More than any single person, Arsene Wenger is responsible for Arsenal’s success. It is no coincidence that Wenger has a master’s degree in economics. He gave a fascinating in-depth interview to the Guardian in which he imparts some economic wisdom. “What bothers me is when a club lives beyond its means,” he says, contrasting other clubs with Arsenal’s own steady approach. Wenger also has said recently that, even if he were to receive a large transfer kitty, he’d give it right back because he has worked hard to build his young team and doesn’t want or need new, expensive players. Based on his team’s performance so far this season, you’d have to say he is right.

The “Professor” Arsene Wenger (photo: Who Ate All the Pies)

Across London, new Chelsea manager Avram Grant has been struggling to take on a position for which he is clearly unqualified. Criticism in the English press of the Israeli manager’s appointment and early performance has been loud and harsh. As a result, the Jerusalem Post reported this week that a British law office is considering the possibility of filing suit against some in the media for the “racist overtones” the coverage has supposedly contained. The law office points particularly to an article by Martin Samuels in the Times which discussed the Jewish connection between Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and Grant, and suggested it may be partly responsible for the new manager’s appointment. The idea that this may be grounds for a lawsuit would be laughable in the US. But given the much weaker freedom of speech protections in Britian (see a libel case that Andriy Shevchenko won recently against the Daily Mirror) without the strong protection the First Amendment offers, lawsuits against defamation in the media are much more common in Britain.

Avram Grant (l) talking with Roman Abramovich (photo: Daily Mail)

There are many factors that will most likely lead Avram Grant to fail at Chelsea. But one interesting factor that made some newspapers was the fact that Grant was unable to be with the team in the run-up to his first match (which Chelsea lost to Manchester United 2-0) because it was the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Meanwhile, in Spain, Real Madrid’s Malian midfielder Mahamadou Diarra is fasting during the month of Ramadan. Despite this obstacle, he is still training and playing in matches with the team.

Tim Vickery has written a very interesting column about the controversy in Brazil surround Kerlon, whose “seal” dribbling was brought to an inglorious end by an opponent’s elbow (the player, Coelho, was subsequently suspended for four months). Vickery puts the controversy into context by talking about Brazilian soccer from an anthropological perspective.

The noted Brazilian anthropologist Roberto da Matta has written that unlike European football, the game in his country “is a source of individual expression much more than an instrument of collectivisation”. He continued that it was a battle of “individual wills who seek to escape from the cycle of defeat and poverty”. In a very hierarchical society, the player who comes up with a new trick is a pawn who has turned the tables and become a king. It perhaps helps explain why Brazilian football has come up with so many moments of individual genius – and also why those on the receiving end of the move feel especially humiliated. Their personal defeat is being publicly rubbed into their nose. Kerlon’s problem is that his seal dribble is being viewed as a provocation.

Finally, a question I want to put out in the hopes that someone might offer insight. A recent article by the New Yorker’s brilliant financial writer James Surowiecki (his is about the only financial writing I can stomach) discussed piracy. Surowiecki mentioned that, in 1932 a group of fashion designers sought to punish stores selling knock-off clothing. He writes, “Retailers selling knockoffs were ‘red-carded,’ and [fashion] guild members wouldn’t sell their merchandise to red-carded store.” My question is this: Do the fashion guild red cards have anything to do with their subsequent use in soccer. Former referee Ken Aston is normally credited with the invention of yellow and red cards (they were first used in the 1970 World Cup), having been inspired by a traffic signal. But is their previous use in fashion, some 40 years earlier, at all related to the way red cards have come to be used in soccer?

And some quick hits to finish off:

• The New York Times Goal! blog discusses the positive reaction the Brazilian women’s team was getting in their homeland during the Women’s World Cup. Too bad they lost to Germany today.
• The blog Throughball is beginning a series of posts on old New York Times articles on soccer. Josh begins with one from 1885.
• The Gay World Cup opened in Argentina this past week. In a part of the world not known for being accepting of homosexuality, Argentina in general and Buenos Aires in specific (it allows civil unions) have become destinations for many gay and lesbian tourists.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki welcomes back Hayder Abdul Amir (photo: AP/Hadi Mizban)

First, whoever was in charge of the sound system at the ceremony to welcome home the victorious team played the Saddam-era national anthem, angering some in the delegation (it was a similar to what happened last year when Chinese president Hu Jintao visited the White House and the announcer there asked everyone to stand for the anthem of the “Republic of China,” which in fact refers to Taiwan). Several players walked out of the Iraqi ceremony in protest over what they apparently did not see as an accident.

Those players, though, had at least returned to Iraq. National team captain Younis Mahmoud didn’t even make the trip, saying he feared for his safety if he did set foot in his homeland. He spoke of several friends who had been killed in explaining why he wouldn’t be returning home before calling on the Americans to leave his country. Mahmoud, who is Sunni, said, “I want America to go out. Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn’t invade Iraq and hopefully it will be over soon.”

President Bush attempted to use the Iraqi Olympic team’s success in 2004 for his own propaganda, angering several Iraqi players. Now, it seems, at least one is using his own well-earned fame to make his own political points.

Younis Mahmoud (photo: AP/Achmad Ibrahim)

Haiti is a country that has, in recent years, experienced many of the same conditions as Iraq is facing today: violence, uncertainty, and despair. So, it comes as a pleasant surprise that the island nation, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, is making small steps toward relative prosperity. One of the largest reasons for this success, as NPR’s Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reported this week, is the Brazilian peace-keeping force. Garcia-Navarro says that many Haitians trust them because “they are Brazilian: Haiti is a soccer-mad country, and Brazil is their favorite team.” Perhaps they should consider sending some Brazilian troops to Darfur.

Haitian boys in Port-au-Prince play with a soccer ball while a Brazilian peacekeeper stands behind them (photo: Jean-Cyril Pressoir for NPR)

News came (hat tip to The Offside) this week that the women’s national team of Afghanistan is playing its first game abroad since the fall of the Taliban. It is quite a turnaround in fortunes for the players, who during the years of Taliban rule were not permitted outside the home unaccompanied. Today,

Afghanistan’s female football players wear tracksuits to cover their legs and some wear baseball caps covering their hair. Training sessions are held in Kabul’s sports stadium, where the Taliban used to publicly execute murderers, amputate the limbs of thieves and lash adulterers.

And speaking of soccer in places you don’t expect to find it, the Navajo Times reported this week on the Navajo team preparing for the upcoming Indigenous Soccer Cup. The tournament, which will take place in New Mexico later this month, will feature teams representing many different American Indian tribes.

Malcom Bitsie (R) and Dylan Moriarty, members of Team Navajo, practice for the upcoming Indigenous Soccer Cup (photo: Navajo Times/Donovan Quintero)

A neighbor of mine, who has been a soccer been for decades, told me the other day that he’s almost given up on the sport. “Too much money,” he said. He mentioned Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich as a prime example of the increasing influence of money on the game. I don’t think he read David Conn’s World Soccer profile of Abramovich, which is probably a good thing, given how negatively he was portrayed.

Conn provides some details of how Abramovich made his money (essentially, he bought a state-owned oil interest at an incredibly low price in exchange for favors for former president Boris Yeltsin, then sold the interest back to the Russian government under Vladimir Putin at an incredible profit). The way in which former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s earned the money he used to buy Manchester City doesn’t appear much more murky than Abramovich’s path to wealth and Chelsea. Just as many in Thailand claim Thaksin is stealing their money to buy a team, so too do many Russians hold Abramovich in low regard, along with the other oligarchs who earned their money in similar ways.

“The vast majority of Russians believe the oligarchs stole those assets,” explains Vyacheslav Nikonov, of the Polity Foundation think-tank in Moscow. “There is huge resentment of them and the unequal society we now have as a result.”

Chelsea fans, on the other hand, seem simply happy to have a sugar daddy and the unprecedented success his rubles are bringing.

Some quick hits to finish off:

• Thaksin Shinawatra’s money may be slightly dirty, but at least he’s bringing some “culture” to his new club. Fans at last night’s friendly against Valencia were to be treated to a concert from “20-year-old Thai R&B singer Saranrat Wisutthithada, who goes under the stage name Lydia.” And the post-match meal for the Man City board and players was to include a spread of Thai dishes. “They will have first-hand experience of the delicious taste of Thai food,” spokesman Noppadon Pattama said.

Thai pop star Lydia (photo: asianfanatics.net)

• Snoop Dogg and Thierry Henry are apparently buddies. Well, at least, Henry attended a recent Snoop concert in which the rapper wore a Barcelona shirt with the Frenchman’s name on the back. On the front, of course, is a UNICEF logo, a charity to which I’m sure Snoop has donated much money.
• Boston United has a great strategy: sign prison inmates. Note to Glen Johnson: nick as many toilet seats as you want, Chelsea can always get you out of prison on game day.
• And in case you aren’t a supporter of Dartford FC and know about this already, I recommend you check out the post on Some People are on the Pitch about their new “green” stadium.

An architect’s rendering of Dartford’s Prince’s Park (photo: Some People are on the Pitch)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some quick hits to finish off:

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

Let’s start with David Beckham. Surely, you’ve read a story or two (or sixty) about his coming to the US (even my non-soccer liking friend watched Posh’s reality show on NBC and said it was “hilarious” – although probably not in the way she intended it to be funny).

But did you hear the public radio show Marketplace’s take on Becks’ arrival? Or how about NPR’s show News and Notes, in which host Farai Chideya and Newsweek entertainment writer Allison Samuels discuss how Beckham is perceived in Britian’s black community (quite positively, even calling him “an honorary black man” a la Bill Clinton) and whether he will appeal to African-Americans. Even Steven Colbert offered his take on Beckham, naming him “Alpha Dog of the Week” for earning a huge salary and then not practicing (albeit because he was hurt).

In the US, there were some interesting non-Beckham stories as well. The Washington Post did a story on a girls soccer team from the DC area that traveled to South Africa. While there, the teenage players taught South African girls the sport and also learned about the realities of a country where it is believed that 1 in 10 people have HIV / AIDS.

DC Blast player Anna Rassman with several South African players (photo: Alice Keeney/Washington Post)

American girls, like those on this DC Blast, are fortunate in that they live in a culture which encourages them to play sports. Around the world, girls are often discouraged from doing so, and this issue came up among a group of Ethiopian-Americans at a recent event in Dallas. As the Dallas Morning News reported, a mother is suing the Ethiopian Sports Federation for not including girls in their annual soccer tournament (in contrast, the Afghan Sports Federation this year had girls at this year’s Afghan Cup).

This week was Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday. A soccer match was organized to celebrate the occasion, which was attended by famous players and celebrities. The event brought out some interesting stories about how former prisoners on Robben Island, where Mandela spent nearly 20 years, organized soccer games. A movie is even being made about the prisoners who fought to have the right to play matches (Mandela, in solitary confinement was not able to participate). The public radio program The World also covered the event and spoke with Anant Singh, the director of the forthcoming movie, which will be called More Than Just a Game.

The soccer field at Robben Island (photo: Charles Korr)

Iraq’s national team has been doing quite well in this year’s Asian Cup (far better than the country itself). The New York Times reported this week on the team’s success and the way it is bringing together all of Iraq’s ethnic groups.

For Iraqis the success of the soccer team — a 22-member squad with Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds — evokes the old days, a time before sectarianism began to tear the country apart. It offers a moment of national pride and fosters the hope that the country, like the team, can look beyond its differences.

“The Iraqi team is the only thing that is uniting us now,” said Haiydar Adnan, 29, a Shiite. “When the Iraqi team wins a game, the people in Karkh, who are Sunnis, get happy, the people in Rusafa, who are Shiites, get happy.”

“I hope that the Iraqi politicians would look at these simple football players who managed to unite the Iraqi people and learn from them,” Mr. Adnan said.

Iraqi fans watch their team’s game against Oman (photo: Karim Kadim/Associated Press

And at the same time that the national team is competing in the Asian Cup, a team of Iraqi refugees living in Jordan was invited to take place in the Interreligious Peace Sports Festival, a tournament being held in Korea to promote tolerance.

But not all the soccer-related news from Iraq is positive, unfortunately. The national team’s success has led to Iraqis shooting guns in the air in celebration. After the team beat Vietnam in the quarterfinals, this celebratory act proved deadly, as three people were killed and around fifty injured due to this celebratory gunfire. I’m all for respecting different culture’s unique ways of doing things, but don’t people realize that Newton’s discoveries apply everywhere and that bullets that go up must, in the end, come down?

Finally, a few quick hits to finish off:

• Sadly, death also came to some children playing soccer in Somalia. Six were killed in Mogadishu as they played close to a building hosting a peace conference that had mortars fired on it.
• Soccer came up in an article about Google’s economic prospects. Some setbacks as the company led one analyst to suggest that the company had scored an “own goal.” You know soccer has arrived in America when financial analysts are using its terminology in their work.
• And while Bush and pals do their best to shield their eyes from global warming, other countries are doing their best to combat the problem. In the German city of Freiburg, for example, there is a boom in green building that includes the local stadium being fitted for solar panels.

Solar panels sit atop the Badenova stadium (photo: Winfried Rothermel / AP)

To me, the most interesting thing about Beckham’s presentation ceremony is that LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa showed up and got booed. Why would Angelinos boo their own mayor? Well, it turns out that Villaraigosa is a fan of LA’s other team, Chivas USA.

Two teams, two female companions, what’s the problem? (Credit: Andrea Canales / Sideline Views Blog)

According to Andrea Canales, when Chivas USA began its life in 2005 Villaraigosa declared them “LA’s team” despite the fact that the Galaxy had been around since 1996. Galaxy fans, rightly it would seem, saw Villaraigosa’s appearance at the press conference as “riding the coattails of the team’s big moment when he doesn’t support them.” The mayor, who recently announced that he is divorcing his wife of over 20 years and has a relationship with a news reporter who (conveniently) broke the story of his divorce, was asked by one fan, “Is your girlfriend here?”

One other American story: The Dallas Morning News has an interesting story about the local team, FC Dallas, struggling to attract Hispanic fans. The obvious solution is to sign a marquee Hispanic player (see Cuauhtemoc Blanco), but the team is attempting to balance potential signings’ marketing potential with what they might actually add on the field.

Iraq is suffering back home, with countless bombings each day killing scores of innocent people. But their national team beat Australia in the Asian Cup. Iraq has a good soccer pedigree, but one would forgive them for not doing well in this year’s tournament, given the situation in their country. For whatever reason, the team has been able to block out all of the horrors occurring at home and beat one of the pre-tournament favorites. How do you say congratulations in Arabic?

Iraqi players celebrate their victory over the Aussies

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel kicked off a so-called Integration Summit on Thursday with a match between Christian priests and Sunni Muslim clerics in Berlin. Roger Boyes writes in the Times:

The Clash of Civilisations ended at the weekend with the Christians thrashing the Muslims by six goals to two. While religious extremists set off bombs across the world, Berlin decided to settle the matter on the football field: ordained priests shed their cassocks and outplayed a team of unhappy-looking Sunni clerics. Boys from the Jewish community acted as linesmen and even the professional referee looked like a grey-bearded Old Testament prophet.

The match was played in a spirit of tolerance (Boyes writes that “[t]he first Muslim goal was a dubious affair that seems to have been allowed purely as an ecumenical gesture”), but was not without difficulties. One of the organizers said, “It was a problem finding an appropriate day for the match. Friday is out for the Muslims, Saturday is out for the rabbis and we’re rather busy on Sundays.”

I have to admit, I haven’t read it yet, but the Vanity Fair piece on Didier Drogba and his role in bringing peace to Ivory Coast looks fascinating.

The Copa America is due to wrap up later today with a classic final between Argentina and Brazil. And while the tournament will soon be over, it may spur greater long-term interest in soccer in Venezuela. Andrew Downie writes at the Christian Science Monitor this week about how the Venezuelan national team (the vino tinto) has earned respect and promoted interest in soccer in the country, long a bastion of baseball. It’s always struck me as a bit odd that the two most Anti-American countries in Latin America (Venezuela and Cuba) are unabashed baseball fanatics.

Venezuelan fans at this year’s Copa America

The Monitor also has a short note of interest about the Argentina vs. Colombia match, or more specifically the protests during the game:

Andrew was surprised to hear fans chanting against President Hugo Chávez. “Many fans sang ‘This government is going to fall,’ ” says Andrew. In response, Venezuelan officials tried to divert attention by shooting off fireworks, then by appealing for the Mexican Wave on the electronic scoreboard. “When that didn’t work, they broadcast static on the PA system to drown out the protests,” he says. Finally, Argentina scored a goal and that diverted attention back to the game.

Finally, the most interesting story of the week was about a tournament in Norway of the indigenous Nordic tribe called the Sami. They are spread across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia and people from all players countries attended the recent tournament that Steve Menary covered for the Guardian. One team was called the Karasjok Reindeer Herders Assocation, but lest you think there are no good Sami players, Menary points out that Blackburn Rovers winger Morten Gamst Pedersen is a member of this ethnic group (he, unfortunately, had other engagements and couldn’t attend the Sami Cup). Menary also has a book coming out soon called Outcasts!: The Lands that FIFA Forgot, about “national teams,” like that of the Samis, that don’t really exist.

A member of the Sami Nordic tribe (and a reindeer)

Some quick hits to finish off:

• The Global Game blog discusses Soccer in the Streets, a grassroots program to bring soccer to the inner-city in Atlanta. They also have a podcast with the executive director of the program and one player.
• The blog Soccernista asks whether the best American athletes are going into soccer and whether we would be better off if they were.
• Luton Town arranged a friendly with a team in the Turkish-controlled part of Cyprus, which caused a diplomatic incident. From The Offside.
• And the blog 200 Percent has a great piece on football economics. The author writes that “The thing about football’s version of free market is this – they reap all the advantages of the free market, suffer very few of the pressures of it, yet still manage, somehow, to make a complete hash of being economically successful.”

Wayne Rooney sports the AIG logo

A lot of the reason Manchester United built its brand in the 1990s was because of a certain David Beckham in their ranks. Evidence of Beckham’s marketability came this week when Real Madrid announced that the England midfielder had earned the club 300 million pounds. “Madrid reportedly sold one million shirts within the first six months of Beckham’s arrival and the money continued to roll in over the course of his contract at the Bernabeu.” Suddenly, the enormous salary Beckham will soon be earning with the Galaxy sounds like it could be a bargain.

Indeed, there is evidence that Beckham’s salary has already been recouped and more by the Galaxy. According to CNN Money, “[h]is base salary of $5.5 million for this year, a MLS record, has already been covered by increased revenue for the Galaxy.” The writer, Chris Isidore, cites some interesting stats about Beckahm’s marketability in the US, including the fact that over 50% of Americans know who he is (21% know Tim Duncan, 9% are familiar with Landon Donovan). Soccer teams such as Manchester United, Real Madrid, and now the Galaxy have all tried to improve their marketing, but none can match the all-conquering Beckham brand.

Seriously, how can you compete with this?

Many have suggested that Beckham is coming to a country of complete soccer novices. It seems that the less familiar such “experts” are with American soccer, the more likely they are to criticize it. So it’s refreshing to hear a foreigner not only praise, but really take the time to get to know the diversity of American soccer. Simon Kuper, author of the classic Football Against the Enemy, turned his weekly Financial Times column to American soccer. Kuper points out that soccer is the most popular sport for kids and that immigration is only increasing the numbers of players. He writes that immigrants are among the “nearly 20 [million] Americans played soccer at least once” last year.Ultimately, Kuper makes a point that I’ve long thought sensible. To be successful, American soccer need not overtake the other big sports; it merely needs to find a place to co-exist with them. Kuper writes that this level of support is not unlike that seen in Europe: Only a tiny minority of Americans watch soccer in the stadium but then so do only a tiny minority of British or Italian fans.”

Kuper, however, is not blind to the racial disparities in American soccer and points out that “[m]oms tend to see soccer as an innocent game, free of certain aspects of modern America: ?not violent, not drenched in money, and not very black.”

The touchy subject of race in soccer also came up in Steven Wells’s interesting piece, Bend it Like Janiah, about an African-American girls’ team called the Monarchs in inner-city Philadelphia. Wells mirrors Kuper’s comment about soccer being a way for wealthy, white families to segregate themselves. He quotes sociology professor Paul Kooistra, who says, “Competitive youth soccer in the United States is really the middle-class equivalent of dressage or polo. It provides a way middle-class parents can separate themselves and their children from lower social classes and minorities.”

The team Wells profiles is an all African-American team that plays in an area wracked by violence, drugs, and poverty. That the Monarchs exist is a minor miracle; that it is one of the only inner-city soccer teams in the United States is a major shame.

Andrea Canales used the Chicago Fire’s hiring of Juan Carlos Osorio to bring up a similar “sensitive topic – the ethnicity of players and coaches in the league.” Writing at her Sideline Views blog, Canales says,

Basically, it’s my contention that, (although I don’t really know all the coaches of the league personally) no one is looking to discriminate. Soccer is the world’s most international game, and both coaches and players are actually some of the most widely-traveled people who work regularly with a amazingly diverse group.

That said, I also believe that coaches feel comfortable with what’s familiar. They’re not going to stray too far from the roots of the style that they know and understand

Canales goes on to contrast MLS’s “honest, direct and hardworking approach” with the “varied and often more creative” style used in Latin America, and wonder whether players and coaches who value the latter style may be ignored. Hopefully, Osorio’s appointment is a sign of things changing.

Meanwhile, the Copa America keeps providing interesting storylines. As I discussed last week, this tournament was always going to be a chance for Hugo Chavez to burnish his image. It is perhaps not too surprising, then, to learn that many of the tickets to the games were given to Chavez supporters. How else would it have been possible to carry this out?

Kim Jong Il, eat your cult-of-personality-loving heart out

Until it crashed out against Uruguay yesterday, the Venezuelan team had done quite well. Qualifying for the second round was an achievement for a team that is normally the laughing-stock of South America. The only thing that made this achievement sweeter was the fact that Chavez’s enemy, the Americans, had done so poorly. This confluence of events was not ignored, as Roy Carroll writes in the Guardian:

Commentators on state television channels have hailed Venezuela’s first-round results as a sign that the Bolivarian revolution, named after the 19th-century liberation hero Simón Bolívar, is on track. That President George Bush’s emissaries should be sent packing makes Venezuela’s breakthrough all the sweeter, according to some football fans. “They might have the best military in the world but they haven’t stood a chance on the pitch,” said Jorge Bernal, 41, a fruit seller.

The American team, though did not get out of Venezuela without a minor diplomatic incident. According to the AP, two American State Department security agents were accused of lacking the proper permits to carry their weapons. After a tense stand-off, “The agents were held for two hours by immigration authorities who lectured them saying Americans may think they can flout local laws, but not in Venezuela.” The agents were ultimately let go after receiving this good-bye present from the Chavez government.

Finally, because I’m a grammar-nerd, I became very interested in a minor point at the end of Grant Wahl’s mailbag column. Wahl wrote that one way to “detect a EuroPoser soccer fan in the United States … is if he says something like ‘D.C. United are hammering the Red Bulls.’ My Microsoft Word program flags it for bad grammar, and so do I. Can’t stand it.” I have noticed Brits’ use of the plural (are) for what seems like a singular subject (D.C. United) and often wondered where it comes from. And while I agree with Wahl that it is a tip-off that the speaker is a EuroPoser (his word, not mine), I disagree that it is incorrect.

Ruth Walker, the language columnist for the Christian Science Monitor, agrees with me. She wrote in November of some of her “favorite … newer conceptual names: the New England Revolution and the Chicago Fire.”

Both are distinctly singular. And yet they are often paired with plural verbs: “The New England Revolution are currently selling season tickets,” that team’s website announced a while back.

This sounds like a BBC bulletin on football (soccer) results: “Manchester United have defeated Arsenal.” It always sounds so veddy, veddy BBC. But it’s based on a principle that Americans might do well to follow: A singular collective noun – group, team, staff, family – can take a singular or plural verb, depending on whether its members are acting severally or in concert.

So, while I, as an American will generally use the singular when talking about a team (I do use the plural at times, I admit), I don’t claim that people who do otherwise are incorrect.

Some quick hits to finish off:

• Did anyone else notice that the wave going around the stadium in the recent US vs. Colombia game was going counter-clockwise? Perhaps it was a bunch of Chavez hacks showing their displeasure for imperialist American clockwise waves? Or maybe those cheeky Southern Hemispherians were just trying to mimic the water spinning counter-clockwise in their toilet bowls?
• Tony Edwards at US Soccer Players writes about the growth in American soccer, especially that seen on Spanish-language TV.
• 101 Great Goals writes about soccer popping up in TV shows, including Entourage, Sex in the City, and other programs I’ve never seen.
• Zoran Milosavljevic of the Reuters Soccer Blog writes about Champions League qualifying match-ups that are pitting former Yugoslavian clubs against each other, and the security concerns such matches are raising. In my hometown in Ohio, an amateur game between ethnic Croatian and Serbian teams had to be called off (this was in the middle of the Balkan War) for fear of violence; I can only imagine what might happen in the Balkans themselves if these matches go forward.
• Finally, for a weird sport, how about kabbadi? Suggested by my brother, it sounds like the kids’ game Red Rover except that those coming over have to hold their breath. Or something like that.

Hugo Chavez speaks at the opening ceremonies of the Copa America

The Venezuelan president has been basking in the worldwide attention that his country’s hosting of the Copa America has brought. There have been many reports on the Copa America, many of which have looked at the political context that surrounds the tournament.

In the lead-up to the tournament, several reports have looked at the massive spending the Chavez government has undertaken to prepare for the tournament. The BBC reports that 2 billion dollars was spent on stadiums and infrastructure. Despite this massive sum, the work wasn’t entirely finished by the beginning of the tournament. As James Ingham writes, “one [stadium] in the western city of Barquisimeto is not quite finished. ‘It’s perfectly acceptable. Only the chairs are missing,’ said the head of the inspection team, Felix Ducharne.” Fans with sore asses at the Estadio Metropolitano may disagree.

An architect’s mock-up of the stadium, which conveniently also lacks seats

The incredible sums of money Hugo Chavez spent on preparations were not merely to ensure a successful tournament; Chavez sees the Copa America as a way to improve his image around the world. (The Venezuelan leader could use such a boost, as he is largely unpopular in South America, according to a recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey.)

According to the AP, “[a]t each of the nine stadiums, pictures of Chavez are displayed prominently under giant banners like the one in Maracaibo reading ‘We’re building the motherland’.” A prominent sponsor of the tournament, seen on the adboards at every stadium and on the tournament website, is PDVSA, the state-run oil monopoly and Chavez’s main source of income.

Notice the PDVSA adboard behind Mexico’s Nery Castillo (in green) and Alex of Brazil

But many writers see this image-boosting through sport as a sham. They include Chris Kraul at the LA Times, who writes that “the stadiums probably won’t have a long-term economic effect; they probably will be more of a ‘bread and circuses’ offering to the masses and a way to impress out-of-towners attending the tournament.”Some have taken an even stronger tack. Ronaldo Assis de Moreira at the blog 101 Great Goals writes that “[j]ust as Hitler used the Olympic dream in 1936 to further his own goals, it seems Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, will use the upcoming South American football tournament to do the same. Chavez is a totalitarian demagogue who has consistently violated human rights and illegally silenced his opponents.”

Assis de Moreira offers the example of RCTV, the Venezuelan television station recently shut down by Chavez. (The government-run station which replaced RCTV is showing Copa America games, but according to Reuters,“[t]he picture is blurred, the graphics can show a striker as goalkeeper and first game’s commentator was not able to read out the Venezuelan team names — he could not find his glasses.”

RCTV was often critical of the Venezuelan government and is joined in these criticisms by a well-organization opposition movement. In the lead-up to the Copa America, opposition groups’ threats to protest were met by government claims that such actions would be “neutralized.” According to Al-Jazeera, “Chavez read a column published in the pro-government VEA newspaper, stating that radical groups ‘are looking for the transportation sector to call a national strike … and have the protests coincide with the Copa America to create national and international commotion’.”

Venezuelans protest the closure of RCTV

Threats of protests became reality on Thursday, although not in the transportation sector, but instead inside one of the stadiums itself. According to Joshua Goodman of the AP, nearly half of the crowd of 40,000 joined in “[t]he chants — which included ‘This government is going to fall!’ – [that] began shortly into the second half of Thursday’s match between the U.S. and Argentina in the western city of Maracaibo, a stronghold of opposition to Chavez.” I’m not shocked the promised protests occurred, but it is a bit surprising that protestors would choose a game involving the US to do so. Chavez will almost certainly have seen the connection and will use it to tar the protestors as American stooges.Hugo Chavez was on the receiving end of criticism this week from the newly-elected mayor of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri, who said, “[Argentina] should have a foreign policy that involves more than a good friendship with Chavez.” Macri is a center-right politician in Argentina, but more interestingly to me, is also the president of Boca Juniors. Macri used this role to improve his stature in the country and likely would not have won the mayor’s job without it.

When Boca went out and signed former idol Juan Roman Riquelme before the new season, it was in large part because Macri knew that success for Boca would likely provide him the springboard he needed to be elected mayor. Riquelme just led Boca to the Copa Libertadores title and Macri just won himself a new job. Coincidence? I think not.

Riquelme: Key to the success of Boca Juniors and Mauricio Macri

Finally, the Guardian ran a piece on the Iraqi national team’s preparations for the upcoming Asian Cup. It focused on the team’s Brazilian coach Jorvan Vieira. He describes the struggles his players face just to play soccer. “Some of them, if they go to Iraq, they are going to be killed,” Vieira says. “I don’t have one person in this group who hasn’t lost someone from their family because of this war.”

The natural question, of course, is whether the money that Thaksin is planning to use to purchase Manchester City was attained illegally. Thaksin himself as well as those at Manchester City say the money is clean, but others still have their doubts. Shourin Roy at SoccerBlog points out that Thaksin made his bid for Man City the same day that the current government in Thailand froze many of his remaining assets. One interpretation of these two events happening on the same day is that Thaksin is attempting to put his remaining into a place where the Thai government can’t get at them.

Thaksin Shinawatra, former PM of Thailand and (possibly) future owner of Manchester City

But many Manchester City fans don’t seem to care about the source of their new-found wealth; they only want to know which players it will bring in. David Conn takes such fans to task, claiming that they are turning “a blind eye to his immoral dalliances” in the hopes of matching the top teams in the Premier League. Conn also says that Thaksin might be using his ownership of Man City to regain lost support in Thailand by “us[ing] City as part of his profile-boosting campaign in Thailand. There the rural poor, among whom he remains popular, are part of the global TV audience dazzled by the Premiership.”In addition to wealthy foreign investors in its soccer teams, England also has the highest number of CCTV cameras per capita in the world. Such security cameras are already in use in stadiums across the country. Beginning next year, they may be getting a high-tech upgrade. According to Reuters, these new cameras will be “hidden in lapels and hats [and] allow spotters in the crowd to beam live pictures from inside the stadium back to a control room where the images could be scanned in real-time for troublemakers and hooligans.” Watch out: Big Brother is now bringing his pipsqueak cousin along to the game.

The normal career path for a good South American player is as follows: 1) Break into first team of a local club, 2) Get signed by a European team, 3) Play most of your career in Europe, 4) Return home to play out the last year or two of your career with a local club. Ze Roberto seemed to have followed this path well, going from Brazilian team Portuguesa to Real Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, and then returning home last year with Santos (his European stay was interrupted in 1998, during which time he played for Flamengo). But instead of seeing out his career at Santos, Ze Roberto announced that he is returning to Bayern Munich. As many others have found out, playing in Brazil can be a dangerous affair, with criminal elements eager to kidnap players’ family members for ransom. Tim Vickery writes in his BBC column that “the social problems of his country have scared his family and he has chosen to return to Europe.”

Juan Roman Riquelme is another player who made a career decision for the benefit of a family member. The gifted enganche retired from the Argentine national team last year, saying that criticism of him had exacerbated health problems suffered by his mother. But, after a blockbuster season on loan at Boca Juniors, Riquelme was persuaded to return to the national team for the upcoming Copa America. For his mother’s sake, I hope he plays well.

I had every intention of typing this post up before the Gold Cup final, but that didn’t happen (and since the game’s already over, congrats to my fellow gringos on our victory). But before the match game, I read an interesting piece (found by my father) that sums up my feelings as an American soccer fan. Titled La Copa NAFTA, it is an exploration of the psychology of a left-leaning American sports fan trying to balance his dislike of our current foreign policy with his desire to support the national team. Writes Simon Maxwell Apter,

These days, in our age of the Bush Doctrine, we Americans no longer have license to cut loose after an achievement in the international arena. We’re seen as bullies and jerks, smug with the knowledge that even a thumping at the hands (or feet) of Nike-clad Brazil more favorably affects Phil Knight in Beaverton, Ore., than it does O Presidente, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasilia. But shock and awe, quagmires, and ridiculous border fences notwithstanding, there’s still something primitive — something uncorrupted (or uncorruptible) by smugness, by dollar domination — about USA-Mexico, “La Copa NAFTA.”

So, since we already won, I say to the country of Mexico: I apologize for Tom Tancredo and for policies that raise the price of tortillas in Mexico, but (switch to second grade schoolyard taunting voice) we’re better at soccer than you (na na na na na na).

We rule in soccer (that’s a good thing) and in politics (not always such a good thing)

Finally, Luis Bueno had an interesting column in the Press-Enterprise about the declining number of Hispanics on the roster of the LA Galaxy. Until the team signed Honduran forward Carlos Pavon last week, there were no Hispanic players on the team. This is in contrast to the past, when the Galaxy signed players in an effort to reach out to the local Hispanic communities. One major difference between then and now, of course, is that Chivas USA has come to town. One would hate to think that the Galaxy and Chivas USA will effectively become the Anglo and Hispanics teams in the city of Angels.

And some quick hits to finish off:

• A much-discussed article this week was about the Colorado Rapids U-23 team, which is making a strong effort to infuse environmental awareness into the way the club is run. The club is carbon-neutral, as is Ipswich Town, apparently. Al Gore would be proud.
• Anyone familiar with Hispanic soccer leagues knows that the game is just one part of their raison d’etre. A major charm of such leagues is the way they bring out entire families, who make a 90 minute game into a full day of hanging out at the park. With so many people around, it’s no surprise that there are entrepreneurs eager to sell food to those at the game. The food vans that pull up around parks where soccer is being played often have delicious food. But New York City bureaucrats are considering taking away their permits to sell food. Several blogs, including Save Soccer Tacos, have come to the defense of the vendors and those who love to eat their delicious food.

This is the deliciousness that needs to be saved

• US troops stationed in the East African country of Djibouti are working to improve conditions for the local population. This mission is designed to reduce the type of conditions that lead to terrorism. One part of this “hearts and minds” strategy is to play soccer with local children. It struck me that it is only because our own children are now growing up playing soccer that they are later able to do this type of work as soldiers.
• Soccer is used alternately as a way to show the effects of conflicts and as a way to show how the wounds created in such fights can be healed. This week, two matches were cancelled because of simmering conflicts. One instance saw a tournament due to take place in the disputed region of Kashmir called off because of security concerns. A second instance witnessed Euro 2008 qualifiers between Armenia and Azerbaijan cancelled because of the two countries fight over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Meanwhile, a match was played in Jordan between Iraq and Iran. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the many Iraqi refugees living in Jordan put aside sectarian differences to support their team.
• I don’t have any bizarre sports this week to finish off with. Know one? Holler at me with a comment.

Alexi Lalas celebrates after scoring the second goal in the US national team’s 2-0 victory over England

The number of comments posted in response to Wells’s piece shows the depth of feeling it inspired. From Americans saying “thank you” to Scandinavians pointing out they also notice English arrogance with a few English nay-sayers thrown in, the article brought out an impassioned discussion among readers.

While I have criticized Wells in the past for over-generalizing about American soccer based on his interactions with a few people, I think this piece is spot on. There are more and more Americans with a sophisticated knowledge of soccer (and quite a few Englishmen and women mired in blissful ignorance). And in a country of 300 million people, not everyone has to be in to soccer to make the sport successful. If only a percentage, say 60 million, become knowledgeable soccer fans, that will be more than the entire population of a small island nation called England.

With soccer a relatively established sport in the US today, it’s easy to forget the days when it wasn’t so. Nowadays, I can watch games from leagues across the world, but it wasn’t long ago that I was forced to record World Cup games and watch them over and over for the next four years because they were, literally, the only soccer on TV. Further evidence of how far American soccer has come can be seen in an article by Clive Toye, former president of the New York Cosmos. Writing in Soccer America, Toye focuses on the business aspect of the game, pointing out that companies sponsored soccer during the NASL days simply because their owners were soccer fans, while companies today do so out of much more selfish – but ultimately self-sustaining – desires to reach potential customers. Much as we might like to see soccer as just a sport, it will only make progress long-term with the support of corporate sponsors.

Everywhere soccer in this country develops, it retains a unique local flavor. Much as FC Dallas and Real Salt Lake might choose their names in an attempt to connect with distant teams and traditions, American soccer will always be identifiably American. Real Salt Lake announced last week that it would host friendlies against two historic teams, Everton and Boca Juniors. Yet even while the Utah team attempts to draw in true fans with these prestigious opponents, it also offers a nod to the Mormon population which makes up most of the state. The two friendlies are being promoted as part of Pioneer Day weekend festivities. For those not familiar with this Utah holiday, Pioneer Day celebrates the arrival of Brigham Young and other Mormons in Utah after being forced out of their previous home in Illinois. No word on whether Jello will be sold at the stadium.

Tim Vickery writes in his BBC column this week about the value players in South America put on playing for their national team. Vickery makes the point that, in South America, representing one’s national team is considered a far greater honor than in some European countries. He gives the example of David Bentley, who recently turned down the chance to represent the England U-21s (he says, “a youngster from Brazil or Argentina would be looking for any opportunity to make his name”). This difference may be due to the fact that, for many in South America, “[The national team] shirt is the most potent symbol of the nation. It is the form through which their country appears in front of the whole world for positive reasons.” Says 1970 World Cup winner Tostao, “”It’s through football that our people feel avenged – it’s like a message that’s saying you might be the First World in other things, but we’re better at this.”

As I wrote last week, FIFA’s decision to ban international matches at high altitudes has brought many protests, most from Bolivia. The media coverage of these protests has been enormous (see the New York Times Week in Review piece), Evo Morales is, if nothing else, extremely media-savvy and the pictures coming out of his protest matches atop mountains are stunning.

Finally, the most disturbing story of the week came from the Observer. Dan McDougall wrote last week about a new slave trade, involving young West African boys recruited under murky pretenses by agents who hope to sell them for profit to European teams. Writes McDougall

An investigation by The Observer in Ivory Coast last week found that Lebanese businessmen in Abidjan, an entrepreneurial community once preoccupied with diamond and timber smuggling, are turning their attention to football, establishing illegal training schools across the country in an attempt to farm the best talent out to some of the Middle East and Europe’s largest clubs.

Though technically illegal, these businessmen find ways to smuggle young boys from Africa to places where clubs might snap them up (and pay their agents a hefty fee). FIFA’s attempts to limit this – they made it illegal for players under 18 to play for European teams – have not proven successful and the scale of the problem is so large that NGOs have gotten involved.

The murky details surrounding the transfer of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano to West Ham have rightfully brought up many questions. But any transgressions in that affair pale in comparison with what appears to be going on in Ivory Coast.

The takeover of clubs is also proving controversial in Spain. As the Guardian’s man in Spain, Sid Lowe, writes, Granada 74 chairman Carlos Marsá has essentially bought his way into the second division. Marsá has done this by purchasing another team, Ciudad de Murcia, disbanding everything about them except their place in the second division, which he promptly transferred to Granada 74. Angered officials in Granada are refusing to let the “new” club use any local stadium and so Marsá will have to move the team (not that anyone will lament its going; the club has little local support). It is, as Sid Lowe writes, “the country’s first footballing franchise” and one can only wonder what the long-term effects of such changes will be. Hopefully not as disastrous as they have been for fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, or any number of American teams moved from their homes by money-grubbing owners.

The Baltimore Colts left in the middle of the night and moved to Indianapolis, enraging many fans

Club soccer is not the only place to make money. The World Cup is among the most profitable of sporting events in the world. But as Simon Kuper pointed out this week in the Financial Times, the benefits Germany has accrued from hosting last summer’s tournament were more than monetary. The most lasting effect of the 2006 World Cup may be an improving of the German “brand.” As Kuper writes, foreigners’ opinions of Germany improved as did those of Germans about their own country. The successful hosting of the World Cup, Kuper believes, helped to put to rest outdated views of Germans as “xenophobic neo-Nazis.”One country whose soccer dealings may not be improving its national image is Iran. This week, a game between the Iranian national team and a German club team was cancelled due to “technical problems.” The match would have marked the first time an Iranian women’s team had played outside the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. The details behind this game in many ways mirror the situation Iran’s government is embroiled in over its nuclear program. Just as the government employs a policy of reaching out to, then pulling back from Westerners in relation to its nuclear program, so too did the government initially agree to allow this game to go ahead before changing its mind. Those who suffer as a result are Iran’s female players (which comes as little surprise, given how reluctant the country is to allow its women to be involved with the game, even as fans).

Iranian and German players in the first leg of what was to be a two-legged series play in Tehran last year

Salt Lake City is not often the site of political controversy. The population is largely Mormon and abides by the religion’s morals (“the closest thing to a theocracy in the West,” a native once told me). So, it probably came as a surprise to many when there was a bit of a hullabaloo at a friendly between Real Salt Lake (I apologize for that horrible name) and the Chinese national team. Some fans unfurled Tibetian and Taiwanese flags and banners of recognition for the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 at the game. They were promptly invited to leave the stadium because, according to Real Salt Lake officials, the Chinese team threatened to walk off the field if the flags weren’t removed. The flag-wavers were not best pleased. Colin Coker said, “I got kicked out of a game for waving a flag in the United States of America, and to me, that is just mind-blowing.” He plans to contact the ACLU and take the case to court. I’m betting China won’t be scheduling a rematch with Real Salt Lake next year.

Steven Wells has been writing a series of stories for the Guardian about soccer under the radar in the US. His latest piece, headlined US Soccer Punks 1, McFans 0, claims that “Independent, witty, irreverent fan culture is triumphing over Major League Soccer’s preprogrammed Disneyfied McFan experience.” He mentions a group of fans called the Sons of Ben in Philadelphia who are fans of the city’s as yet nonexistent MLS team and are creative in their support (as one has to be when one has no team to support). Independent fan clubs like Sons of Ben, Barra Brava, Section 8, etc. are to be commended for their support, but, as in his other writing on American soccer, Wells has a tendency to extrapolate too much from limited experience. Such fan clubs are changing the face of American soccer, but they are still, quite small. Their support is essential (I wish MLS would do more to encourage them rather than continue to try to promote the game to soccer moms and their kids), but has not changed American soccer as a whole. I hope that in a few years we will have the type of fan culture Wells writes about, but I have yet to see it in sustained existence today.

DC United’s Barra Brava

Grant Wahl is one of the best, if not the best, American soccer writer. This week he turned his attention to the south and wrote about his month-long soccer-watching trip through Mexico. Some highlights: Wahl being serenaded with a cheer normally reserved for Bofo Bautista (a Mexican player he resembles), meeting Mexican-Americans who have traveled to Guadalajara to watch Chivas play, and a discussion of the concept of ardido (which he translates as “rageful pride”) and how it affects the way Mexicans play soccer. Definitely worth a read.

Some quick hits to finish off:

• Wal-Mart is paying to build some soccer fields in Toledo, Ohio that will be used by the local Latino Soccer League.
• Jesse Fink writes for the Fox Sports Australia blog about black players at Barcelona and the clubs’ role in promoting racial tolerance.
• 7 of the 23 players on France’s roster at last summer’s World Cup have some connection to the tiny Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. The island, which is technically an overseas department of France, is making its debut in this year’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, as Mark Ziegler writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
• Last month’s FA Cup Final was a big deal in England. First big game at the new Wembley and all that. But it was also watched with passion in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

Fans watch the FA Cup final last month in Ouagadougou

• And for a bizarre sport, how about armwrestling? Ok, it might not be such a bizarre sport, but the fact that professional armwrestlers (yes, they do exist) are struggling in Kyrgyzstan due to the high cost of protein products such as meat dairy, and soy? Now that’s bizarre.