Posts Tagged football as war
A More or Less Innocent Question
Here are two beliefs which seem to be widespread among intelligent soccer fans online.
1. That football is too much in the pocket of business interests whose treatment of the game as a commodity weakens its ties to local communities and takes it away from its traditional fans.
2. That racism and regional prejudice have [...]
Football Violence, in Italy and Everywhere
There’s a lot we still don’t know about the death of Gabriele Sandri, and a lot we probably never will know. Journalists and bloggers have been diligent in their search for the truth, but the truth in this case is going to be buried by political interests and by the larger interests of football. Whatever [...]
The Late Last Word on the Match That Conquered Normandy
It happened, and amazingly, we survived: Manchester United played Arsenal, in a climate of hype that demonstrated how far the British media have come since the embarrassing cocoon of silence that surrounded the build-up to D-Day. (”So often the big battles disappoint, but with these two forces fighting at the absolute peak of their powers, [...]
Why Do We Follow Sports? Part One.
Belligerence has something to do with it. FIFA can insist all they like that football is about friendship, cheerful graphics, and tolerant people with stylish glasses who ride their bikes to work, but if we weren’t hard-wired for tribalism and violence we wouldn’t much care about sports. Most of the time we repress those instincts [...]
