How do you know when you’ve arrived in a land that’s passionate about soccer? Unfortunately, when you see it used as a projection screen for people’s prejudices.
Exhibit A: Already in the jetway at Tegel Airport, we’re greeted by posters featuring a wistful little boy and the caption: “A trip to South Africa – every little boy’s dream.” For good measure, the poster exists in both English and German. There’s no poster depicting every little girl’s dream, although the German women’s soccer team is the reigning world champion!
Exhibit B: A tabloid headline trumpeting today’s Germany-England match that proclaims, “We’ll beat the little Englishwomen [die kleine Engländerinnen].” No, it didn’t call the English players pussies, but only because Germany has these handy feminized endings that can be tacked onto nouns.
So there’s something to be said for a soccer culture in which boys and girls play together through sixth grade and there’s no official scorekeeping, like in our little league in Athens.
On the other hand, the flip side of America’s relaxed relationship to soccer is this: 300 million residents, and apparently not a single young man with a killer instinct for the goal! At least that’s the impression I got from yesterday’s game. In the second half, the American guys worked out one magical chance after another … and the ball magically ended in the Ghanaian goalkeeper’s tender embrace, every single time. The Germans have a word for this – abschlußschwach – meaning you just can’t drive the goal home. Soooo frustrating.
German soccer commentary also spends a lot of time discussing whether a win was verdient or unverdient – deserved or not. Sometimes, a team can play brilliantly and still lose. I don’t know how much “deservingness” is a cultural peculiarity, but I don’t recall hearing the mostly-British announcers on ESPN spend much breath on questions of soccer justice. In the US-Ghana match, a tie would have been a just outcome for two teams who both played a dazzling, captivating game; that would have been “verdient” for both sides. Only the single-elimination format precluded it.
I’m still psyched for the US-American team. We might not be a Great Power in soccer – not yet – but we also weren’t a Great Embarrassment. Yesterday’s match was so much more fun to watch than that snoozer between Brazil and Portugal. That’s something to celebrate.
Now, on to Germany-England. I’m happy to still have one of “my” teams in the tournament. Also: Yay Uruguay! They play entertaining soccer, plus they are really good looking. (But that would be a topic for another post, wouldn’t it?)
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
Gotta say that I have also been really impressed by how the US team performed. Great team spirit and positive attitude. US soccer has come a long way in the last couple of decades. The likes of Dempsey, Bocanegra & Howard ply their trade in the EPL, too, and they have some terrific young players coming through.
Certain other teams went into this World Cup with a sense of entitlement that, IMHO, largely contributed to their undoing. There is no doubt that the England squad has some fantastic players, but I’d give them a D- for attitude. (Oh, and on the tabloid press – the crap in the English ones is particularly hard to stomach during World Cups.) Did you watch today’s game at home or were there public viewing places to watch?
Oh, and on your scientist post – the gap between perception and reality seems helluva long when it comes to scientists! Media portrayal perhaps?
The one thing I can say about English soccer fandom is that it produced the only riot grrrl soccer club supporter song I’ve ever heard (about Middlesbrough FC in the 90s.)
Hydraargyrum – Yeah, they had a great team spirit. That’s what I like about the German team, too. None of that entitlement crap that took hold after their 1998 World Cup disaster.
Howard is just phenomenal. Manchester U. paid some ungodly sum to get him. I also read a couple of absolutely fascinating interviews with him. He’s got Tourette’s Syndrome, but for some reason, when he’s concentrated on a potential goal, it doesn’t affect him. He attributes it to willpower but I suspect there’s something even deeper going on in the brain; otherwise anyone with the condition could just “will” themselves out of it.
The Italian waitress in the pizzeria where we got dinner after yesterday’s match thinks that Dempsey is super sexy. So yeah, these guys are getting some European exposure.
We watched the big game at the corner pub – Walhalla, it’s called.
It was awesomest.
I thought France and Italy were even worse than England in terms of attitude, and the folks at the pizzeria concurred. Spain would have deserved a ride home, too. And Portugal and Brazil sucked mightily together! Of the “big” Fußballnationen, only the Dutch and Argentine sides look really good to me. The Germans, too, when they play as a team, which is their big strength this time around. Right now, my sympathies lie with 1) Germany (obviously), 2) Uruguay, 3) Ghana (points for being the underdog and playing excellently against the U.S.), and then 4) Netherlands and Argentina. Everyone with a sucky attitude in the group stage deserves to watch the final in the comfort of their living rooms.
As for the scientists’ media image – maybe you need to launch a new “Mr. Science” TV era? You’d be great!
Soccer is an art more central to our culture than anything the Arts Council deigns to recognize.
Methinks the Arts Council should sponsor Wayne Rooney to perform the chicken dance during games, thereby positively transforming his image!
“Exhibit A: Already in the jetway at Tegel Airport, we’re greeted by posters featuring a wistful little boy and the caption: “A trip to South Africa – every little boy’s dream.” For good measure, the poster exists in both English and German. There’s no poster depicting every little girl’s dream, although the German women’s soccer team is the reigning world champion!”
To be fair, there won’t be much of a trip for the German women, as they’re hosting the next Women’s World Cup! I’m sure women’s soccer is not as heavily advertised worldwide as men’s soccer, but it has to be kept in mind that the Women’s Cup isn’t until next year. I’m sure the host country will plaster stuff all over the place in 2011, like the US did in 1999 and 2003.
Since the US women won in 1999 (which is about as far back as I’ve been a sports fan), right up until this year, they’ve been more recognizable than the men. Until this year — perhaps even until Landon Donovan’s goal against Algeria — the only men’s soccer players as well-known as Mia Hamm or Heather Mitts were foreign players like Beckham and Zidane. I don’t think there’s any one reason for this — the “European = feminine” dynamic that also affects tennis (but not golf, oddly) is a factor — but I’m pretty sure that reason #1 is “they won a world championship,” followed closely by “we hosted the event twice.”
And when Americans get behind a team, we take it seriously — I don’t remember anyone thinking of Mia Hamm as a joke. Remember this awesome commercial? Michael Jordan and Mia Hamm might be, on some level, fighting a stupid proxy gender battle, but on another level, they’re seen as equals — equally skilled, but more importantly, equally driven.
“I don’t know how much “deservingness” is a cultural peculiarity, but I don’t recall hearing the mostly-British announcers on ESPN spend much breath on questions of soccer justice.”
I saw the US-Algeria game, and I recall the announcers spending much of the second half talking about how the US deserved to win the game — part of it was because of the blown cal, yeah, but Harkes and the Alan Partridge expy also discussed how the US had created a ton of scoring chances that just didn’t pan out.
Interesting, that the commentators on the US-Algeria match taking about who deserved what. I didn’t see that one. Maybe Hydraargyrum (who hails from Scotland) can shed more light on whether the British media focuses much on “deserved” wins.
And oh, the missed chances! The U.S. would be in the quarterfinals, but for that!
As for sexism in Germany’s soccer culture: I was sort of lazy in this post by letting that one poster stand in for a much broader attitude. But for starters, the poster was there to greet *inbound* passengers, not folks who might actually be heading to the World Cup. More crucially, soccer is just not seen broadly as a girls’ sport here. I’ve even heard TV announcers proclaim that soccer is “kein Sport für Mädchen” – no sport for girls. You just don’t see girls playing it here. The idea of mixed-sex teams would be absurd. I know that there are places in the U.S. where soccer is sex-segregated from kindergarten onward, but anything else is just unthinkable in Germany.
And yes, Mia Hamm was taken seriously and idolized – rightly so! But her equivalent in Germany would not become a household name, as she did. Granted, I’ve mostly been living in the U.S since 2000, and so I haven’t seen all the media reactions to strong German women’s teams. Even so – I’m confident in saying that it would take a couple of generations, minimum, for Germany’s women to gain the stature that American women have done.
I think you’re right that there’s a little dose of “soccer is European” in clearing the way for girls and women to excel in it. More important, probably, is that other sports don’t siphon off multitalented women, as I suspect still happens with football, baseball, and basketball in the U.S.
Thanks for your thought-provoking comment!
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