Linda Caicedo

 Just read a very interesting article on the BBC on the young Colombian phenomenon Linda Caicedo. Only 18 years old she has a challenging childhood, survived cancer, signed for Real Madrid and become a World Cup celebrity. I surely hope she continues a bright career and that we see more of her in the future!

Support Lineker

 Former football star and BBC pundit Gary Lineker is in trouble. He is in trouble for being a critical and intelligent person, who says his opinion on a (democratic) government's foul and discriminatory policies. After publishing a comment on Twitter criticising the British government's asylum policy, he has been suspended from the BBC, the public broadcaster of a democratic European country.

Mr. Lineker has every right to express his opinion in a public forum as Twitter. His comments were not discriminatory, foul or objectively wrong (although they were extremely harsh), so that he should get suspended from his job seems like the overreach about expressing opinions that we are seeing all over. Although we all have a duty to be careful about how we express our opinions, we are on a dangerous slide if all opinions are subject to the potential repercussions of losing your job.

Mr. Lineker deserves all support he can get.

The importance of Jurgen Klopp

I just heard this BBC documentary about Jurgen Klopp, and would greatly recommend it:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct0q0y
It shows that he combines incredible football intelligence and work, with a unique personality. It does not surprise me, but it makes my admiration all the greater for Mr. Klopp.
The world, even beyond football, needs more people like him.

The best and worst of Euro 2012

After the end of the Euro 2012, it is time to reflect on what this tournament actually gave us. Here are my (personal) top ten best and worst things about the tournament, beginning with the bad:

• 10)  Non alcoholic beers in the stadiums: Need I say anything...?
• 9)  Petty nationalism: it seems an integral part of these tournaments to see European's propensity for petty nationalism that has nothing to do with football.
• 8) Spain, until the final: yes, I know that they proved themselves in the final, but until then Spain had played holding back, passing the ball, and not shooting enough. Matches like the one against France were a bore. It would have been respectful to football fans to dispatch of a team like France with a humiliation.
• 7) The pitch in Warsaw: A disgrace that Poland could not come up with a decent pitch in their major stadium.
• 6) BBC Panorama: the way a sensationalist and exaggerated British TV show had slandered Ukraine before the tournament. Ukraine in particular were great hosts!
• 5) Netherlands: they came into the tournament as huge favorites but disappointed greatly with their worst performance ever. I do hope they return to their former total football style.
• 4) France: Many teams were a disgrace in this tournament, but France must take the cake. Full of talented players, it just seemed like none of them wanted to be there.
• 3) The qualitative difference between teams: Europe is dominated by a few world class sides (Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal) and a lot of mediocre sides. It showed in the quarterfinals, and in four year, with 24 teams, the number of mediocre sides and matches is set to make it Euro 2016 of mediocrity.
• 2) Racism: Although greatly exaggerated by some media, it did show its ugly face among fans from Poland, Croatia, Spain and Russia. These countries should be ashamed of their brainless minorities.
• 1) Russian and Polish fans: the biggest disgrace of the tournament was the confrontation of the fans from these two countries. If they cannot get these pseudo-nationalist idiots under control, their teams do not belong in these tournaments.

And the 10 best things about the tournament:

• 10) I had the privilege of watching this Euro 2012 with great friends in four different countries, among them Ukraine, where I went to three great matches!
• 9) Referees: I find it hard to say this, but in general the referees were really good. Except for the appalling mistake of disallowing a Ukrainian goal against England (and TV should be used in these situations!), I don't think there were really major mistakes by the referees, who were largely invisible, just as referees should be.
• 8) The campaign for respect: In the face of football's capacity for dividing as much as uniting, I thought UEFA's Respect campaign was good. That said, they still need to do a lot more and follow up with actions against people from countries that did not live up to these important ideals for the tournament.
• 7) Fans: In spite of the loud minority of idiots, far most fans were great, and I had the privilege to be among a great many fans from Denmark, Portugal, Germany, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden, England who were all great people and just out there to enjoy.
• 6) Spain showing they can play beautiful efficient football in the final: when they needed to show it, they showed their overwhelming best, leaving no doubt as to them being the best team in the world.
• 5) "Super" Mario Balotelli: A great player with great charisma who grew during the tournament, just to be crushed in the final. Still, his two goals in the semifinal against Germany stand out as some of the best in the tournament. 
• 4) Andres Iniesta: One of the greatest players of the tournament, and the one that shone the most in the best side of the tournament.
• 3) Italy: Until this tournament I had never supported Italy. But this was a great Italian team, offensive harmonious, with splendid players. One even felt sorry for them when they lost the final!
• 2) Andrea Pirlo: In my view the best player of the tournament, and the ageing captain of a great Italian side, that probably played his last tournament for the national team.
• 1) Ukraine: I had the privilege to visit the country for three matches, and met a well-prepared and friendly country, that more than lived up to being hosts. Thank you to Ukraine!

Who will be world champion in...

I was just listening to a podcast of the best football show in the world, the BBC world football phone-in, where Sean Wheelock, the North American football commentator was arguing why he thought the US would be world champion by 2020.
I really like Sean Wheelock, but like with David Beckham staying in the MLS, he is probably as wrong as when Pelé said that an African team would be world champion by the year 2000.
It ain't gonna happen: while many of his points about the growth of the sport in the US are true, the passion and commitment needed to foster such talents and following is simply not there.

And they should start by not calling it soccer.

I am sorry to say this, but at least until 2040 the world cup is only going to be won by Europeans and the occasional South Americans.

BBC Documentary: Football and Fascism (review)

I recently watched a BBC documentary on football and fascism in the Europe of the 1930's. It showed how Mussolini, Hitler and Franco respectively used football as a political propaganda tool. As a person with a keen interest in both European 20th century history and in football, it was interesting programme, although the programme at times often rather simplified the hsitorical context, such as the German annexation of Austria or the reasons for the Falagist victory in the Spanish civil war.

But the programme was certainly interesting in regard to how football was used by these regimes as a tool in their propaganda machine. For instance the way in which Mussolini in the 1930's sponsored and pressured Italian football, leading directly to the victories in the world cups of 1934 and 1938.
In 1934 Mussolini directly influenced the Swedish referee Ivan Eklind, who dined with Mussolini before refereeing the final against Czechoslovakia. Mr. Eklind had also been referee in the semifinal between Italy and Austria, where he had gone very far in what he allowed the Italian players to do. The programme strongly suggests that Italy should not have won, but goes on to largely ignore the fact that Italy also was victorious in France in 1938. Italy did have an extremely good team in the 1930's. While the quality of the team always will be put in doubt by Mr. Mussolini's actions, the fact remains that they were victorious in two world cups, and their players were leading in what was one of the world's best leagues at the time.
Austria of the 1930's plays a important part in the programme's part on Nazi Germany. In the 1930's, Austria's national team was one of the bets in the world, led by the charismatic and popular Max Sendelar, one of the greatest players of the time. With the 'Anchluss', that is Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938, many Austrian players were absorbed into the German team. But Max Sendelar became a symbol of Austrian nationalism, and died under mysterious circumstances in 1939. The program focuses much on these mysterious circumstances under which he was found gassed in bed, together with his Italian girlfriend. It is obviously insinuated that he was killed by the Nazis. Nothing has ever been clarified, but the method would be very like the Nazis.
But this is not the only focus on Hitler. As is well-known, the Nazis were exceptional in using propaganda as a political tool. The 1936 Olympics were the first with the massive use of a mayor sporting event to promote the political agenda of the Nazis. The German football team was also part of this political machinery, and the programme alledges that the only football game Hitler ever went to was when Germany sensationally was defeated by Norway in the 1936 Olympics. I guess Norway were the Jessee Owen of football by this great result!
However, the programme tends to exaggerate the importance of this result, insinuating it undermined the regime. While football is a valuable propaganda tool, it was more an expression of the society and politics of 1930's Europe, and not a direct influence on the sustanability of the regime. This is a fault in the programme which is continued in the last part, which is about how Francisco Franco, in Spain, used football, and in particular the success of Real Madrid, as a tool in its relations with the outside world. That the international success of Real Madrid during the 1950's was central in ending Spain's isolation after World War II, is an overstatement to say the least. It ignores the whole cold war and anti-communist context leading US foreign policy at the time.
But that Franco was indeed a Real Madrid fan, and used its success as a stage to show off, is beyond doubt. It is interesting to hear an interview with the great Alfredo Di Stefano, who largely tells the period as he saw it: "We were just playing football, and paid little attention to the politics around us".
Real Madrid's success played an important element in attesting the superiority of Madrid over other Spanish regions, notably Barcelona. Today the rivalry between Barcelona and Real Madrid stems very much from this period, where also Catalan nationalism uses the football of FC Barcelona as a political platform - a fact mentioned shortly, but otherwise largely ignored by the programme.
There is little doubt that Real Madrid had the upper hand in the 1950's, also showed by Real Madrid's amazing team of those years; by far the world's best at the time. Truly "Galacticos" - whose record will probably never be beaten: five European cups and six Spanish championships. Mr. Di Stefano's own transfer to Real Madrid was part of the upper-hand of Real Madrid: Barcelona had confirmed the transfer (according to Mr. Di Stefano himself, he was already ready to go to Barcelona), but at the last moment, there was a mysterious intervention to get him to Madrid. As we all know today, he was the greatest player ever in Real Madrid, which is not a small feat!
The BBC programme is recommendable to anyone interested in the role of politics in football, and viceversa. Politics and football do go hand in hand more often than not. As such, football was also used by fascist dictatorships, and the programme gives a good, although at times simplified, view of how it happened. But it is important to notice that football was just one little element of the political game, and that the use of football as a political tool is in no way an exception to these regimes.