The football Pope

When Jorge Bergoglio had just become Pope Francis I in 2013 I was at a diplomatic reception in Monrovia, Liberia, and came across a young Argentine priest who worked at the Holy See’s representation in Monrovia. He confirmed he knew the Pope, and we then proceeded to discuss football, focusing on the coming 2014 World Cup. Confessing my own support for Argentina, we were interrupted by a Frenchman who overheard our conversation: “Of course, France also has a great team that could win”.

“Excomulgated”. The Argentine priest replied in good humour. 

It was the same good-natured approach of his Argentine boss, who after having passed away, has been given many tributes by the football community. 

Because Pope Francis may have been the popular leader of the Catholic Church, one of the most important religions in the world, but he was certainly also a follower of the quasi-religion of football. It might have been obvious given that Pope Francis was born in Argentina, and grew up in a society where the religion of football means a lot in every layer of society. 

The Pope was a fan of the club from the neighbourhood of Almagro, in Buenos Aires, San Lorenzo, a club that has incidentally been founded by a Priest. When the club miraculously won the Copa Libertadores in 2014, a year after he had become Pope, the club went to the Vatican to give the Pope a copy of the trophy, in gratitude for the Pope’s near-divine support. 

And the Pople met many footballers who have also paid tribute to him, just as the fans of many teams, including those of Olympique Marseille: 

 

Happy Day to all Mothers

Silvija Greko’s son Nickollas became a Palmeiras fan after meeting Neymar, who had been a Palmeiras fan as a child. When Nickollas was five years old, Silvija took him to Palmeiras' stadium to his first match, although Nickollas was born blind. Initially, she gave him a radio to listen to the matches, but Nickollas wanted to listen to the atmosphere and sounds of the Allianz Parque stadium in Sao Paulo, home of Palmeiras.
Today, Sivija narrates every detail of the match to her son, a fan who lives the marvel of football through the words of his mother.

Independiente Medellín-Once Caldas

I happened to be passing through Medellin, Colombia,  and decided to go to watch football. The local side Independiente Medellín was playing the team from Manizales, Once Caldas.

Great atmosphere in the stadium, fantastic fans and a home team that pressured from early on, completely dominating, and leading 2-0 at half time on excellent strikes by Leider Berrío and Francisco Chaverra.

Second half was frankly boring as Medellin pulled back and Once Caldas had little to offer.

But some fantastic fans did have a lot to offers and I had a great time in Medellin.

Goodbye El Salvador, hello Mexico

Every country I have lived in has done well in football. 

Until now that is, because El Salvador is awful, and in the seven years I have lived here appear only to have become worse as their national team football appears to be disorganised, unfocused, and lacking of a long-term perspective for a country that loves football and does not lack talent.

It is a pity, because I would have liked to see El Salvador be successful, not least for the Salvadoran fans, who nevertheless are often more keen to watch European leagues than support their domestic clubs.

Frankly, I found the domestic league much more interesting: I saw some great matches and could see that there is indeed talent in the country, and I became a fan of Alianza, something I will always be.

I am going to a new country, a country I have visited before and with which I already have a footballing relationship: from having stayed there in 1986 up to the World Cup, going to the mighty Azteca Stadium, as well as a love-hate relationship with their national team (something that seems to be the case with many of the Mexican fans, many of whom I had the pleasure of celebrating with in Russia 2018).

I very much look forward to Mexico! For a new chapter in my life, including a new footballing chapter!

Ferenc Puskas and I

Since I am moving I have been packing, going through a lot of old documents, and came across a small football memory that involved none other than the legendary Ferenc Puskas, one of the best football players of all time; all-time topscorer of Europe and captain of the legendary Hungarian national team of the 1950s, that broke many records: the first team ever to defeat England at Wembley, they didn’t lose a game for three years, until the 1954 World Cup final in Switzerland, where they nevertheless ended up as the most scoring team per match of all time (ironically, they had defeated Germany 8-3 in the first round, but lost the legendary final 3-2 after being up 2-0!). 

Hungarian football has not been the same since 1956 (even though they have participated in many tournaments, but without much distinction) when the legendary team fell apart after the Hungarian uprising against the USSR. Many of the players were dispersed all over Europe – many went to Spain, for instance Sandor Koscic (the topscorer of the 1954 World Cup), but also Ferenc Puskas, who went to become a player of one of the most legendary teams of all time: Real Madrid. This was the real “galactico” Real Madrid, with some of the best players of all time: Alfredo Di Stefano, Raymond Kopa, Francisco Gento, José Santamaría… Still, Puskas stood out: four pichichis and winning five European Championships. 

In 1993 I went to watch Hungary play against Denmark in a friendly match in Parken in Copenhagen. Denmark won 3-1 (and Michael Laudrup scored after his recent return to the national team), but that was not the special thing about the match. I was with some friends from the boarding school in Birkerød, which I attended back then. Some ten meters behind me I saw a large fat man with sleazy combed back hair, and immediately I recognized him: this was Ferenc Puskas, and I told one of my friends who knew who I was referring to: this was one of the most legendary players of all time (Pelé, Maradona, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Puskas)! We wanted an autograph from this legend, and approached the old large man. “Puskas!”, and waved at him. He waved back, casually and signalling that he was not going to sign any autograph, but I thought I sensed a certain pride that he had been recognized by two Danish teenagers. We kept waving,: “Autograph, Puskas!”, but he ignored us, until I then said in Spanish: “Vamos, para un hincha del Madrid!” (I am not proud that I pretended to be a fan of Real Madrid…), which at least made him turn towards me: “Yo estoy aquí como Húngaro!”, he said and I didn’t get an autograph. 

Seems Mr. Puskas, like me, had different identities for different contexts: One day Hungarian, other days Spanish, other days Madrid. 

Mr. Puskas passed away in 2006, was given a state funeral in Hungary, and well, I could remember my little encounter with a legend.

Disappointment and sadness

I have been so disappointed and sad about the racist songs of Argentina's national team players at France's national team, and understand the anger of the French. Argentineans would be as angry, justifiably, if anyone sang about the victims of the Malvinas, but they cannot look at themselves with any hint of criticism or empathy with the French players. Ignorant players as Enzo Fernandez even saw no problem at publishing on social media, while they are complete ignorant about French history or society (and probably as ignorant about anything beyond social media); because saying that "Frenchmen are already racist", by being racist against Frenchmen who have experienced racism for years, is one of the most idiotic things one can imagine someone saying.

I am disappointed and sad because I have always supported and defended Argentina. But I need to remember that Argentina fans (and apparently players) are as ignorant and hateful as anyone in this pitiful world.

A Death Foretold

 

Marcelo Bielsa is already a legend as a Manager and Football thinker, and his recent reflection on the decay of the football game is as timely as ever as we await the two finals tomorrow of tournaments which seem to confirm the grim future of the game.

Paraphrasing another great Latin American, this is the Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and I agree as I have been watching (and blogging) football for 20 years.

We have increasingly seen in these tournaments that teams are more afraid to lose than with a desire to win, so they largely retreat in a tactically result-oriented style. Some teams try to play more open, but they seem naive as they fight against the tide of boredom; in the meantime you have teams with a great amount of individual talent who treat their players like robots who are not to enjoy or entertain.

And let us face it, players contribute to this decay as well as the gentlemen of the game have all but disappeared: they act, they cry, they protest, they fight, play dirty. It is amazing how VAR has come in and not being used for this, but I also understand it: it seems incredible that we need to treat highly paid grown men as little children.

And VAR... I am not against it per se, but I have said before that it is being used completely wrong. It is being used to justify decisions that will always and have always been subjective, like a penalty, as well as searching with a microscope for faults where they were never seen before and where nobody protests. The blind faith in technology is only creating more doubt and distrust about the game as idiotic conspiracies flourish like never before.

Is it money? Of course it is. The people who can afford to go to a game are not your average income guy. Do you think that people who were in Charlotte for the Colombia-Uruguay match were the bottom of the Latin American income scale? No. And add TV rights, commercial deals and propaganda, and we have the explanation for all the things happening that are undermining the beauty of the game, just as Mr. Bielsa underlines.

Football has totally overtaken religion and politics as "Opium of the People", and as such it has been grasped by those in power as a way of controlling societies. Do these people in power fix matches? Is there a grand conspiracy to make certain teams win? No. But the spread of these conspiracies is useful to take attention away from other of societies' problems. 

We, the fans, are as guilty too. We are puppets. We let them control our primitive tribal instincts to hate other teams and other nations; the worst human instincts. We love being the martyrs, being rightful losers who fought against an evil force, and will never congratulate or thank another fan for a good match. And if we win we will rather insult the losers than recognize that in fact we need two teams trying to win to enjoy a game! (people who say, "I hate them because they defeated us" have in my view not really understood the point that it would be rather boring if they did not try to defeat us....).

There is no such thing as friendly competition in football any longer; it is war and you are judged by who you support - the Political Culture Wars taken to the most primitive level. 

It is a fact that football fans will rather see a team they hate lose than see their own side win. How fucked up is that!?? 

This is an angry rant indeed; but the decay of football is a symbol of the decay of our societies: tribalism, discrimination and hate are the order of the day, and in football we can't even any longer be happy for a beautiful play no matter who does it and a friendly taunt is always seen as an insult.

A sad state of affairs, and I do not have much of expectations of tomorrow's finals, even though I will watch them over beers with my cats and hoping that I get a bit of the happiness that made me fall in love with Football back in the day.

The fucking world we live in

Every tournament it gets worse, and it just saddens me. The racism, xenophobia, hate... It is not the fault of football, but with football it just becomes almost legal to express extreme viewpoints; to say what you think, but apparently it is not legal to actually think.

Serbia is angry that Croatian and Albanian fans shouted "kill Serbs" during their match. Truly despicable, and cannot understand why a match like that is not suspended. At the same time you see images of these Serbs shouting racist slogans and not letting a black man on a train, and one feels that they are as despicable as the Albanians or Croatians.

Sad truth is that everyone all over the world is the same....

Then we hear Germans (Germans!!!) complain about the colour of their players, something we have seen in England, France as well. I am happy that at least Julian Nagelsmann strongly criticised it, but I am afraid he is another lone voice fighting the tide of hate that envelops all our societies.

As I said, it is not football's fault. It is our societies; full of ignorance and idiotic tribalism (both ignorance and tribalism are sadly concepts worn with pride by most people everywhere in the world).

Although it is not football's fault, it becomes difficult to get excited about the game when all you see is that; when friendly taunting and mutual respect, a place to meet other cultures and nationalities in a friendly sport, becomes just what is the most characteristic trait of the human race since times immemorial: pure and evil hate. 

The fucking world we live in.

20 Years of blogging!

Time flies. 

Twenty years ago, on June 16th 2004, Facebook had just been founded but not become a global phenomenon. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or WhatsApp did not exist yet. Lionel Messi had not played his first match for FC Barcelona, while a young Cristiano Ronaldo was starting his career in Manchester United. Spain had never won a World Cup, Manchester City did not belong to the Abu Dhabi Group, and FC Porto had just won the Champions League.

I was also a nerd (as I still am), finishing my Masters degree in Denmark, and wondering what the future would bring...

I had a World Cup football website since 1998, but blogging was a new thing, where people could write articles about whatever they wanted. So I started blogging, inspired by my friend Stig, who blogged about cool stuff, but I decided to be a nerd and blog about football, just as the 2004 European Championship had started, and Denmark had tied Italy.

How much has happened since then! I don't know what I would have thought if someone had said to me that 20 years later I would still be blogging ("get a life"!?).

As these twenty years feel to have flown by, I have gone from a young sexy student to a middle aged bald and chubby professional; I have gone through ups and downs in life as well as in football, something that I have expressed in this blog (and sometimes not), but in the end, this blog, with more than 1500 posts, has been here following me as I have seen and experienced many changes in my life, the world in general, and the footballing world in particular!

Sometimes I blog, sometimes I don't. Whenever I feel like it. Blogging is no longer cool; it is like writing with an ink-feather after the invention of the printing-press. But here I am, an old ugly fart, writing about a thing that is special to me, football. 

Football, no matter where I have been, at what time, across cultures and generations, it is a common reference point anywhere in the world. That makes it even more special, and I will try to keep blogging about it, amid my ups and downs...

Thanks if you take the time to read this.

Being on the blog

 I have not blogged for more than two months. I have before had periods during which I have blogged little, but they were either because of technical problems or because I was simply tired of football.

That is not the case now: I am following football a lot, and so many things have happened: the sad passing of the giants Mario Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer; the (unlikely) Ivorian victory in the Africa Cup of nations; Jurgen Klopp's surprising announcement that he will leave Liverpool (as well as the lead in the Premier League and the League Cup victory over Chelsea); Paraguay's and Argentina's qualification for the Olympic Games; Real Madrid's good run (against Girona in particular) and Xavi's resignation from a very unstable Barcelona side; exciting Champions League matches, and even, closer to home, Messi making El Salvador go crazy when coming with Inter Miami to face El Salvador in a boring 0-0 match.

As I write this, I realize how many posts I have missed! But truth is that maybe the time of Blogs, like this one that I have had over 20 years, are over? Not that I mind that nobody reads it: I have always said it is like a diary, for myself, and in fact, when I read at my nearly 1500 posts, I see many moments of my life!

It is strange to think about, and it is perhaps a little bit of a loss of the discipline and inspiration to write when I see some of the many interesting football news. 

I must continue.

Reflection on the World Cup in Qatar

This World Cup was hard to get excited about: the entire precedence of greed for a host country that had no football tradition and the complaints about human rights (something that has nevertheless never been and never will be of FIFA´s concern) were just part of the tale. Having a World Cup in November and December was also strange, difficult to get excited about amid the usual end of year concerns that permeate our lives. 

Finally my feeling was that this World Cup has been worse than any other in terms of fans: most appear focused on their petty idiotic nationalisms and xenophobia. For most people the World Cup is nothing but an excuse to be petty and hateful, rather than enjoy a friendly contest. 

At least there was beer; as in every World Cup, plenty of beer (except of course if you happened to be in Qatar....).

On the footballing side it was also more positive: it was an exciting tournament, with good matches, surprises (which are nevertheless nothing new in a World Cup) and the excitement of a dramatic final. I am personally happy for Argentina, having reached something that I had hoped for many years.

That said, as I have learnt over the years of passionate fandom, my life is the same shit whether my teams win or lose.

Nothing new there.

But as always, it remains strange to have finished this World Cup. The next one will be in USA and Mexico. Maybe I will not be around, but if I am I could travel there depending on what the world looks like at that time... 

But let us see: four years are a long time!

In my office I had put up a poster from World Football Magazine:

I quite like it, and since it will remind me of this World Cup, I will have it framed.

The World will expose Qatar

Let me get this out of the way before I start blogging a lot about Qatar: That country should never ever have been awarded the World Cup. Purely on football terms it is ridiculous to give the World Cup to a country that has never participated and that barely has a functioning league structure. But besides that, the problem is that you have someone hosting the entire world, who don't really want to host the world. It is a country where there is widespread discrimination against sexual orientations, women, and not least thousands and thousands of migrant workers. On the latter, it is estimated that up to 6500 workers have died constructing the stadiums; this is of course a figure that is disputed, but it seems beyond dispute that at least hundreds have died.

And that is already too much, no matter how you turn it. Nobody should die constructing football stadiums.

There is much discussion about boycotting. I am going to watch as many games as possible. While I will enjoy the football, I hope that both players and fans, together with a critical media (that will be prevented from doing their work by Qatari authorities for sure), will expose Qatar for what it is: a filthy regime built on migrant work that pays to get good propaganda that they do not deserve. I hope every opportunity will be used to expose them.

Someone else needs to be exposed as much as the Qatari regime: FIFA, who for money and greed is destroying the World Cup, not just by giving it to a country like Qatar (incredibly Sepp Blatter, a man with firsthand knowledge of the dirty inside workings of FIFA, said that Qatar should never have been awarded the tournament), but also by its idiotic proposals of expanding the tournament and making it every two years, proposals that are so blatantly against the beauty of the sport and the fans.

It hurts that football is being destroyed by these people, and we as fans (and as decent humans) should denounce it as much as we can. 

Let us show these people that football can bring us together against greed and evil!

Burgos CF

As mentioned, I recently participated in the Budapest-Bamako rally. I wasn on the team "Diamond-Child Burgos", since we were bringing materials to a school in Freetown, "Diamond Child School", and because my two team-mates are from the old city of Burgos. 

Known for its UNESCO World Heritage Cathedral, Burgos has never really been known for its football. Burgos CF is in the Spaniosh second division where they have languished for decades. But the last few years Burgos has more ambition, and have the former Oviedo, Swansea and Napoli player as manager. In these years Burgos CF has been constructing a team that is currently vying for a first division spot. In fact, they started the season strongly, beating the all-time record of any Spanish team with a clean sheet, going 928 minutes without conceding a goal. 

The club's prospects are reasonably creating expectations in Burgos. I did not know much about the team, but it was central during the trip across West Africa (alongside the Salvadoran flag), and I will surely be following and cheering on Burgos as they make history!

Remembering Freddy Rincon

Just about week ago I heard that the ex-striker from Colombia and Real Madrid had been in a car accident, and was in criticial condition. Just a few days later, having beers with a Venezuelan friend in Miami, he told me that Rincón had passed away at 55. 

A tall and quick striker, he had a long illustrious career that brought him, amongst others, to Palmeiras, Napoli and Real Madrid. But as I spoke with my friend I remembered Freddy Rincon for one very special moment: in 1990 I was a young teenager, sitting in an apartment in southern Spain, watching the World Cup match between West Germany and Colombia. It was the last group match, and the Germans were all but qualified while Colombia could not lose. I supported Colombia wholeheartedly as they attacked and attacked, but could not score. Instead, Germany went ahead, completely undeserved (but specially back then it was considered so “German”). In the last minute Freddy Rincón received the ball from “El Pibe” Valderrama and scored the equalizer that put Colombia through.

When that ball went in I jumped and screamed so much that neighbours and family worried that something had happened, but it was just one of those moments of absolute football joy that I remember having, and a treasured memory.

Thank you Freddy Rincón. RIP.

One year ago....

 

Why the World Cup should not be every two years

 There has been a lot of discussion about this lately, with FIFA apparently gathering strength to propose to hold the World Cup every two years. As is probably to be expected I am against this: nothing is more special in terms of football than the World Cup (if not in quality, where the Champions League is much better), and already the expansion of the number of teams is diminishing its importance, and holding it every two years will further diminish it to nobody's benefit (I understand if FIFA sees it as a potential for short-term profit, but I cannot see how it can be any benefit whatsoever in the longer term).

And I think today's Nations League semifinal between Italy and Spain is another example that FIFA should be careful to not give us so many matches, that in the end nothing is special. The match was great, with the European Champions of Italy losing an exciting match 1-2 to a rising Spanish side. Arguably two of the best teams in the world, playing a competitive match at the highest level, but the stadium in Milano was not even sold-out! This should be proof enough that if too many matches are there, interest from fans will diminish.

A great match, and probably a great final, but there is already so much football, that FIFA must be careful to take away what makes it special.

Christmas every month would not be special.

The hate engendered by football

The European Championships were great but unfortunately the tournament was accompanied by the eternal problem of bad fans, nationalism and racism. The fans that were most widely discussed were the English fans with their booing of national anthems, breaking into Wembley stadium for the final, and the racist abuse against England players following the final. This appears as just a continuation of decades, many decades, of problems with English football fans (for many years I had a problem supporting English teams at all, still do, mostly because I connected English football directly with the hooliganism of the 1980s, when I started watching football), so this should not be that surprising. However, the problem of these "bad fans" is hardly only an English problem; booing at national anthems happens in every stadium and racism continues being rampant all over footballing Europe, becoming more evident with social media. I am still convinced the vast majority of football fans, English and beyond, are decent people, even the ones that behave in this way!

What is the problem then?

Football is a simple game of kicking a ball in an "us-against-them" contest. While idiots exist in all societies, the simple premise of the game attracts a higher proportion of idiots among the population. Idiocy tends to be enlarged by emotional events such as a football match; add nationalism and a media that pours gasoline on a fire rather than building bridges (including social media, but certainly not excluding the traditional media), and you get the perfect cocktail for idiots to do their thing, while the rest of people wonder who the hell those idiots are!!!???

As a fan I understand the passion: I have also experienced moments of intense disappointment, of injustice, of hating the other team when they score a goal. However, a minimum level of intelligent human beings should realize that these are fleeting emotions that cannot define our lives. That would be idiocy!

I have had long periods of disappointment with football (as I have also shown in this blog), and these were mostly caused by the intensity of hate that I have repeatedly experienced in football: Hate towards other teams, players, fans, countries, races...  I still have a really hard time not seeing football as a sport of hate, but I do love the game, the passion and occasional fraternity between fans (that we fortunately also saw in this tournament, but is in my view all too rare), and have decided that I will try to ignore, as far as possible, all these idiots that are a scar not only on football, but to society at large.

Idiots.

Diego Armando Maradona

I was at a meeting when I received a message of the passing away of Diego Armando Maradona, and it frankly blew me away. I grew up with Maradona; he was one of the main reasons for me becoming a football fan; he embodied the magic of football like no other, and has, and will always be, a reference point for any footballer today and tomorrow.

God needed Maradona for his team of Angels.

Maradona rose from deep poverty to the heights of fame and money through the apparently trivial talent of kicking a ball. With this talent he brought about admiration and happiness to millions of fans across the world (among which I count myself); but despite fame and money Maradona was always his own man, for good and for bad, an imperfect man, like all of us.

As the football fans mourn, we must also have gratitude to have lived as a contemporary of Diego Armando Maradona.

Gracias Diego!

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 Europa League 2019-20 quarterfinals

During this past week I have enjoyed watching the Europa league last-16 fixtures that were seriously delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I am in fact somewhat glad that football can provide a little relief in this my sixth month of lockdown, although I would love a pint in a pub while watching....
We now have the following EL quarterfinals:

• Shakhtar Donetsk-Basel
• Inter Milan-Bayer Leverkusen
• Manchester United-FC Copenhagen
• Wolverhampton-Sevilla

Both the Europa League and the Champions League will, due to the pandemic, take place as mini-tournaments over the next couple of weeks, in Germany and Portugal respectively. For fans (who will nevertheless be able to attend the matches), this will be a replacement for all the tournaments we have missed this summer, and maybe the format will be a success. More interesting will be whether these tournaments will lead to different outcomes than what would be expected from the more traditional format: teams focused completely on this and playing only one match, without spectators, after such long breaks. It would appear that this format will be more open for surprises, why it will be very interesting to follow!

UEFA appears to have taken strict measures regarding COVID-19. Beyond playing without fans, teams are completely isolated in their hotels (even from their management, which is perhaps only pleasant...), and players are routinely tested. But some measures appear more symbolic, such as not shaking hands before the match (appears redundant considering how close contact that players undergo during the match) or prohibiting the exchange of shirts after each match (after 90 minutes of close contact and the need to wash the shirts anyway, this appears redundant). 

In any case, someone recently told me that the virus spreads over a distance of 600 meters, which would make any measure redundant anyway, except for every human living in sealed bubbles 600 meters apart...