are very organised.”

Even in their free time they need organisation. I gave them a day off and they all want to do the same thing. They take the same photographs, eat in the same restaurant. I had to close the hotel restaurant and told them to go out and do different things.

Troussier’s attempts to change the Japanese style of play ran up against the deeply-held value of group unity.

Troussier also constantly railed that his players weren’t tough enough. Again, what Troussier saw as a lack of toughness may have been a manifestation of the value Japanese place on harmony. Being tough is not encouraged in Japanese society the way it is in Europe, and Troussier saw his role as imposing this toughness on his players. In 2000, he told Sebastian Moffett of the International Herald Tribune that “the younger Japanese players are maybe better than Europeans in technical areas. My challenge is to prepare the players for world football — to play against aggressive foreign sides.”

Phillipe Troussier works on scaring his players into being tougher (photo: BBC)

If this last example is staring to sound like national stereotypes transformed into ideas about styles of play, it’s because it is just that. And it’s far from the only such example. One hears constantly about Germany’s Teutonic efficiency, Italian players’ sneakiness and diving, and many other examples that are nothing more than simple stereotypes put in the context of soccer. These stereotypes can at times come across negatively, especially when reference is made to African teams’ lack of discipline. Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated has written: “[I]t sometimes strikes me as a veiled form of racism (especially when a European journalist asks an African coach if his team’s “lack of discipline is a reflection of the national character,” which actually happened during the 1996 Olympics.)”

Today, the traditional styles of play that have typified footballing nations for years are less pronounced than in the past. With more and more players and coaches crossing borders and games being broadcast across the globe, it’s often hard to pinpoint a style as coming from one country. David Winner wrote in March of last year that Arsenal – a team based in London but coached by a Frenchman and who rarely feature an Englishman in their lineup – are the only team that best typify Total Football today. But Arsenal are different, a team that actually seeks to play with style. Most are content to play with whatever style (or lack thereof) will win them the next match.

As an American, I have often thought about whether there is an “American style.” As a country of immigrants, it would make sense for our style to reflect the people who have come to the United States. But for most of our soccer history, I don’t think this has been the case. The historical soccer connections between the US and the UK have meant that American soccer has often been more British in its style than anything else. That may be changing today, though, especially with the influx of immigrants from Latin America.

Jay Martin, longtime men’s soccer coach of Ohio Wesleyan University, laments the fact that for too long American soccer has not had its own identity, but has simply sought to replicate that of other countries. He hopes to see the development of an American style, as he wrote in an article for the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) in 2006.

The fact is we are Americans. We are not Brazilians, Germans, Dutch or French. We cannot play the style of those countries. It is simply not possible. We cannot replicate the Brazilian culture and society. These factors influence — no, dictate — how the Brazilians play. Social, economic, political and cultural forces directly impact how any national team plays. Nor can we replicate the club systems of England and Germany or the youth system of France and Holland.

American soccer is unique. America is unique. We can and should learn from other soccer nations, but we should develop and play an American style. There is no question that there is a great deal to learn from other soccer-playing nations. We should, however, take these lessons and use them in the context of an American style.

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So, my fellow gringos (and others), what do you think? Is there an American style of play? If so, what is it? Because frankly, I don’t have an answer to that question.

I think back to August 2007, when England hosted Germany in a “friendly” match that had “no meaning” as is often said. Christian Eichler of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a paper of record in Germany, wrote at the time about Wembley Stadium, where the game would be played:

In times of globalization, not only of markets but also of experiences and memories, there are few places that remain non-interchangeable. Places like Wembley. That place is uniquely English and at the same time: a German place.

Germany train at Wembley before their match against England (photo: AP/FAZ)

The article recounts important German wins at Wembley and the idea of playing in the land where the game was born. Articles in the English and German press show that many people, players and fans, cared very much about this match, despite the fact that it was only a “friendly.”

Of course the biggest event is the World Cup Final of 1966. In Germany, the term “Wembley Goal” signifies a goal that hits the top of the crossbar, lands in the goal, and then bounces out of it. The term refers to all such goals and the one that Germans believe lost them the 1966 World Cup Final against England, played at Wembley.

Why do events like this mean something? I will refer to something in philosophy called the “hermeneutic circle.”This circle consists of the background or “big story” that is understood by the interpreter encountering something new. Often, this background is implicit, also consisting of habits of interpretation. When we interpret something, we encounter a new “little story” and hold it up against the background, which also often changes as a result. The circle loops from the interpreter’s background to her new experience, which reshapes the background, and so on…National teams represent their countries and so their matches are inevitably held up against the big stories about those countries. For instance, when the US plays Cuba this year in the World Cup Qualifiers, the political relationship between these two countries will be thematized as the match is anticipated and discussed.

Germany’s World Cup win in 1954 represented a new state of affairs, in which Germany could again participate in the world scene in a normal way. Had they lost, another symbol might have been found but the “miracle at Bern” signaled that there is a way to be German and still participate in global affairs. Virtues are often cited in describing the team that won, including persistence, tactical intelligence, cooperation, and fitness. These enter the background in future attempts to deal with problems, many outside of soccer.

On the other side of this example: the Dutch have made every match with Germany about WWII. Representing the occupied Netherlands has proven to be a way to expunge the collaborationist parts of their history. Frank Rijkaard spitting on Rudi Völler wasn’t about Völler at all – great Dutch writers cite the occupation when they recall these matches (see Simon Kuper’s book Ajax, the Dutch, the War for more on this). There is a limit to how “normal” the interaction between Germany and the rest of the world can ever be.

(A side note: England’s football background is rather sad, really. The dominant themes are “we can’t get a break” and “those over-paid fat gits.” I can’t figure out if this is really part of England’s background in the larger scheme or not. There seems to be a sense that a country that ought to be the best isn’t. Having the fifth-best World Cup record and recently reaching the quarter-finals makes them the envy of most of he world but fans treat this as the result of forty years of bad luck or bad training or bad leadership. The win in 1966 somehow isn’t enough to turn around this diagnosis. Would another World Cup win achieve this? Why didn’t the Rugby win do the same thing?)It is hard to know how the interaction between a background and sporting events will happen. Germany’s “Wembley Goal” did not change the background in Germany. Second place in 1966 counted as a confirmation of the virtues they cited in 1954 and in other wins. The 2006 World Cup was hailed as a national “Summer’s Dream” and reaching third place launched massive street parties. Support for the national team launched a widespread discussion about how the country should present itself. There have never been so many Federal Republic flags flown and some people worried about how it would affect Germany’s behavior and image. The question that arises is whether it is appropriate for Germans to be proud of being German. Sporting events do not dictate interpretive outcomes because those are the products of the decisions made by the interpreters, given the options they are offered.

German fans fly their flag at the 2006 World Cup (photo: Orange.co.uk)

What makes Wembley a German place? The stories that were developed there. As Eichler puts it, “Ten German games there, five of them unforgettable.”Do sports events change things? Yes, thousands of people are doing something when they follow a game. For one thing, they are interpreting the world they live in. This is why measures to punish racist chants and unsportsmanlike conduct are important and need to be backed up with serious consequences.

I used national teams as my example but club identification can be explained (at least in part) with the same circle of interpretation. Later, I hope to illustrate that the great clubs all have a story. Many descriptions of clubs found in this blog have offered rich examples of this.

Note: The first notes for this article were written during the England/Germany friendly match. Germany won 2-1 and the match was declared a “typically English” one by the Guardian’s Tom Lutz. No meaning, indeed.

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Steve Menary (photo: Play the Game)

How did you get the idea to write Outcasts?

I’m just a self-employed freelance journalist. There’s no career structure: you write an article and then you write another one and then you write another one and it goes on. I wrote an article about football in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Jersey, and why they didn’t play international football. When I’d done that, I thought, “this is quite an interesting idea and no one’s ever written about this.”

Not everyone who applies to FIFA can get in or there would be the FA of David Keyes [ed note – not a bad idea!] and anyone could join. When I looked into it, they had turned some places down. FIFA would admit they turned someone down if I could find them out, but I asked them many times for a list of people who they’ve rejected and they would just ignore me.

I wrote a few chapters and I realized there were a few things like the Island Games … that I could go to and I could meet Greenland. They don’t even play in Greenland anyway and the flight there would have been about 1,000 pounds. The Falklands would have been about 2,000 pounds. But I realized I could go to the [2005 Island Games in the] Shetlands and I could see these people.

Shetland’s Steven Umphray during the Saaremma vs. Shetland match (photo: Shetland Islands Council / Steve Lindridge / www.idealimages.co.uk)

I sent it out to some big publishers and they said, “It’s very good, but we don’t know how much we’ll sell.” The publishers were okay, they gave me pretty encouraging rejections, if there is such a thing.

I knew David Conn and he said, “Why don’t you try to get in touch with World Soccer?”So I had a chat with [World Soccer’s] Gavin Hamilton and he said to me, “Come along, write something for us [on a non-FIFA “country”] each month.” World Soccer paid me fairly and he said, “If you get a book deal, don’t worry about [the rights]. It’s fine.” So that meant, for about a year, I could carry on researching the book. Each month I’d do an article [for the non-FIFA section] and I’d amass so much information, more than I could fit in a 500-word article. Then I found a smaller publisher after that, Know the Score.

Tell me more about the research you did for the book. Did you do it mostly at tournaments?

Yeah, I realized that the Greenland and the Falklands were good stories. I decided I was only going to do a chapter on a team if I could go see them play, meet with them in person, or have substantial dealings with them on the phone or by email. It’s very easy in this day and age to go on the Internet and cobble something together, but I just thought that was a cop-out. That was a quality control I set for myself.

I didn’t go to the Northern Marianas, which you probably guessed. The guys there, Vince [Stravino] and Peter [Coleman], were fantastically helpful. We exchanged a lot of calls and emails.

But I pretty much met [everyone else]. I went to the Island Games, I went to that tournament on the Isle of Man, I went to Gibraltar, I went to the Wild Cup in Hamburg, I went to the Occitania vs. Cyprus game, I took the whole family down to Montpellier. I went to a couple of NF Board meetings, one in London and one in the Hague.

Northern Cyprus and Zanzibar face off in the 2006 FIFI Wild Cup final (photo: FIFI/Corbis)

I went to the [2006 ELF Cup in] Northern Cyprus, which was a great bonus. They wanted to invite some journalists out there and they invited me and the guy who did the photographs for the book. That was great because the problem was the cost. I could have blown the advance I got for the book just going to the Falklands. You kind of had to have an imaginative way.

I also got some commissions. I did a thing for Guardian Unlimited about the Sami Cup. The great thing about that is that I’m in the journalist union and I was flipping through the magazine. There was a little ad in the bottom corner that caught my eye. It said that the Norwegian Embassy in London funds journalists’ trips to Norway. At the time I was thinking, “How am I going to get to Lapland? I’m never to be able to find another magazine to pay me to go up there.” I got in touch with a guy at the Norwegian Embassy and he said, “Right, when do you want to go?”

I had to make each thing pay. I wasn’t going to lose money going anywhere. It was more fun that way anyway.

Do you have an overall goal for the book?

I kind of wanted to try and look at how nationality is defined on the football pitch. I come from the UK and to most other places, it’s Great Britian. To us, we’re all English or Scottish or Welsh or from Northern Ireland. I live in a place that isn’t a country to the rest of the world, but it’s a country to us. In terms of football and rugby union, it’s a country.

I knew that I’d end up asking more questions than I answered. But I thought maybe it would just be a way of exploring it and writing something that will make people think in the way it made me think.

What are some of the questions you think you’ve asked?

I suppose, what is nationality? What is that, really? The Tibetian [player Karma Samdup] said: “It’s just a passport and you travel on that passport.” Or the Greenlanders. To them, [Greenland] is a place, [it’s] a country. It’s almost the same as the Faroes, who are in FIFA. There are certainly anomalies and there’s so much madness. It’s all about politics at the end of the day as much as anything else. There’s that idea that sport and politics shouldn’t mix. But clearly, they’re tightly intertwined.

Would you like to see the countries you profiled get into FIFA?

When I started telling people I was doing the book, they all kind of thought I was writing some kind of manifesto. I was never doing that. You couldn’t conceivably have the Falklands playing against Argentina even if [FIFA] let them in, which they never would. It would be ludicrous.

I think some of the places need more help than others. Certainly, Greenland deserves more sympathy than others because it’s been practically abandoned. They couldn’t go [to the Island Games last year] because they didn’t have the money to send the men’s and the women’s team and they thought it was about time the women got to go. They had played in every Island Games since 1989, but they had no money so they said, “Right, let’s let the women go” and [the men] stayed home. That seems madness really.

Greenland (in red) and Zanzibar face off in the 2006 FIFI Wild Cup (photo: FIFI/Corbis)

I don’t think they can all go in, but some of them, like Greenland and Gibraltar, they only want to play amateur football. They don’t want to play in the World Cup qualifiers; they don’t want to play in the Champions League. That was never really their ambition. I think they just wanted some help with the football they were organizing and they weren’t getting any.

Did you ever feel like you were ever covering teams that were too amateurish to warrant your covering them?

Some of the things with the NF Board were more about making a statement. A Lapland journalist, for example, told me that, in his opinion, a West Papuan team had no intention of ever turning up [to the 2006 Viva World Cup]. That was a bit amateurish.

And the Sami team that went out there murdered everyone because they had a lot of good players. They had people who had played international football at the under-21 level. So yeah, some of those teams, you feel, there’s got to be a real team, there’s got to be some basis to it rather than just a political stunt. Some of the teams didn’t have enough substance, but maybe if they got going long enough, they would have some substance.

Clearly, these teams aren’t going to win the World Cup. What, then, do you see as the value of your book?

They’re not going to win the World Cup, that’s true. But if you take some of the teams that are in FIFA, say Luxembourg. It’s 300,000 people, they’re not going to win the World Cup. I think they won a competitive match last year for the first time in 10 years. But they’ve been playing a long, long time. Luxembroug played in the early Olympic games. I think in the mid-1960s they knocked Holland out of the European Championships when it was a two-legged tie. Every dog has its day.

The nature of competition is that someone’s going to win and someone’s going to be last. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing golf or if you’re playing football. Someone’s got to be Arsenal and someone’s got to be Derby, and that’s just the nature of it. But you can’t go around and say, “Derby are really crap so let’s drop them” because maybe next year Derby will be better.

I think if you give people a chance, there’s a chance they’ll improve. I think if you cut them off, which is what’s been done to some of these places, then [the level of play] will just dissipate.

Who were some of the most interesting people you met while working on Outcasts?

I think some of the NF Board people. They’re very interesting. [President] Jean-Luc [Kit] is a very interesting guy. The Sami guy, Leif Isak Nilut, too, when he’s up on stage doing one of his yoiks.

President of the Sami FA, Leif Isak Nilut, in traditional clothing (photo: NRK.no)

And some of the Greenlandic people, too. It’s quite a harsh world out there. There are 15 kilometers of road in the capital and none of them go anywhere.

Probably the best thing about the book was that I met a lot of really interesting people and everyone was really interested in talking to [me]. That was one of the joys of doing the book. [I’d] ring someone up and they’d say, “Yeah, I’d love to speak to you.” The response from people was fantastic.

Do you see potential for change on FIFA’s part in terms of which countries they’ll let in?

UEFA have taken a reasonable stance and said, “You’ve got to be in the UN.” Whereas FIFA have just said, “You’ve got to be in the international community.” They don’t say what international community. It’s whatever international community they want it to be.

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