Head-Butts, Crepes and the Transformative Sphere of World Cup Soccer
by Jefferson Mok

At the start of June, I took on a new job. It required me to wake up at ungodly hours on weekdays and weekends, make tons of phone calls, skip breakfast, and to be well-versed in international politics. I would like to say that I am referring to my new job helping asylum seekers get legal representation, but I’m actually talking about the World Cup. The callous soul might say, “That’s not a job!” And that person would be right. Watching the World Cup is not a job; it’s a sacred duty.

I sat at the Small Bar on Division St. in Wicker Park one Saturday morning in July, surrounded by Englishmen nursing their Guinesses. It was 8:00 a.m. The Small Bar is the de facto soccer bar in the area, a neat beer haven nestled between more conspicuous neighbors. I did most of my musing there, and the following observations arrived either from being transfixed on their plasma screen, from having consumed a liter of Hofbrau or from chatting up fellow fans. Each day, I would glance around to see who had come to watch, to see what boundaries we could push, what new mixes we could concoct. Which side would American fans support in the Iran vs. Mexico game? Being so close to the Ukrainian Village, would the bar be stuffed with Ukrainians cheering on Ukraine’s first appearance at the World Cup? Did it matter whether I had a team to call my own? Adam Schwartz, a new Chicagoan and my sometimes bar-mate, noted, “I learned how much people love soccer and I learned how to love soccer…I learned how to love.”

I could go on and on about how soccer is a superior sport, a sublime contest that trumps all other team sports in spirit and athleticism, a true celebration of human goodwill and fair competition—but I won’t. What separates soccer from so many other sports is the possibility of talking about the sport without mentioning the competition. Soccer could be a robust metaphor for life. Matt Blake, a journalism graduate student at Northwestern University, said, "The World Cup changed the way I viewed sports...as not the domain of instant gratification, but a slow, determined struggle to simply achieve progress, much less glory. It made me understand the slow give-and-take of my own life and reinforced that hard-work, intelligence and honesty are their own rewards." The French author, Albert Camus, noted that he developed his entire sense of ethics by playing soccer. A conversation about soccer could be a platform to talk about so many things, like the different beers in the world, or about national identity, racism, immigration, economics, or singing in public.

Still, there is no getting around the fact that there are some very appealing physical characteristics to soccer as a competitive activity. Soccer is transformative. It turns the prototypical schoolyard wimp (short, skinny and quick) and gives him or her a chance to be the prototypical superstar (diminutive, elusive and greasier than lightning). It takes two vulgar things, a ball and feet, and meshes them to produce dance-like motion. Soccer is the only sport I can think of in which your mode of transportation is also the means by which you manipulate the object. (Water polo is similar, but for some reason, it isn’t the crowd-pleasing media juggernaut that fourteen Speedo-clad athletes in a frothy swimming pool should be.)

Then there is the idea of proportions. Soccer’s athletic demands require an athlete to have a trim, almost harmonious appearance of fitness that does not need to be enhanced by any equipment or excessive muscle-building. Soccer players often appear small on such a large field, which leads to the impression that soccer isn’t a physical sport, but the collisions, which occur every minute in soccer, would be considered flagrant fouls in basketball.

From here, I could talk about soccer in dimensions not possible with other sports. I could talk about how soccer reveals so much about a country, how it really demonstrates the ‘national character’. If it’s a cliché to say the Brazilian style is flamboyant and gaudy and the German style coolly efficient and fundamentally sound, I still find it illuminating that a sport is able to convey those ideas about a culture. I could also talk about how the mélange of cultures has promulgated interesting phrases such as “the beautiful game,” “brilliant orange,” “total football,” “the divine ponytail,” and the “Hand of God.” Teams have great nicknames, too: the Gunners, the Indomitable Lions, los Bosteros (“Garbage Collectors”). And soccer players don’t wear jerseys—they wear shirts, sometimes with collars. I love that.

Above all else, soccer’s appeal is that it is an international phenomenon. There are officially 193 countries in the world, but 198 nations tried to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. FIFA, the governing body of soccer for the world, is arguably more influential than the United Nations. Countries fear sanctions from FIFA more than from the UN (for example, Kenya in 2005 and more recently, Greece a few months back). Soccer is an arena in which the power centers are in Europe and South America while North America is largely irrelevant. It is a sport where the American idea of brute force over tactics fails completely. I love that, too.

Soccer appeals in other ways. It is the sport many kids in the U.S. have played because they can, regardless of size, shape, or sex. Kids the world over can play largely for the same reasons: soccer is democratic and egalitarian. It doesn’t matter if you have three people or twenty, if you’re playing on a full field or using garbage cans for goals – soccer adapts itself to the conditions. All you need is a ball. And those feet I mentioned earlier.

It’s hard to say why soccer isn’t as popular in the U.S. as anywhere else. It seems to be the sport for people that don’t like American sports or need a different avenue to express their reservations about America at large. Ben Owen, PACE bus employee, observed, “The World Cup is the only sport that allows sport-haters to get out of their shell, drink a load of beer, cheer on some country going against the US, and feel good about it. It's like the PC sport of the …football/baseball-overloaded outcasts."

One theory I constructed during the World Cup is that, unlike most other sports, soccer’s clock is continuous, meaning some degree of information is being transmitted at all times. Whereas sports like basketball and American football are punctuated by constant breaks, often for commercials during TV broadcasts, and innumerable opportunities to eat or to go to the bathroom, soccer requires at least a low level of attention throughout the contest. That is not to say that food isn’t an integral part of watching. Soccer fans have to eat, too.

On the final day of the World Cup, I put together a party for some friends to watch in each other’s company. We tried our best to pay homage to the two nations’ heritages (it was France vs. Italy). We rolled out the clichés and buoyed them up with our fragments of experiences acquired abroad. A crepe stand using a camping stove was set up next to the TV. That was the French component. For Italian fare, we had Spaghetti-O’s in martini glasses. (Side note: The World Cup made me realize how little I know about Italy.) Vin and vino were both present and consumed without discrimination. I was really lucky that it was France and Italy that advanced to the finals. The other possible teams were Germany and Portugal, but both were eliminated in the semi-finals. Because the French and Italian flags are so similar, I saved at least several dollars in crepe paper for the decorations.

The Final itself was a cagey, tense affair, played with all the cautiousness and skill of two chess masters. It was a uniquely European affair in terms of style – there was little in the way of individual flashiness, but overall very impressive in terms of organization. And then there were the final moments, a scene never to be forgotten in sports lore: Frenchman Zinedine Zidane, one of the greatest European players of all time and playing in his last game ever, lowered his bald cranium and drilled it into an opponent’s chest, knocking him flat on his butt. It was truly astonishing to see a sportsman adhere so diligently to the rules of the game – I have never seen Zidane use his hands, not to control the ball, not to dribble around an opponent or score magnificent goals and definitely not to maim another player. He has stomped and he has head-butted, but he has never punched. When the shock had subsided slightly, I remembered there was still a game to finish.

Not surprisingly, Italy won the final after Zidane was ejected. That’s great, I guess. By that time, however, I was more wrapped up in the party and, frankly, a little tired. I needed to take some time off, do my laundry, re-establish a routine. I had important things to think about – my job beckoned (I really do have a job helping asylum seekers) and there were still screens to stare at, international issues to think about, e-mails to write, loyalties to fulfill, and early mornings on the horizon. I had obligations, and I had to plan ahead, because the English Premier League just started.