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.

In recent years, several I the ranks of these converts to Islam have come from the world of soccer. Most have come from France, the country with the largest Muslim population in Europe.

The two most well-known French converts to Islam are Bolton’s Nicolas Anelka and Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery. In 2004, Anelka spoke of his growing interest in Islam.

The Muslim religion interests me. When I’m in Trappes (the neighborhood where he grew up), I hang out with Muslims and we discuss it a lot. In the summer we’re outdoors until 4am, so we have the time to talk. I listen to them in order to understand and learn, just like Roberto Baggio on Buddhism. It opens your mind and the subject fascinates me, just like astronomy does.

Anelka did eventually convert, taking the name Abdul-Salam Bilal (though he is rarely referred to as such).

Nicolas Anelka during his time at Manchester City (photo: BBC)

Anelka’s teammate on the national team Franck Ribery has made headlines this year due to his stellar play with new club Bayern Munich. The French winger, whose former clubs include Galatasaray and Olympique Marseille, is as gifted as he is shy. Though he rarely talks to the media, he did say in 2006 of his conversion, “[a]s a kid, I spent all my time with Muslims. It is my choice. No one told me to do it. I prefer to keep my reasons to myself.”It is known that Ribery’s wife, who is French of Moroccan descent, played a role in his conversion to Islam. Since converting, Ribery has often displayed his piety on the field, as John Lichfield wrote in the Independent in 2006: “He raises his hands to Allah before every match: something that goes down fine in Istanbul or Marseilles but was less appreciated during his brief periods in Metz and Brest.”

Franck Ribery (photo: Tiscali)

Anelka and Ribery are not alone. Graham Spiers wrote in The (Glasgow) Herald in 2005 that “Ribery joined a trend in young French society by converting to Islam. Jacques Faty and Julien Faubert, two other prominent young French footballers, have done the same.

Two French coaches have also become Muslims. Perhaps not surprisingly, they are men who have spent much of their careers traveling the world to ply their trade, including in mainly Muslim countries. Fabio-look alike Bruno Metsu rose to fame by leading Senegal to success at the 2002 World Cup. During his time coaching in West Africa, “Metsu had to convert to Islam to marry Rokhaya ‘Daba’ Ndiaye, and a fair part of the Senegalese press now calls him Abdul Karim.”

The manager with the loveliest hair, Bruno Metsu (photo: Asian Football Confederation)

Philippe Troussier is known by his nickname “The White Witch Doctor” due to his success managing several teams in Africa. After a stint coaching Japan at the 2002 World Cup, Troussier returned to Africa as manager of Morocco. He was fired from this job after only two months, but decided to remain in the country with his wife. In 2006, both Troussier and his wife converted to Islam, taking the new names Omar and Amina (hers had been Dominique). The currently unemployed manager recently spoke to a TV station about his conversion (they term it a reversion), but your French will have to be better than mine if you want to understand exactly what he had to say.

Brought to you by www.mytestking.biz

Time is money and money is everything. So save money and time by using our 70-515 study guide, MB3-215 material, cwna dumps product, 642-617 dumps, and 000-118 dumps for respective exams

An African witch doctor (photo: Moonbattery.com)

In the summer of 2006, for example, a story came out which suggested that the Angolan national team was going to bring a witch doctor to the upcoming World Cup (manager Luis Oliveira Goncalves denied his team was going to receive any supernatural assistance).

The 2000 African Cup of Nations was tarred by suspicious events in the quarter-final between Senegal and Nigeria in which

… a former official of the Nigerian FA raced on to the pitch and seized a ‘charm’ that had been lying in the back of the Senegal net. Senegal protested, but to no avail, and Nigeria went on to score twice and win. The official was subsequently banned, but his action was seen as hugely significant in Nigeria’s progress.

African Soccer magazine once ran a “10-page investigation into witchcraft in football, detailing animal sacrifices, self-mutilation, casting of spells, lucky charms, odious concoctions and a one-hour delay at an international match while teams argued about who would be first to step on to the pitch.”

This phenomenon is not limited to Africa. Before each game at the 2006 World Cup, “Mexico’s grand wizard carrie[d] out two rituals a day for the country’s … team, invoking ‘Holy Death’ in front of a plastic skeleton to protect them and bring them luck.”

Ecuador’s national team brought along Tzamarenda Naychapi, described by the Guaridan as a witch doctor-cum-shaman-cum-priest-type-fella, although his juju wasn’t that powerful, as his team were knocked out by England in the round of 16.

Tzamarenda Naychapi is also a hit with the ladies (photo: AP/ Franka Bruns)

It’s easy to see these practices as strange, but are they? Soccer players and fans may do so in different ways, but don’t people around the world do strange things to help their team?

Take the act of players crossing themselves, which many do so as they enter the field, after missing a shot, or after scoring a goal. This act is intended to bring the player good fortune or to give thanks to God for having received the strength to score a goal, etc.

There are also a multitude of pre-game rituals that Westerners carry out to help their team’s cause. In his book The Soccer Tribe, Desmond Morris discusses several of what he calls these “soccer superstitions.” He writes about players always stays at the same hotel when playing away, a team that always plays a round of golf before a match, and even a player who required his wife to wash the windows on match day as “she was doing just that when he last had a great game” (151).

Pre-game rituals alone are worthy of a book (Morris writes “of one hundred soccer superstitions, collected at random, no fewer than 40 per cent were concentrated in the pre-match dressing room”). They include always lacing up boots in a prescribed order, always entering the field first or last, and wearing a lucky charm during a match (FIFA’s recent crack down on jewelry has made this more difficult).

Holland’s Ruud Krol with his lucky necklace at the 1978 World Cup (photo: BBC)

Shoes, not surprisingly, play a central role in many soccer superstitions. Cameron Kippen at the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia writes that “In 1908 when goal-scoring ace, George Hedley played for Woverhampton Wanderers he scored a goal against Newcastle causing one of his favourite boots to split. Despite being offered a new pair Hedley steadfastly refused and saw the game to completion with one tattered boot. The player had his favourite boots patched up at least 17 times before eventually and somewhat reluctantly parting with them.”

The most recent, and most hilarious, incarnation of the soccer superstition was Stuart Pearce and his lucky mascot, Beanie the Horse. Given to him by his daughter when he was manager of Manchester City, Pearce placed his equine buddy in the technical area, claiming it brought his team luck (Psycho lost his job later that season, so perhaps it wasn’t that lucky).

Stuart “Psycho” Pearce (right) and Beanie the Horse (left) (photo: BBC)

Western soccer superstitions make sense to us Westerners (well, maybe not Beanie the Horse). Crossing oneself, for example, makes complete sense in a society rooted in Christianity, but to someone unfamiliar with Western ways it would be as strange as witch doctors often appear to us. As Horace Miner points out in his classic essay Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, nearly all cultural practices appear odd if one does not understand the context in which they exist. It is easy to see a practice like those employed by African players and fans as something as “foreign” and “strange”; it is far more difficult to recognize how similar it is to our own actions.The practices of African witch doctors and Stuart Pearce may seem very different, but they both have the same goal: to help one’s own team win. The means may be very different, but the ends are identical.

Desmond Morris’s words could describe players in any part of the world.

[Players] seek additional aid of a kind their trainers and managers cannot give them – the supernatural aid of superstitious practices. They have no idea how such actions can help, but they perform them all the same, ‘just in case’. They frequently call them ridiculous and stupid, but they dare not omit them (150).

Brought to you by Teeda.com

Brought to you by www.mytestking.biz

Looking for 70-548 and MB3-527 help? Download our oracle dumps and VCP-410 dumps to pass your real exam in a hassle free way of 642-631 dumps.

Carlos Roa, a goalkeeper once rumored to be on his way to Arsenal and Manchester United, shocked the world of football when he announced that he was retiring from the sport because his religion wouldn’t allow him to train or play on Saturdays. But the shock didn’t end there. Roa also announced that he was convinced that the coming of the millennium would bring an end to the world.

He told Argentine sports paper Olé, “The year 2000 is going to be difficult. In the world, there is war, hunger, plague, much poverty, storms, floods … I can assure you that those people who don’t have a spiritual connection with God and the type of life that He wants will be in trouble.” To prove his dedication, the goalkeeper, then on the books of Real Mallorca in Spain, retreated to a farm in the rural Argentine province of Santa Fe to await his fate.

Bible in hand, Roa awaits the end of the world on his farm

Roa is one of a small group of players whose religious beliefs have gotten in the way of their soccer careers (of course, they would claim that the opposite is in fact more accurate). While some players use soccer as a stage on which they can promote their religious beliefs (notably, AC Milan’s Brazilian star and Christian evangelical Kaká), others have more difficulty finding time for both endeavors.

Many of Carlos Roa’s religious beliefs come from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. His insistence on not playing on Saturdays comes from this faith tradition, which observes the Sabbath on this day. (Roa’s nickname, incidentally, is lechuga, the Spanish word for lettuce, because his being a vegetarian – another Adventist belief – stands out in beef-obsessed Argentina.)

It should be noted, however, that Roa moved away from strict Adventist beliefs (he now refers to himself simply as a Christian”). His belief that the millennium would bring the end of the world, for example, was shared by few in that church.

When the millennium arrived without incident (heck, even Y2K was a dud), Roa found himself in a predicament. He had once been a soccer star (he famously saved David Batty’s penalty kick in the 1998 World Cup to help Argentina advance), but now was just a Chicken Little living on an Argentine farm. The man who said on announcing what turned out to be a short-lived retirement, “If I go back [to football], I’d be defrauding God” needed a job and he swallowed hard. Roa returned to Mallorca, then moved to Albacete before going back to Argentina to play for Olimpo.

Roa saves Batty’s penalty kick

Taribo West is another player with a passion for his religion. The Nigerian defender of many and often-changing hairstyles grew up in the slums of Lagos and might have ended up a gangster had his footballing talents not taken him to Europe. A career as a professional player gave West great wealth, but he rejected it and the materialism he saw around him. He instead turned to religion, becoming a born-again Christian. While in Milan (where he played for both AC and Inter) in the late 1990s, West became a pastor and founded a church, called Shelter from the Storm Ministry, which caters mainly to West African immigrants.

Taribo West, doing his best to make David Beckham’s hairstyles look classy

West left Milan in 2000, but continued to return to the city to preach in his church. While playing for Derby County he often jetted off to Milan without letting his club know of his whereabouts, angering his employers After being transferred to Kaiserslauten, Taribo West refused to go to a Sunday morning training session, instead visiting his congregants in Italy. Kaisterslauten didn’t take kindly to Pastor West’s priorities and sacked him, to which the defender replied, “The Lord is more important to me than a football club.” (He then petulantly added in a most non-pastorial diatribe, “Kaiserslautern wanted me to come in the day after a match and I said to them ‘let me face my maker’. But they wouldn’t because Germans are selfish and stupid.”)

Recently, Spain has seen two instances in which religion has affected players in La Liga. Neither have been forced to miss games like Roa and West, but both have questioned (or had questions asked for them) whether they should play under circumstances that conflict with their religious beliefs.

Fredi Kanoute, a devout Muslim, claimed that wearing Sevilla’s uniform was an affront to his religion. Kanoute’s (halal) beef was with the team’s sponsor, online gambling company 888 (gambling is a sin under Islam). Kanoute said, “Gambling is the work of Satan. It is forbidden by the Koran and I will not play in a shirt that promotes it.” Kanoute taped over the uniform sponsor in protest of this affront to his religion.

Kanoute with a (fairly horrible) tape job on the Sevilla’s Satanic jersey sponsor

Hell hath no fury like a sponsor scorned and Sevilla realized they had to come to a compromise that would please both 888 and Kanoute. Eventually they settled on a charitable donation made to a cause supported by Kanoute in exchange for the Malian striker “doing Satan’s work” (perhaps it’s this diabolical boost that’s taken his goal tally 26 this season).

The devil is on his chest

Dudu Aouate’s conflict between sport and religion is not of his own making. Unlike all of the players above, the Israeli goalkeeper has tried to keep the two separate, but that has seen him mired in controversy, albeit created by others.

Aouate is an Israeli goalkeeper currently playing for Deportivo La Coruña. This past October, he faced a dilemma when his team’s match against Real Sociedad was scheduled for the night of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. The holiday, which calls on Jews to take leave of their normal activities in order to fast and pray, would conflict with shot-stopping and the like. But Aouate was eager to be flexible in his observance of Yom Kippur in order to play in the game. He suggested extending his observation an hour or two later the next night in order to make up for time lost to observance during the game.

Dudu Aouate

Aouate did eventually play versus Real Sociedad and this caused a minor uproar in Israel. Some Orthodox Jews called for him to be removed from the national team. A conservative member of the Israeli Knesset, Yaakov Margi, did the same, saying, “Someone who plays on Yom Kippur grossly tramples the values of the Jewish people and is not worthy of representing the country.” Aouate took the criticism in stride and the controversy has since died down. The goalkeeper continues to represent his country and has recently been named captain.

Soccer connoisseurs worldwide are familiar with the passion at Boca Juniors matches, where the players’ entrance is greeted with enough toilet paper to wipe the asses of a small country.

The scene at Boca Juniors’ La Bombonera Stadium

Instead of focusing on Boca Juniors or another well-known Argentine team, filmmakers Elias Diaz and Ronen Strier chose to make a documentary about a fourth division team. Sacachispas, the team which gives the movie its name, might seem to share little in common with Boca Juniors, but Diaz and Strier show that the passion for which Argentines are known is not confined to the top teams of Argentine soccer.

Filmmakers Diaz and Strier

The passion that surrounds Sacachispas is evident early in the movie, when the filmmakers interview Antonio Tussia, the team’s first ever goalscorer. As Tussia tries to explain what Sacachispas means to him, he begins to cry. He apologizes and explains his tears: “Sacachispas is in my blood. It’s immortal to me.” Tussia was around at the beginning of Sacachispas. The team was founded in 1948 by some residents of the Villa Soldati neighborhood to play in the soon-to-be inaugurated Perón Cup. In the sixty years since its founding, the team has not lost its connection to the neighborhood. In fact, the connection may have grown stronger. One local resident and fan says that “the neighborhood and Sacachispas are the same.”

Villa Soldati is one of the many shanty towns surrounding Buenos Aires. Like other villas, Soldati has high levels of poverty. Many of the iron sheet and cardboard shacks that originally made up the neighborhood still exist amidst the high-rise apartment buildings that now make up its landscape. Mud takes over the unpaved streets when it rains. The poor conditions in Soldati are a testament to recent progress in Argentina’s economy has yet to filter throughout the entire population.

Rather than be ashamed at their poverty, fans of Sacachispas draw their identity from it. They sing a song whose lyrics say,

I was born in a shany town
Made of iron sheet and carboard
I’m from the neighborhood of Soldati
I support the lilac [the color of Sacachispas] and Perón

Sacachispas may draw small crowds, but those who show up are incredibly passionate. The flags fans construct, the hours of drumming, and the endless chants show their dedication to the team.

Sacachispas fans don’t let the run-down stadium deter them from supporting their team

Some Sacachispas fans take their passion too far. As Villa Soldati residents, they feel strong resentment towards more prosperous Argentines, both in football in life. One fan, taking a page from the Millwall school of diplomacy, says “nobody likes us and we don’t like them.”

Sacachispas fans often act on this animosity in reprehensible ways. They boast of fights with opposing supporters and keep a fence festooned with flags stolen after such battles. One Sacachispas fan says that if anyone tries to steal his flag, they’ll have to kill him first.

Another supporter says that murder is not a hypothetical matter, and claims to have helped kill three opposing fans. The fans, he says, were chased in between the high rises, where old women dropped flower pots on their heads. The Sacachispas supporters, he says, pounced on them and finished the job.

If Sacachispas players have an excess of passion, it can be seen in the sacrifices they make in order to play for the team. Despite the second jobs almost all have, they live in the same Villa Soldati shacks as supporters of the team. Several mention their hopes of eventually playing at a higher level. Midfielder Gastón Montero says, “I’m a Boca fan. I always wanted to go there. You never stop dreaming, do you?”

A Sacachispas player after a game

The idea of professional soccer is very romantic, but Elias Diaz and Ronen Strier show that, especially for small teams, the reality is not so. While Boca Juniors fans become well known around the world for their support and Boca players earn huge transfer deals to Europe, Sacachispas supporters and players toil away, largely unnoticed. But if fans and players of the two teams share anything in common, it is the one thing that Argentines feel about their fútbol: passion.

Panahi knew that taking on the subject of female football fans in Iran would be controversial, and so tried to make his movie quietly so as to avoid the censors. In an interview, he described how even his best attempts to avoid notice were ultimately unsuccessful.

We tried to be very discreet and avoid any mention in the press. However, five days before the end of the shoot, a newspaper published an article stating I was directing a new film. The military immediately gave orders to interrupt the shoot. We were instructed to bring them our rushes to be verified. I immediately announced to the official in charge of cinema in Iran that this was out of the question, and that I would not allow a single soldier during the final days of the shoot. Luckily, there were only a few scenes left to shoot, inside a minibus, so we just left the military zone and continued filming sixty kilometers outside of Tehran.

But the difficulties Panahi faced from overzealous authorities is nothing compared to those encountered by the subjects of his movie. They are the female football fans who so desperately want to watch Iran play Bahrain in a 2005 match that would decide which team would go to the World Cup.

The movie opens on a bus, as Iranian fans make their way to the Azadi Stadium to see the crucial qualifier against Bahrain. The scene is joyous, with fans hanging out the windows and singing, psyching themselves up for the game. But one fan is more nervous than excited. This fan, it turns out, is a she and shes are not allowed into stadiums in Iran.

The female fan (we never find out names of any of the women in the film) is going in disguise, trying to avoid the glare of police at the stadium. But her cover is blown by her own nervousness and she is taken to a holding pen, along with other female football fans.

It’s in this holding pen, which is really just metal barricades shaped into a rectangle, that the majority of the movie takes place. The action of the movie, if it can be called that, is mostly the captive female fans attempting to persuade their captors to let them watch the game. Those looking for dramatic shots of the action on the field will be sorely disappointed; this is a movie about the repressive realities of contemporary Iranian life that just happens to have a crucial World Cup qualifier as its background.

The Azadi Stadium is as good a place as any to show many of the injustices that exist in Iran today. The rationales that the female fans are given for not being allowed into the stadium are as numerous as they are absurd: women will be harmed by the coarse language in the stadium, they should not be looking at attractive young male players, soccer is just not a women’s game, etc. The most argumentative of the detained female fans points out that Japanese women were allowed in to a game at the same stadium and wonders if “my only problem is I was born in Iran?”

The soldiers who become the women’s captors are hardly enthused with having to keep the fans from watching the game. One soldier is completely disinterested in his work, another continually sneaks peeks at the game, and a third laments that his conscription has taken him so far from his family farm. The root of the problem does not lie with the soldiers; they are merely forced to carry out the unjust laws created by those above them.

That seems to be the point Panahi is most interested in making. Individually, Iranians may support female fans’ right to go to the stadium, but the authorities in the country create a system that forces some citizens to oppress others.

Panahi also clearly hopes that Iranians might take collective action to stop these injustices from occurring. When a female fan escapes from her captor with the aid of some male fans, it is impossible not to see Panahi’s desire that more Iranians take a stand against injustice in their country. As the famous quote goes, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Jafar Panahi

Offside is undoubtedly an interesting, it is not the most engaging movie. Its topic may be unique, but the film itself is all too predictable. The soldier least interested initially in the female fans’ plight comes to see their perspective by the end of the film. The women are detained, but in the end are released onto the streets of Tehran to celebrate with their countrymen and women. Watching Offside, you’ll rarely be surprised by what’s coming next.

The one surprise in the movie is how little soccer there is. Leaving the theater, my friend and I concurred that we would have liked to see shots of what sounded like an intense game. Of course, as we quickly realized, not showing the game was an intentional decision on Panahi’s part and that we had little right to complain. We, two twenty-something American men, had been denied a peek at the game during the ninety-minute movie; women in Iran have been denied the right to watch soccer for their entire lives.

There are many reasons to dislike Diego Maradona. He is a cheater, as anyone who has seen his “Hand of God” goal knows. He was suspended twice for drug use, once in 1991 for cocaine and for ephedrine in 1994. He has never been faithful to his many partners. He is rumored to have connections to the Italian mafia. He is incredibly egotistical and indulges to excess (he had stomach-stapling surgery in 2005 after literally ballooning due to eating a diet comprised exclusively of pizza, steak, pasta and cakes. He is notoriously prickly, having once received a nearly three-year suspended sentence for shooting reporters who sought comment outside his home.

Maradona, large and in charge

Most people with this type of rap sheet would be in jail or in an institution. Not Diego Maradona. He roams free (except for occasional hospital trips he brings upon himself) amidst an Argentine public that adores him.Why, exactly, do Argentines love Diego Maradona?

Much of the explanation for the seemingly illogical adoration of this flawed genius comes from the history of soccer in Argentina. Brought to the country by British sailors, it was initially the purview of the expat aristocracy. But soccer was soon adopted by the masses in Argentina and given its own South American flavor. As the BBC’s Tim Vickery writes:

First, it was introduced by the British, who were very influential in the region, supplying the activity with first world prestige. Second, it was re-interpreted by the South Americans. The straight line running style of the English was replaced by a much more intricate game of feints, twists and turns – ideal for the player with a low centre of gravity, the physical build of many South Americans.

Vickery’s description of the playing style and physical build of South American players fits perfectly with Diego Maradona. Before getting to other factors, it must be said that Maradona is loved for his ability on the field. Maradona’s passing, dribbling, touch and other skills are, in many ways, the Argentine ideal. Watching the incredibly technical Maradona tear apart teams (such as the English) with a more physical approach, Argentines saw their vision of the beautiful game vindicated.

But Argentina’s love affair with Diego Maradona is not just about soccer. It is also about what he represents. Jimmy Burns, author of the biography Hand of God, describes “Maradona as a unique social, political, and religious phenomenon” (viii).

Maradona has become a social phenomenon largely because he enabled Argentines to achieve their dream of taking on and beating the powerful at their own game. Gabrielle Marcotti has written that Maradona represents “one of the oldest archetypes, that of the slave who outfoxes and defeats his master.”

Maradona, representing the poor and deprived masses, brings down the Western Establishment, not with his God-given physical gifts, but with his brainpower, the very attribute that the First World maintains that the underdeveloped savages elsewhere lack.

When he led Argentina to victory over England, Maradona’s countrymen admired him for finally getting one over on their former colonial masters. The way Maradona almost single-handedly defeated England in the 1986 World Cup is memorable. On that day in the Estadio Azteca, he scored two of the most famous goals of all time: the Hand of God as well as a sixty-yard slaloming run that has been voted the best goal of all time. (Current president Nestor Kirchner has said that Maradona “made all Argentines weep with joy.”)

Maradona after winning the 1986 World Cup

Nobody questions Maradona’s genius on the latter goal, but the Hand of God has been viewed very differently in England and Argentina. Writing in the Guardian, Marcela Mora y Araujo describes the difference in views:

To most English people it was a vile piece of cheating. But, although the rules of football disallow such actions, the informal rules of the lawless vacant lots state that anything goes as long as the referee doesn’t say otherwise, especially in Argentina, where such flexibility extends well beyond football.

Mora y Araujo even ascribes a name to Maradona’s creative application of the laws, picadia criolla, which she translates as “creole cheekiness.”

In his biography of Maradona, Jimmy Burns presents an Argentine concept synonymous to picadia criolla, that of viveza. Burns writes:

In Argentina the English concept of fair play is not as popularly recognized or indeed applauded as that of viveza. The word literally means liveliness, but is used to mean craftiness or trickery, and is never used in a derogatory sense (6).

To a culture that has two words to describe rule-bending, it is logical that Diego Maradona would be a hero.

But what of Diego’s many documented problems? Do Argentines not hold his suspensions, marital infidelity, and shooting of unarmed citizens against him? In short, no.

So what accounts for Argentines’ apparent willingness to forgive Maradona for his many sins? I would suggest that it is due, at least in part, to Argentines’ willingness to admit to their own failures. Argentina has the most psychoanalysts per capita of any country. Many residents of Buenos Aires speak of going to their shrink as if it were a trip to the barber. The shame which continues to surround psychotherapy in many countries is less in evidence in Argentina. And a country full of people so aware of their own weaknesses can hardly fault Diego Maradona for his failings.

There are many explanations for why Maradona has become such a revered figure in his homeland. Yet even so, the level of passion his fans show for Diego is incredible. Marcela Mora y Araujo quotes a sports psychologist (appropriately enough) who says that “In Argentina we are addicted to discussing Maradona, He is our drug. It is not him who is ill, it is us.”

The symptoms of this illness are numerous. There are several sites in homage to him. One contains a poem written by a 15 year-old to her idol (“I say thank you for letting me love you / and may I carry your name in my heart until the last second of my life”).

Art can be found in Argentina that shows Maradona in all his glory.

There was a petition before the 2006 World Cup to put Maradona on the Argentine roster (supporters urged the coach to give him “10 minutes of love” in the tournament) and a street in the city of Santa Rosa was named after him.

Maradona’s voice is respected in Argentina, which is a bit of a surprise given how miserably he’s failed at everything except playing soccer. Despite other unsuccessful attempts at management (he was sacked as manager of Racing Club after missing training because he was on an alcohol and drugs ingesting spree), there was a clamor after the 2002 World Cup for Maradona to take over from Marcelo Bielsa. And when Maradona began a TV show called La Noche del Diez (literally, “the night of ten” in reference to his uniform number), it drew nearly one third of the Argentine audience to watch him sing a song called “The Hand of God.”

Claims that a person is viewed as a god are usually an exaggeration, but not in the case of Diego Maradona. A church set up to worship Maradona may attract only a few followers, but the fact that it exists says something about the level of devotion Argentines have to their most famous player.

But it’s not just a few who relate Diego Maradona and the supernatural. As Gabrielle Marcotti writes that some “argue that sections of his fanbase – whether consciously or unconsciously – secretly entertain the notion that he harbours some form of divinity.”

References to Maradona as a god are evident in recent headlines about him.

Un Dios Aparte (A God Apart) detailed Maradona’s recent trip to Argentine second division team Tristan Suarez practice, after which striker Daniel Bazón Vera said, “We take [Maradona] as our guide.” When the team went on to win their next three games, a second article (titled Dios te Ayuda or God Help You) quoted the same striker. “Now we have God on our side,” said Bazón Vera. The article finished with a simple declaration: “and it’s true.”

Another headline which mixed Diego Maradona and God was seen during his most recent trip to the hospital. Headlined Dios es Argentino (God is Argentine), the article detailed Maradona’s recovery from alcohol-induced hepatitis and offered hope that he might attend the Boca vs. River superclásico (he wasn’t able to).

Estudiantes de la Plata players show support recently for Maradona

Of course, Diego Maradona will one day die. Given his lifestyle, the odds that his death will come prematurely are high. Maradona may recover from his latest illness, but it’s only a matter of before he does himself in. Yet even Maradona’s death will not put an end to the devotion many Argentines feel toward him. As Jimmy Burns writes,

The only certainty about Maradona is that when he dies, no matter how he dies, his funeral in Buenos Aires will be as big as Evita’s and even then people won’t believe that he is dead (2).

To most of the world which views him as a supremely talented player, but incredibly flawed person this belief makes little sense. But to the many Argentines who worship Diego Maradona as a god, the idea that he would live forever makes perfect sense.

Kaká’s celebrations initially appear simple. He raises both hands and lifts his head to the sky as he runs away from the goal. But the significance of these gestures is far more than meets the eye and begins to tell the story of one of the world’s most devoted religious soccer players.

Kaká is an evangelical Christian (Brazilian teammates Lucio and Edmilson are as well, but I am focusing on Kaká as he has the highest profile). He told the group Atletas de Cristo that he grew up in an evangelical family. “My parents were already saved and I grew up in the presence of the Lord.”

The young Brazilian’s faith became even stronger after he was baptized into the evangelical Reborn in Christ Church. He told Atletas de Cristo that was “when I began having a relationship of Father to son with God. … [S]omething supernatural happened to me. I can not explain it, but after that experience I got closer to God, more in-tuned with Him.”

Kaká is one of a growing number of evangelical Christians in Brazil. While Kaká’s homeland still has the largest Catholic population of any country in the world, the rise in evangelicals in the past few decades has been phenomenal. A recent article in the Washington Post offers some numbers:

Between 1980 and 2000, the number of those who identified themselves as evangelicals in national census counts doubled, to more than 26 million people in this country of about 185 million. The growth has changed the religious complexion of Brazil, where about 90 percent of residents identified themselves as Catholics in 1980. If the spread of the evangelical denominations continued at the same rate — an unlikely possibility, according to analysts — Catholics would be a minority here within 20 years.

But, as the same Washington Post article details, the rise of evangelical churches in Brazil has not been without controversy. Many of the churches focus on increasing personal wealth along with improving personal spirituality (and in this share many similarities with American evangelicals such as T.D. Jakes). But this monetary focus has made allegations of financial impropriety among church leaders particularly stinging. When Estevam and Sonia Hernandes-Filho, leaders of the a Brazilian evangelical church, were detained by U.S. Customs officials for attempting to bring in large amounts of undeclared cash, it was big news back in Brazil, where the couple is wanted for “siphoning off millions of dollars in followers’ money for personal enrichment.”

Estevam and Sonia Hernandes-Filho

News of the arrest of the Hernandes-Filhos was also notable because they head the Reborn in Christ Church, which counts a certain young man named Kaká among its disciples.The problems at the top of the church, however, have not filtered down to its most famous disciple. Kaká is described as having “impeccable manners and dedication” and has done work with the World Food Programme (see article titled Kaká Able to See Beyond Dollar Signs). He also has strong morals that he lives out in his professional life (the anti-Rooney, if you will): “I will not brawl … I am not supposed to be punching people up on the field or swearing.”

Kaká’s sense of morality also extends to his personal life. He objected to Carlos Alberto Parreira’s decision to allow the Brazilian players to have sex during the 2006 World Cup (maybe if the coach had listened, Brazil would have lived up to their potential). And, in what Alex Bellos said “must be a first for a footballer at his level” proudly declared himself to be a virgin at his 2006 marriage.

But, as defines evangelicals, Kaká is not satisfied to live out the Gospel in his own life. He has actively used his status as a professional athlete to promote his religious agenda. In addition to his more muted arms-raised celebration, Kaká has also made a habit of wearing t-shirts with evangelical messages underneath his uniform, which he exposes after scoring. The shirt he put on after winning the Champions League in 2003, which displayed the phrase “I belong to Jesus” (in English, a language he does not speak) was clearly intended to spreading a message to as wide an audience as possible.

Indeed, Kaká is open about his intentions. In his interview with Atletas de Cristo, he mixes the language of religion and soccer.

To those who already have Jesus: you have made the best choice and are in the best team. Go ahead. Do not give up. The fight is great, but we can only win being on Jesus’ side. To those who have not yet surrendered their lives to Jesus: What are you doing being outside of this team?! Come to learn the Word of God, come to know who God really is.

And, in what was either a prescient piece of advice to his soon-to-become rotund Brazilian teammate Ronaldo, the t-shirt slogan that didn’t make the cut, or his personal message of salvation for humanity, Kaká says, “Stop eating cookies, while God offers us a banquet.”

Brought to you by www.mytestking.biz

If you have failed in certifications exams try once 70-542, MB3-462 product and mcts dumps material. You will recommend onwards as I recommend oracle dumps and 642-654 dumps.

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.”

A recent Adidas advertisement makes the link between soccer and religion

A USA Today headline on Iraqis watching the 2006 World Cup screamed out “When World Cup’s on, the only religion is soccer.” 1970 Brazilian national team captain Carlos Alberto Torres has said that “football in Brazil is like a religion.” Even Italy, home of the Catholic church, has seen its obsession with calcio compared to matters of faith, with the AP describing it as “a country where soccer is a religion for many.”

Some have wondered whether Europe’s rise in soccer attendance and the drop in church-going are related. In a 2002 opinion piece in Rutgers University’s student newspaper, the Daily Targum, Thomas Mitchell asked whether soccer had become “Europe’s substitute religion.”

In pure numbers of adherents to their faith, soccer may actually be more popular than religion. Writing during the 2006 World Cup, Chicago Tribune writer Tom Hundley quantified the comparison:

Christianity, with more than 2 billion believers, ranks second among the major religions of the world. Soccer is first.

Devotees of soccer don’t necessarily see it as competing with religion for their faith. But some religious authorities do.

Some Islamists see the game as a direct threat to their values and have gone to great lengths to restrict it. In 2005, Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan published an anti-soccer fatwa. The fatwa went to great lengths to condemn the world’s most popular sport (including great popularity within the Kingdom of Saud itself). The fatwa is below followed by a few choice morsels of its condemnation.

You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts.

Play in your regular clothes or your pyjamas or something like that, but not coloured shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing.

Do not play in two halves. Rather, play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the corrupted and the disobedient.

Do not call “foul” and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries.

Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Add to this number or decrease it.

Though the fatwa had little impact overall (other religious authorities condemned it roundly), it did seem to play a part in influencing some Saudis to travel to Iraq to wage jihad. These players were influenced most by the part of the fatwa which claimed that soccer should only be used as training for jihad:

If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order better to struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad.

According to a translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),

On August 22, 2005, Al-Watan reported that the soccer players involved in this affair were from the Al-Taif region, and that some of them belonged to the region’s well-known Al-Rashid team.” In another article, Al-Rashid captain Ja’far ‘Attas said that three of his players had left the team. A few days later, team members confirmed that the three had become devout and, under the influence of various fatwas, had begun to believe that soccer was forbidden by religious law.

In the summer of 2006, the World Cup coincided with the rise to power of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia. The Islamist group took control of the lawless country and immediately imposed its views on the population. Like the Taliban had done during its rule, the ICU barred its people from watching soccer. According to Newsweek, “open-air video parlors showing World Cup matches were shut down,” making Somalis among the few people around the world not watching the tournament that summer.

Hassan Dahir Aweys, one of the leaders of the soccer-banning Islamic Courts Union

Not wanting to be outdone by Sunni extremists, Iraq’s radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr issued his own anti-soccer fatwa. Citing the views of his father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sar, and Islamic law (sharia), the young cleric said:

Not only my father but Sharia also prohibits such activities which keep the followers too occupied for worshiping, keep people from remembering [to worship]. Habeebi, the West created things that keep us from completing ourselves (perfection). What did they make us do? Run after a ball, habeebi What does that mean? A man, this large and this tall, Muslim- running after a ball? Habeebi, this ‘goal’ as it is called; if you want to run, run for a noble goal. Follow the noble goals which complete you and not the ones that demean you.

Before returning to Iraq after the US invasion in 2003, Sadr lived in Iran, a country known for barring women from its stadiums. CNN detailed the Iranian policy:

One religious leader, Fazel Lankarani, went further and issued a fatwa against the presence of women in stadiums. Aliabadi, who announced that women would be permitted to attend live games from the start of next season, seemed to backtrack when he told reporters: “The ban on single women still exists and we won’t allow single women to attend any games. Only women who come with their families will be allowed in.” On March 1, Iran’s security forcibly stopped 50 female football fans from attempting to enter Tehran’s Azadi or “freedom” stadium to watch a match between Iran and Costa Rica.

But, as Franklin Foer documents in his book How Soccer Explains the World, passionate fans in Iran have fought against the restrictive rules. Foer tells how the Azadi stadium had, upon Iran’s qualification for the 1998 World Cup, seen thousands of women allowed in to celebrate the achievement (221). The Iranian regime, Foer writes, has a “Roman nose for self-preservation” (219) and going against their own fatwa was not a radical shift in policy, but a temporary move aimed at avoiding confrontation with jubilant fans.

Iranian fans in a special “female-only” section attend a game in 2005

Lest one think that Islam is the only religion to harbor animosity toward soccer, Christianity has its own extremists who critique the sport on religious grounds. Echoing the radical Islamists’ view that sport takes people’s focus away from “higher goals,” the Rev. Metropolitan of Nafpaktos and St. Vlassios Hierotheos of the Greek Hierotheos Vlachos of the Greek Orthodox Church issued this proclamation in 2002:

For many people, soccer is a religion, a worship. Several expressions used are taken from religion. Spectators sit in the stands and their “gods”, the soccer players, contest as another twelve/eleven gods in the field for Victory. Since soccer is considered by many as a new worship, there is certainly their own god, the god of soccer. They pray to this non-existing god.

As anyone who has seen the movie The Cup knows, not all Buddhists love the beautiful game. In the film, based on a true story, boys at a Tibetian Buddhist monestary in the Himalayas work to convince their teachers to allow them to watch the 2002 World Cup final. The outcome of the movie (I don’t want to spoil it but if you can’t figure out what happens at the end of this “feel good” flick something’s wrong with you) gives hope that the religious around the world might see the error in their ways.

From the Korean-language version poster of The Cup

Religious authorities need not see soccer as a threat to their faiths. The young monks who watched Ronaldo toe poke his way to victory have not lost their faith. Soccer is a powerful force loved billions around the world, but it is not powerful enough to challenge true religions.