As featured in The Guardian\
Some time this year.
The world of football was in mourning last night as the lights were finally extinguished on an institution that had influenced and shaped much of the footballing landscape of the last century. Liverpool Football Club, arguably the greatest club side ever to grace Britain, if not Europe, was terminated after nearly two decades of serial decline.
Read more on Liverpool Football Club, 1892 – 2012 – An Obituary…
So, the frivolities of the festive period will soon be over and left to recede into the vagaries of our collective memory. Once we unglue the sleep from our bleary, alcohol-ravaged eyes, 2012 will loom on the horizon. And what will we see? The dawn of a magnificent era of enlightenment, where men and women of all creeds and colours cavort in daffodil-covered fields, making coffee-coloured children from rainbow-coloured melting pots and supping the ambrosia of the gods? If only. Because like Sam Tyler in Life On Mars, I feel I’ve had an accident and woken up in 1973.
Read more on Playing The Race Card: Suarez, Solidarity And 1973…
Live and direct from his parish in Zurich, Pastor Sepp Blatter addresses his global congregation.
Brothers and sisters. Hear this. When I woke up this morning, I heard a disturbing sound. I said, when I woke up this morning, I heard a disturbing sound! What I heard was the wail of those who would have you believe that the souls of men aren’t pure. That a man’s heart can be poisoned by the shade of a man’s skin. Don’t be fooled, my people. The non-believer, the heathen, would lead you into a road of dangerous sanity. He would deceive you into thinking that one man has the darkness of heart to cuss and curse against another on that most sacred and hallowed place of worship, the football arena.
Some tell you that the world wasn’t created in seven days and seven nights. Others tell you we are evolved from apes. I cannot comment on this. But what I can emphatically and proudly tell you is that, I, your humble servant, having contemplated and worked tirelessly to re-pay the faith that you have placed in him, has indeed forever eradicated the scourge of Man; racism. The Tower of Babel is no more. I have brought nations together as one family and every four years they congregate to give thanks and adulation to me. For who else is capable of saving the planet from the fire of eternal damnation that is the Football Association of England?
“I know I’m not one to change the world but I’m not going to let anybody into my world to tell me what to do…Nobody will ever make me believe that my mistakes with drugs or in business have changed my feelings. Nothing. I am the same as always. I’m me, Maradona. I am El Diego.”
An old man died on Monday and it would be fair to assume that many of us would not have even the faintest idea of who Francisco Varallo was. With his passing at the age of one hundred years and six months however, the football world lost one of the last remaining links with the game in its formative years and for that we should all feel a little sad. Varallo was on the defeated Argentine side that succumbed to Uruguay in the inaugural World Cup Final in 1930 and with his death, the curtain came down on the pioneers who ensured that the game of football would be elevated to the globe-conquering heights it has subsequently reached.
Thank you Germany! Thank you Uruguay! As I hoped, match number sixty-three was one of the tournament’s truly entertaining and vibrant games. Of course, without the stakes being quite so high, both teams relaxed and played the kind of football that they are both capable of and have shown at various stages over the course of their seven matches in South Africa. And with it they were able to dispel the growing perception that this World Cup has been a series of drab, Mourinho-inspired tactical deadlocks. Of course, there have been those who have used such methods to progress (see holland) and I have been as guilty as anybody else of bemoaning this kind of effective pragmatism but having done so, I have neglected one of the other recurring themes of these Dispatches: the capacity of the World Cup to produce moments that will become embedded in one’s psyche, those golden moments that unfold a sprawling grand narrative which captivates us throughout its duration. (see worldcupdreams)
I’d imagine that fish restaurants from Hamburg to Leipzig will be sharpening their knives tonight in anticipation of a flurry of orders for the ‘kalamari special’ over the next few days. Unfortunately, schools of innocent squid will probably suffer terminal fates because of the uncanny ability of one of their distant cousins to correctly predict the result of all the matches involving Germany at this World Cup. Yet again, Paul the Octopus gravitated towards the flag of the victors in his tank at the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium and this time his prediction was Spain.
There is something about this Holland team that is slightly amiss. How can a team that has breezed through its group, overcome the imposing hurdle of Brazil and by and large looked comfortable in its semi-final victory against Uruguay, leave so many of us with a hollow feeling in the pit of our stomachs?
The Corinthian football club of the nineteenth century, so the story goes, was so staunch in its commitment to the spirit of amateur fair play, that when an own goal was scored by one of their opponents, they would immediately reciprocate the gesture by scoring one of their own. Penalties for them were anathema, missing them deliberately. And they refused to join the Football League or compete in the FA Cup for years because their founding rules stated that players were forbidden to “compete for any challenge cup or prizes of any description.” My, how the times have a-changed…
The teacher in me couldn’t resist the opportunity. So without further ado here are Mr Theoharis’ end of term reports for the final four:
Uruguay:
This pupil has exceeded all expectations this year. He has applied himself to his studies with a commitment and discipline which has seen him rise from the middle ranks of the class and thus set himself the achievable target of finishing the term as star performer. Uruguay has shown exceptional flourishes of flamboyance on sporadic occasions and despite having to overcome a mid-term difficult period, when it seemed that everybody else in the class was willing him to fail, he has shown incredible tenacity which has seen him prevail and stands him in good stead for the examinations to follow.
In Defence Of Luis Suarez by Rachael Singh
What’s The Point Of Scottish Football?
Captain Caveman: The De-evolution of John Terry
Alan Davies Is Here All Week
Liverpool Football Club, 1892 – 2012 – An Obituary
Make sure you don't miss any Dispatches by staying connected.
