'Obama We Are Sorry' - possibly best World Cup memory from Ghana

Flashback: This video captures the euphoria in the streets of Ghana just after the Black Stars knocked the US out of the World Cup.

Great music in the background - the two most prominent are football-inspired: Richy Pitch's awesome "Football Jama", and Wanlov The Kubolor's "Goal Again". Thank you to photographer Rodney Quarcoo for filming and sharing this.  His website: http://www.ayigbeboy.com.

Regime Change: Africa in the World Cup Final

Fifa's match reporters seem surprised that Nigeria made it to the U20 Women's World Cup finals. They write:

Few...would have predicted that Nigeria, representatives of an African continent which had never before sampled life beyond the quarter-finals of any FIFA Women’s World Cup or Olympic Games, would be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Sunday’s final in Bielefeld is therefore full of intrigue and fascination.

I must be one of the few. If you watched the women's games in the last Olympics, you might remember that Nigeria drew the toughest group - playing Germany, Brazil, and North Korea in the first round. The Super Falcons gave all three teams a tough time - they played some of the most entertaining attacking football in the tournament.  Watching Nigeria play Brazil, you couldn't help but think you were watching the future of the women's game - neither squad enjoys the institutional support they deserve from their football federations, and they compete well against teams lionized for not only the talent on the field, but for the organizational commitment behind the players. Brazil and Nigeria's senior squads would be contenders for next year's World Cup championship were they supported at even a quarter of the level awarded to their male counterparts. (Boy am I tired of writing sentences like that one.)  Both have fans in their home countries, and both play in styles that reflect the ethos associated with South American and African teams, but which seems lost in the men's game these days.

The Nigerians have not scored the outrageous number of goals that other squads have managed in some of the tournament's ill-matched confrontations.  But the Germans, who have 18 goals in their column, played the woeful French and Costa Rican squads in round one and rolled over the S. Korean squad, with 5 goals to their 1. And the Nigerians have kept the number of goals scored against them low - at 4, they have given up one fewer than Germany.  Furthermore, the Nigerians beat the US youth squad - symbolically, I can't think of a better result for the international game.

In the wonderfully titled article "Our Women Rule the World," Nigerian journalist Ikeddy Isiguzo writes,

USA is the most dominant country in global female football and its U-20 team has never failed to reach the semi-final since the competition started in 2002.

It was the defending champion, and had garnered two wins, a third and fourth place in the four previous competitions  no other country has a record close to this.

Another article, on Nigeria's semifinal win over Columbia is headlined "What Our Men Couldn't Do."  Ghana getting past Uruguay would have been historic. But Nigeria's women beating USA? Or Germany? That would be a ground-breaking victory for not just Nigeria and indeed for Africa's women's teams, but for all women's teams that aren't USA or Germany.  When so few teams play in finals so often, it makes victory for the rest feel impossible - it makes the whole system feel rigged.  It furthermore feeds the defeatist attitude that defines the approach of the vast majority of national FAs (which think: women's football sucks, women don't play well, nobody cares about it, and they will lose anyway).

So, yes, Germany should be favored in this match. But I think anyone who sees the Falconets as unlikely finalists or accidental contenders has not been following the women's game very closely. And I guess that includes FIFA itself.

The Art of Erasure: from one World Cup to another (USA Ghana)

A few weeks ago, I dared to complain about Nike's "Thank You" video. It is a lovely idea. It features young players thanking the US National Men's Team for "paving the way" - but it excluded girls. Girls support the team, too, and are inspired by their example.

My point then was simple: Girls are inspired by male athletes. Girls and women are fans of the team.  The ad is quite clearly about inspiration (and nationalism). The ad also mimics a Gatorade spot, produced on the occasion of Mia Hamm's retirement. That video opens with a little girl, and cuts to Landon Donovan. It features men and women, including her teammates and Michael Jordan - all thanking the legendary player for inspiring them with her passion, drive, and competitiveness. 

When it comes to women's sports, we don't ask that boys and men be kept out of the frame. We want their support to be visible. Why, then, when it comes to showcasing the fan base for the men's game, must girls be excluded from the picture? 

The logic used to cast that video underscores a growing problem in sport media - the decreasing visibility of women, in nearly every capacity. A recent study demonstrated that roughly 98% of mainstream sports media space is devoted to men's sports, to male athletes and their doings.  Less than 2% is devoted to women.

This issue reared its ugly head today, in the most unlikely place of all.  I sat down today with my niece to watch the US National Women's Team play their opening match in the U20 World Cup, which kicked off this week in Germany.  Amazingly, they played Ghana.

At the half, incredibly, Ghana led 1-0.  The US looked disorganized against a scrappy team playing a ragged defense which nevertheless seemed to neutralize the US's attacks. Were viewers allowed to enjoy a discussion exploring how the heavily favored US gave up a goal, and failed to equalize, in spite of what seemed like a dozen shots? No - instead we got a lame discussion of the state of the men's game in the US.  For real. It was infuriating. I would have settled for a discussion of the senior squad's draw against Sweden the previous day.  But a tired, worn out and totally half-ass debate about what the US men's game needs?  Really?

I spent the day imagining what it would be like if we heard about the WNBA during NBA matches, how the women's league was doing during EPL broadcasts, and if we were offered a history lesson on the suppression of women's baseball during the All-Star game. It would be amazing.

Representations of female athleticism, of the accomplishments of women's teams, are so few, so rare that girls must look to people like Landon Donovan for inspiration - he's a LOT easier to see on TV than Sydney Leroux (who scored the second half equalizer today).  Girl players look up to him and his teammates, even though they aren't nearly as competitive internationally as the women's squad.  They should admire Donovan, Howard, Gooch, Dempsey et all.  They are great players. And they should admire Leroux, Rodriguez, Wambach, Solo, Kai and their teammates too.

Girls who support the sport should never be squeezed out of the frame - unless the intention is to give them a jump on mastering the art of self-erasure.


For a recap of USA/Ghana, as well as other matches - including a great one between England and Nigeria - see All White Kit. Highlights below, thanks to AWK!

Looking for answers, in an evangelical World Cup brochure

My favorite World Cup ephemera is this brochure, produced for a "Bible Correspondence Course" in Long Beach, CA. A friend of mine found it on his car windshield, a couple weeks before the tournament's start. 

I'm amazed by the ease with which the authors of this text move from "How about life after death?" and "There is not much time left before the World Cup of Soccer takes place...." The brochure alternates between these visions of the afterlife and practical information about the tournament. It provides a list of previous winners, for example, and a table you can fill out as the tournament progresses as well as the essay pictured above, addressing the sense of emptiness and betrayal we are destined to live with, come Monday morning.

On the brochure's last page, one finds an address to which one can turn for solutions.  Apparently, even the God Squad profits from World Cup fever.

The World Throws Up: On how not to read soccer as symptom

Chéri Samba, Le Monde Vomissant (The World Throws Up), 2004

 
If recent writing on the 2010 World Cup and (the idea of) Africa is leaving you feel bloated, you must read Supriya Nair's marvelous blog, Treason Stratagems & Spoils.  In her July 3rd post, she calls out western media pundits for their tendency to see in each African soccer team (and, indeed, in each African or non-European or non-white player) a tidy study in "the African problem," the "problem of history", and the "problem of nationalism".

I cite one part of her blog below because I've been looking for someone to properly check the liberal impulse to read in Mesut Özil a redemption of Germany's policies on immigration and citizenship.  Nair's eloquent rant was triggered by Roger Cohen's op-ed piece for The New York Times, which centered on Özil's symbolic meaning ("Özil the German"). Before discussing the Turkish German player, Cohen gives an overview of, basically, Africa's "problems" - in history, politics, and soccer. It's all about the "Big Man," he argues, and national soccer teams do well to avoid them. Nair takes him to school for that, and moves on in her critique. To Cohen's assertion "But the Germany of Özil and Aogo is such a victory over the Big Man who destroyed Europe." Nair replies:

Which is to say, thank you Turkey and Nigeria for bearing the brunt of the history of European imperialism in your own distinct ways. Directly or indirectly, we dismantled your countries in our world wars, plundered your resources, broke up your nations, sold off the pieces, put your worst enemies in power over you, treated your people like shit when they came to Europe looking for work, and continue to do so. But our football teams are now full of brown kids and black kids. So Hitler lost and you lost, but we all won. So we're cool, right? We're cool.

I encourage readers to go to her site and read the whole thing ; "When I Get Older," Treason Stratagems & Spoils.

Writing like Nair's is, at the moment, only found on blogs like the one you are reading right now. Newspapers, stuck a fantasy moment of the 1970s, turn over and over again to people disconnected from the game, people all too happy to project political fantasy onto whatever - people who do not have the knowledge or skills or interest level that would allow them to see the politics in the form of the game - Nair moves swiftly from analysis of tactical errors to political critique, but does not make the mistake of treating tactical errors made on the field as historico-political symptom. 

Germany, playing for more than a win

Germany's coach Joachim Loew lights a candle in Enke's memory

On the eve of the World Cup, players reminded the press that this tournament was different.  This year, they were playing in the wake of traumatic loss, and would do their best to honor the memory of Robert Enke, the German National Team goalkeeper who committed suicide in November 2009.  In his story for The Guardian, Dominic Fifield explains:

The recognition that they had been oblivious to a team-mate suffering so deeply struck home with Germany's players, who were told the news of his death by the national coach Joachim Löw and the manager Oliver Bierhoff as they prepared for a friendly against Chile.

"To have not realised ...well that makes you feel helpless," said Ballack, who had known Enke since he was 13. "There was shock, emotion, lots of tears. The service and memorial were good, a chance to say goodbye to him. We have to learn from this. There is the illness, but also the combination with football and being famous."

Ballack continues:

"He was scared to speak about his problem because he was scared to lose his child, or his job. Or to confess to having a weakness to other players. People have weaknesses. We should accept it. This should never be forgotten. It was a hard time, for everyone close to him and for us, as players. He will always have a place in our team. The players, the staff, the management all knew him, and it's still in our minds, and in the fans' minds. The further Germany go in the, the more emotional it will get." (Dominic Fifield, "Germany spurred on by the memory of Robert Enke" in The Guardian, June 11 2009)

His teammates were devastated not only by his death, but by the realization that someone on their team, a friend, had suffered so much and had not been able to share this burden with them. His death put things in perspective.

It is easy to fall back on stereotypes about the German squad - as clinical, for example - but this particular squad defies such templates not only in the dynamism and vision of their game, but in their public embrace of Enke's memory and in their support for other athletes struggling with depression. The squad has promised a portion of any bonus it earns from the World Cup to the Robert Enke Foundation - set up by the German FA to support research and treatment of depression.

That the team has come together like this, in the wake of such a sad loss, around such a taboo subject (especially in the macho and often heartless world of sports cultures), is truly inspiring.

(See November 2009 post: "On the Suicide of Robert Enke")

Ghana's Elimination by la Mano del Diablo

If la Mano de Dios works in the service of an attack on goal, helping the ball over the keeper, across the line, or to the foot of a well-placed teammate, la Mano del Diablo does its opposite - a hand raised on the line to stop a ball speeding toward the back of the net.  The Hand of God works in one direction, the Hand of the Devil in its opposite.

The special cruelty of the latter was revealed today when Uruguayan striker Suarez denied a last second header from Ghana's Dominic Adiyiah. Suarez drew a red card - it was a hand ball, clearly denying a goal.  It's what's known cynically as a "professional foul," because in this instance, a goal is not automatically awarded. Instead, the offended team takes a penalty. Asamoah Gyan - a truly marvelous player, hit the cross bar.  As we all know now, Ghana then went out on penalty kicks.  Suarez got his team through, though perhaps it cost him a piece of his soul (and his presence in the next match). My post regarding Mexico's loss to Argentina still applies, but here a twist of fate feels more like a knife in the back.

[If you are new to the whole "hand of God" thing, see this BBC interview with God himself.]

Football, at Sea (reading the World Cup through Moby Dick)

I was challenged to connect The World Cup to Moby Dick.  Readers of the novel and fans of the beautiful game will see points of intersection just as peculiar as what follows here.

Moby Dick: the Jabulani 

"...none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness... "  (from the chapter, "Of Monstrous Pictures of Whales")

Dubbed "the ball of confusion" by the LA Times, Adidas's World Cup ball is fast, unpredictable, and, most importantly for qualifying as Moby Dick's analog, unknowable.

Ahab: Maradona

Then, tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, Aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what we have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it no? I think ye do look brave. ("The Quarter Deck")

The captain of all captains, a man obsessed, a man who pursues the white whale long after his career has finished - a dubious and yet gifted and absolutely inspiring character, he is willing to bend the rules of the game to meet his ends. Team Argentina is rising to his call - they are not playing for a man, they are playing for God.

Ishmael: Call him us

Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behoves me to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in this enterprise; not overlooking the minutest seminal germs of is blood, and spinning him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view....Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer's uncommon personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author like me....To produce a mighty book, you must choose a might theme. ("The Fossil Whale")

We see the whale-chase through his eyes, he theorizes the whale from all available angles, and inventories the whaling industry and everything connected to it and more. Ishmael is the blogger and pundit.  It's Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, thinking they can predict a glorious future for India, using the logic of economic markets (ridiculous - the All-India Football Federation's management of the game is so atrocious as to defy all rationalist arguments about the game's development in that country). It's me, arguing with Kuper and Szymanski, and seeing FIFA's black helicopters everywhere. It's Eduardo Galeano, writing his poetic manifesto - seeing in the game a metaphor for all that's beautiful in living, and also all that sucks the joy out of life.  It's Eamon Dunphy, narrating his year of playing disastrously for Millwall.  It's this very post.

Queequeg: Zinadine Zidane

Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw traces of a simple honest heart, and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils.  ("A Bosom Friend")

The harpooner is Ishmael's best friend. The novel opens with their "marriage" - before taking to sea, the two share a bed and sit up all night under the covers talking the hours away, "A cozy, loving pair."  He is a figure for the Other, and the Other's magnetism. Melville can't get enough of him, he luxuriates in thick descriptions of his fearsome beauty. His is a complex presence within the narrative - through Ishmael's interaction with Queequeg, Melville launches a sustained critique of Judeo-Christian mores. Ishmael may identify Queequeg as a "savage" and as a "cannibal"(figuratively), but as he also asserts that Queequeg's approach to life is both more ethical and worldly than that produced at the chapel pulpit.

Queequeg must be a player. And a player who is a good friend to the game, one we can't get enough of, too, as a spectacle. But I can't think of anyone on the pitch right now who meets this standard.

Queequeg also figures prominently in one of the crazier passages in Moby Dick, when fellow harpooner Tashtego takes "a head-first accidental plunge into the depths of the oil-case in the whale's head." The whale carcass is alongside the ship, in the water - Tashtego by all rights should have met his end there. But Queequeg comes up with a great save:

How had the rescue been accomplished? Diving down with the sinking head, Queequeg slashed it with his knife near the bottom, reached in, grabbed Tashtego's leg, tried to pull him out -- couldn't -- fished around for Tashtego's hair, and grabbing it, turned the Indian around and effected the delivery! All the while sinking, sinking -- their lungs bursting, bursting for air . . .

He's a rescuer.  One might say, then, that we should pick a defender - but I think the rescue fantasies laid on the shoulders of my nominee are more in scale with the symbolic and literal function of Queequeg within this novel.

Zizou's spectacular beauty is well known (note Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait), and he hovers over squads as a talismanic presence (e.g. Algeria). He represents an "alien" and alienated generation, and, of course, is famous for an unusual incident involving the head.

The Pequod: Fabio Capello

The ship is as much a character in this novel as is the whale. It is the leaky structure all must inhabit.  That could be Fifa. But this is awfully literal, and would lead us to aligning Ahad with Sepp Blatter who does not have the character to merit such a comparison.

I prefer to see in the following description, traces of the England manager:

She was a ship of the old school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts-cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale-her masts stood stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to the wild business that for more than half a century she had followed.

I will stop here, and try to think about something else for a few hours. Starbuck, anyone?

More thoughts on more losses (Mexico, England and the unfairness of it all)

It was all too much today - one great goal ignored (Lampard) and one totally, unambiguously offside goal allowed (Tevez). We watched some teams exploit their good fortune, and others collapse in the face of their bad luck.

It's become a World Cup scripted by Emile Zola. I am thinking of his utterly depressing novel L'Assommoir (the word means a dive-bar one goes to only to get hammered). At a key juncture in the story, the lovable drunk Copeau is doing his best to get his life together, but takes a bad fall at work and breaks his leg. His life is a fast downhill slide to abject poverty from there. He just doesn't have the constitution to overcome the kind of bad luck that in fact breaks a lot of people. My students always dig that novel, because this story feels real - the story of bad things happening to decent but very flawed people.

Is it in the service of realism, I wonder, that Sepp Blatter wards off all pressure to use technology to, say, confirm that, indeed, the ball has crossed the goal-line? Is that what he means by human drama - Life is not only unfair, it's a cruel and pointless venture?  

I don't think England had a win in them today - it didn't seem like it. Not when faced with Özil, Klose, and Podolski on the attack.  Germany played brilliantly - and, really, that's why they won.  But, like a character in a Zola novel, England can now stew in its bitterness, feel robbed, and pour more of its energy down the drain in a stream of complaint.

Mexico - oh, my heart.  The first twenty-six minutes of the match today were pure, insane delight. But then the magic fell apart with Tevez's offside goal. Players saw the disaster replayed on the stadium screens (as happened after Lampard's un-goal as well). That could not have helped matters - it was impossible to miss: Tevez was so offside that he must have known it himself.  The hand of God, moving one of his pawns into position. That sort of thing is dispiriting. So a few minutes later we see El Tri give up another goal with a limp pass - the sort of mistake made by someone who feels the decks are so stacked against them that the game isn't worth playing anymore. You feel screwed by the system, so you screw yourself.

Argentina played beautifully, Tevez made sure we knew he was more than a cheat, and fired one of the best shots of the tournament in the 52nd minute. Great teams exploit luck and the other side's error. They are captains of a lucky universe.  The rest of us pretty much just go down with the ship.

Quick note on today's loss & US soccer fans

The hoopla over Wednesday's victory is rapidly fading, as is the wild optimism regarding the "future of American soccer". I don't mind this - all that hype is about as sound as the California real estate market. We belong to a different world, really - one that doesn't need the team to "win it all". We wanted them to play well, to play an honest game.  The USMNT really did that. They got farther than France and Italy, and I think have more French and Italian fans, perhaps, than do either of those two squads.

Meditating on today's loss, Jeff Nunokawa captured what might be most interesting about football culture here in the states:

I like to think that at least a little of the interest exhibited by my fellow Americans in the fortunes of our team at an international contest in a sport where, historically, we have hardly distinguished ourselves against other countries, I like to think that at least a little of that interest exhibited by my fellow Americans has to do with the desire, vivid or obscure, to take our place as a nation among other nations, rather than a nation above them. I hope so. Don't you?      (FB Note 2076, "a general shout of brotherhood and joy")

 I don't hope so, I know so.

Listening to the World Cup: Waka Waka, Zangaléwa and Vuvuzelas

From the first 2010 World Cup broadcasts on ESPN, my fellow tweeters cracked jokes about The Lion King. We imagined Rafiki calling the matches, or James Earl Jones (who provided the voice for Mufasa), and half expected the referees to raise the Jabulani aloft to announce the arrival of the New Ball. Most folks simply observed, "I feel like I am watching The Lion King."

There is a good reason for this. The score used by ESPN to frame its broadcasts was written by Lisle Moore, a Utah composer who had worked with the network in the past. Moore gave us muscular music for a sporting event, upbeat music for a media event organized around putting us all in the mood to buy a shirt, a ball, or a Coke. Layered over the orchestral swells are the oddly familiar sounds of African voices, or, I should say, African-sounding voices.  Africa is scored here as a noble landscape, peopled by a unified chorus, singing together in a harmonic convergence of tribal cultures.

"With the exception of the African choir," reports the Salt Lake Tribune, "all of the music is performed by Utah musicians." ("ESPN Turns to Utah for World Cup Music") That "African choir" lending this score a sense of location is actually made up with members of The Lion King's Broadway cast. The African-sounding choir from New York City was hired to sonically channel an idea of African authenticity keyed to ESPN's American audience. This is of course true of all scores produced by the World Cup broadcasting networks as they reach for music their imagined audience will understand. Without a doubt, we are hearing not African music but (to invoke philosopher Valentin Mudimbe) a musical "Idea of Africa."

In the mix of the music draped over the 2010 World Cup, are more specific strains - signals clearly audible to the listener of African music, the sound of a continent being ripped off. This is nowhere more obvious than "The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup (TM) Song", "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)", sung by Shakira and Freshlyground, a South African Afro-fusion bad.  The global pop hit has a clear relationship to a Cameroonian military song, Zangaléwa, popularized by Golden Sounds in 1986. "Waka Waka" doesn't just borrow from "Zangaléwa" - listen to the two and you see that "Waka Waka" is, very nearly, an illegal cover (the chorus is a direct use of "Zangaléwa").

First, Golden Sounds' 1986 hit:

And Shakira/Freshlyground:

In his article "Undermining African Intellectual and Artistic Rights: Shakira, Zangalewa and the World Cup Anthem," (from which I draw heavily below) Dibussi Tande situates this appropriation within a longer history of intellectual theft - he begins with perhaps the most infamous case of an international pop star absorbing the work of an African musician in Michale Jackson's use of Manu Dibango's hit song "Soul Makossa" in the opening track on Thriller.

Dibango sued Jackson and won - incredibly, given the topic here, Dibango's song was the B-side to Movement Ewondo which the artist composed for the 1972 African Cup of Nations (hosted by Cameroon and won by Congo-Brazzaville). It's a frenetic football score in which strings seems to scurry underneath Dibango's expressive and light-footed sax.

Jackson's appropriation of recognizable lyrics and melodies pale in comparison with what Shakira and Sony music pull off with "Waka Waka". Given their direct use of a song which seems to be known a generation of Cameroonians, it's surprising that they thought they could get away with it. (See WFMU's record of their efforts to figure out the song's genealogy.)

Tande, a digitial activist, points out that the origins of the song were only acknowledged by FIFA, Shakira et al in response to online activism by those who knew the song, and were horrified to see it stolen in this way. He writes:

To Cameroonians and many African, the origins of the song was no mystery as they instantly recognized it as a remix of “Zangalewa”. Thus began a frenzied online campaign to alert the world that this was not a Shakira original but a remix. The task was made all the more easier thanks to videos of the Golden Sounds performing Zangalewa that were available on the web. The campaign picked up steam as the international media began taking an interest in the story. (Tande, "Undermining African Intellectual and Artistic Rights", May 23 on Scribbles from the Den)

The internet sped up a process which normally takes years to resolve - clearly, obviously "Waka Waka" is a version of "Zangaléwa." Under pressure from the Cameroonian musicians and their advocates, FIFA gingerly inserted a statement of "Waka Waka"'s relationship to the Golden Sounds hit.  FIFA/Shakira/Sony attempt to control the spin here by calling "Waka Waka" a remix, but that's just not true - unless "remix" is now a codeword for "plagiarism" - as none of the original material for the World Cup song acknowledge the existence of "Zangaléwa". (See also Guanabee's April 10 article "Shakira's World Cup Song 'Saminamina' Rips From the 1980s African Hit 'Zangaléwa'.")

The definitive riffs, melodies and lyrics of "The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup (TM) Song" belong not to FIFA at all, but to the makers and listeners of Cameroonian music.

Tande connects this story to Puma's use of a photograph of Ngado Pickett, a celebrated Cameroonian fan in an Paris-based advertising campaign. Puma never asked Pickett for the use of his image to endorse its product. Tande brings it all back around to the starting point for this post: The Lion King. Responding to those who tell Pickett and the artists behind "Zangaléwa" that they should be happy for the exposure, Tande argues:

For decades, African artists have had their works plagiarized by the West with little or no compensation or acknowledgement. The most memorable example of the theft of the intellectual rights of an African artist is that of Solomon Popoli Linda who in 1939 wrote the song "Mbube" and received 10 shillings (less than $US 2) for his efforts. The song which later became the pop hit "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was reinterpreted by dozens of American artists without Linda or his family receiving a dime. In fact he died penniless. In 1995, the Lion Sleeps Tonight earned an estimated $15 million dollars just for its use in the movie Lion King – a movie which has since grossed about 800 million USD worldwide. Linda's descendants sued Walt Disney for 1.5 million dollars with the full backing of the South African government. Disney settled for an undisclosed sum just as the trial was about to begin. (Tande, "Undermining African Intellectual and Artistic Rights", May 23 on Scribbles from the Den)

This is not something the company is eager for its consumers to know - behind that feel-good African sound is the noise of the gear-works of colonial exploitation, turning.

Here we arrive at the big story of the sound of the world cup - the awful, awe-inspiring but terrifying sound of the vuvuzelas.

Perhaps the noise of the vuvuzela is the sound of resistance - African noise being fed back to us through the television set, a sonic interference, drowning out all else in a collective refusal to play a pretty song.

Whatever: A French Perspective on French National Team's Implosion

I've translated an article by Simone Capelli-Welter, a regular contributor to So Foot. It's a fantastic piece, and in it you can hear an all too familiar frustration with the drama, the hysteria, and the contradictory flows of media discourse on such implosions.  This an unauthorized translation - but I am so sick of ESPN/CNN's stupid reporting on this story that I couldn't help myself:

With the events that have rocked the world of its football team, and with the event that soon will not occur, France can return to its favorite activity: saying everything and its opposite, and, above all, anything whatsoever.

Above all else, France will heap the sum of its bitterness on its football players.  Guilty, guilty of course. Of earning too much money to live and think like pigs, of being arrogant, evil, of being rebellious, and perhaps for being blacks, Muslims, and for coming from the projects. The whole country is doing poorly, and we have someone to blame. Our football players.

Sociologists, politicians, population experts, anachronistic panels, Chantal and Monique, all will be asked for their opinions, their expert words, they will be persuaded to derive from the tale of a football team the whys and wherefores of a country which obviously is looking for answers. A clash of civilizations, a spoiled generation, a team of thugs, and so forth and so on. We have Finkielkraut, one example among many who talk of playing like gentlemen...And good football players? France has emptied his bag, and seems ready for whatever. [See this Europe 1 interview with the conservative and controversial Finkielkraut, in which he speaks of Anelka as thug, and the team as the "spoiled generation". Finkielkraut is infamous for his anti-immigrant statements - among his inflammatory remarks, he called the French national team, "black, black, black" - a reference to the "black, blanc, beur" anthem for the postcolonial make-up of '98 side, which itself reappropriated the nationalist "blue, blanc, rouge" of the French flag.]

And we have the opposite, the contrarian brains who must swim against the current to register themselves as pro-Anelka, pro-Domenech, pro-propaganda. Don't jump on the bandwagon, sure, but then to take the defense of a weak, incompetent or...screw it. Today, with the World Cup in full swing, France will say anything. It is reduced to declaring that the dramas of its football team are much more entertaining than the coolest TV series. We console ourselves as we can. However, this posture, adopted by many supporters of L'Equipe de France in order to avoid losing face, puts its finger on something essential. At the moment, the France football team is actually performing. As the parody of itself, finally, that it should be. The team is making its own fireworks.

By dint of playing a poor game and refusing to explain it, the players and their coach  gave instead a letter to the people, who leaped at the chance to talk about this something else, since it must to continue to talk about its football team no matter what. The ethics of its organization, its money matters, its social side – with so little to offer on the pitch, the team is scrutinized from all angles, every angle, in all its forms. Inevitably, this little game can’t be out-grown. Ours is like any football team in the world that has endured this treatment. Players will return today to face the press. Maybe, but everything works against them if they should turn back and focus on what they are supposed to do, which is no more and no less than to defend France on the football field.

There is still a game in this World Cup, but that fact is now incidental. Players of the French team are too busy looking for their traitor; the people of the federation are too busy looking for their parachute; the football world is too busy looking for its scapegoat, and the country, its sin. Reactions will not stop coming. Some will be violent, most will be stupid, and all will be out of proportion. As happens when France loses (Euro 2002, Henry's hand, etc..). As happens when France wins (1998, France black, blanc, buer etc.). France loses her head. France cannot lose, France cannot win, France does not understand football. Fortunately, though, the game goes on. - Simone Capelli-Welter, "La France du Foot" from So Foot.

And that is as good a lesson in the very French art of ambivalence as you'll find anywhere. On the other end of the affective spectrum, Ribery's rather moving appearance on Téléfoot - "People will say anything." "We been terrible, we haven't sweat in our shirts like one should." "I am speaking from my heart, and we are hurting."

Les Bleus Strike

The French National Team players refused to participate in today's practice, and issued the statement below explaining why:

With this statement, all players of French National Team, without exception, assert their opposition to the decision taken by the French Football Federation to exclude Nicolas Anelka from the squad. If we regret the incident that occurred at halftime during the match between France and Mexico, we regret even more this use of an event that belongs to our group, and which is inherent to the life of a high level team. At the group's request, the player in question made an attempt at dialogue, but his approach was deliberately ignored. For its part, the French Football Federation has at no time tried to protect the team. It made this decision without consulting the players, on the basis of the facts reported by the press alone. Accordingly, and to mark out their opposition to the highest level of French football, all of the players decided not to participate in the workout. Out of respect for the public who came to attend this practice session, we decided to only attend the meeting with the fans, who by their presence bring us their full support. For our part, we are aware of our responsibilities, those of wearing the colors of our country, as well as those we have towards our fans and their leaders, toward educators, volunteers and the countless children who look up to Les Bleus as role models. For our part, we forget none of our responsibilities. We will do everything we can as individuals, of course, but with a collective spirit so that France can recover its honor on Tuesday evening with, finally, a positive performance.

The statement was read by Domenech (see this Canal + story). Apparently Jean-Louis Valentin, the FFF's team deputy director, responded to the cancellation of the public practice session in anger and declared he was going back to Paris and resigning his position "in disgust". For the story (in French), see L'Équipe's "Players Organize Against The FFF (French Football Federation)". It is a World Cup of strikes, inside and outside the stadium. Allez les Bleus!

On Feeling Cheated: Notes on USA - Slovenia

Sport culture seems to be the one discursive space in which we can declare that we were robbed, that our team was cheated, that the game wasn't fair - and we don't come off as bitter or resentful.  This sort of anger - at being kept out of the World Cup finals by someone's handball, or at being cheated of the three points awarded to a win by a rogue referee - is perfectly allowed - a certain sense of injustice is in fact nursed into an art.

But try complaining loudly about being denied a promotion, or being paid less than the guy hired after you. It's hard to make a heroic complaint about a social slight, or feeling like you've been given a raw deal - in, say, the financing structure of your mortgage.

Because we live with a myth regarding the "level playing field" in sports, we cry loudly when that illusion is shattered. Ironically, in the place where we really need a level playing field - access to education, in professional development and mobility, access to healthcare - one is expected to stomach much more bitter disappointment without complaint.

France Does its Penance

Just a quick note today: France needed its loss, even more than Mexico needed this win today. Les Bleus need to absolve themselves of the burden of guilt brought onto the team by Henry's handball, which kept a more deserving Ireland from participating in these World Cup matches.

Mexico showed they wanted this win, when 22 year old Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez - recently recruited by Manchester United (big, big news in these parts) - glided past France's back line to receive Marquez's long ball.  Abidal was marking Hernandez - the photo shows him moving away from his goal, to force Hernandez offside.  Video will show him stop in his tracks and throw up a hand for the call - which, quite rightly, never came.

To me, that said it all - Abidal stopped playing, he stood still where Hernandnez ran, called for the whistle rather than pressure the striker. I've fought strikers who've blown past me harder than that - huffing and puffing behind them, hoping the sound of my exploding lungs might distract them enough to send a shot wide.

Left alone, with no one breathing down his neck, Hernandez confidently handled Lloris, the 23 year old French keeper. And that was that.

French headlines are grim - So Foot declares the team to be "The Sum of Nothingness" - and I don't know who doesn't blame Domenech - he has drained all soul from this squad.  Any hope for Les Bleus rests on turns of events that will only bring them out of the group with more bad karma - defeating the host country's squad, and depending on Mexico losing to Uruguay. It's hardly something to root for. And the French know it.

Subrato to César - Riyas Komu, on football and the space between

Check out this lovely interview with Riyas Komu, about work on exhibit right now at Gallery Maskara in Mumbai. The title signals the movement from the local players - the ones you can actually see, live, at home (like Subrata Paul, India's #1 keeper) to the heroes, who are global brands (as in Brazil's Júlio César).

Subrato to César from Elvis D'Silva on Vimeo.

When viewers enter the gallery, they are confronted by a concrete wall - squeezing through a narrow opening, they discover rows of steel balls encased in glass and wood boxes, and a television monitor, playing live broadcasts of the matches. This has got to be one of the more interesting places to catch the matches!

From Sex Machine to Lion King: World Cup Music Politics

The world is wondering what's up with the "Sex Machines" banner that appeared behind one of the goals at today's match between Serbia and Ghana (won by the latter, the youngest side in the World Cup).

Perhaps it is a reference to Hamburg fan club FSV Sexmachines, as one of my fellow tweeters suggested.  But I suspect it is (or I want it to be) a reference to Sex Machine, a lovely 2009 track from Ghanaian pop stars Ruff N Smooth, who (I assume) cite James Brown with the song's title. Ruff N Smooth are big fans of the Black Stars.

Wish someone at ESPN would hijack the network's theme music with this track.

As it happens, ESPN's music was written by a Mormon composer living in Utah. According to the Salt Lake Tribune: "With the exception of the African choir, all of the music is performed by Utah musicians." ("ESPN turns to Utah for World Cup music")

By "African choir," the article's author means the Broadway cast of The Lion King. Literally - the "African choir" in the theme song is composed of members of the Disney production's ensemble cast.

You just can't make this stuff up.

What if the women's NTs played in place of the men?

The above represents an experiment in which I imagine the 2010 World Cup as played by corresponding women's teams (click on image to magnify).  Using their (suspect) FIFA rankings and what I know of the international women's game, I project the outcome.

Many of the big names in the men's game go down early, as their national associations are terrible when it comes to the women's game. Spain, England, Argentina, France, Portugal - none of them make it to the final eight.

The tournament (in my mind) starts off interestingly with a near upset as England gives Germany a  difficult time in the "sweet sixteen" (revisiting Euro drama). Nigeria and South Africa both advance to the final eight where Nigeria unfortunately goes down to the US and South Africa falls to Germany. Japan and North Korea go head to head at this stage for a historically overdetermined fight for a spot in the final four - Japan wins that one with style - and we end up with a quarter final of usual suspects - Japan, Germany, Brazil and the US. The US beats Japan in a tough but boring game in which the American defense shuts down an otherwise exciting squad. Brazil takes down Germany in a hard-fought game leading to the grudge match of all grudge matches - USA v Brazil.

"It Isn't Easy Being Green"

So tweeted a friend, riding a global wave of empathy for the England keeper, who made an elementary blunder in today's match against the US and, well, cost England the win. At least in the headlines.

It is said that drama requires conflict. On the pitch, said drama falls largely on the defense's shoulders. Attack, defend, counterattack. Without that middle term, it's just attack and score. This narrative structure means that defenders appear to stand in the way - their job is to ruin someone else's game. And when one thinks like this, one only sees the defense playing a negative role. The positive work of defense is largely invisible to those without the patience or desire to understand the game's dynamics - without an appreciation of the art, without an appreciation of defense as the first moment of attack, one sees it at best as a kind of aggressive passivity.  As if defenders were just in the way.

Today was a great day for considering these things.  

Nigeria faced a frightening Argentina squad and held them to a single goal - that goal was won in first ten minutes, before Nigeria's defenders had settled their nerves.  Once they steeled themselves, we got to appreciate especially Vincent Enyeama's performance - stealing one goal after another from none other than God's apprentice, Messi. Enyeama seemed to enjoy the challenge - perhaps he was not happy to see Messi so frequently, but he was eager to show the world what he is capable of.

And a few hours later, the world was talking about Tim Howard - he pulled out one great save after another, and, like his Nigerian counterpart, Howard radiated energy and focus - screaming at his back line to pull themselves together after England stole their goal from yet another jittery defense in the opening minutes of play.

We are all thinking, poor Green - yes, he fumbled the ball and cost the match. But we should also lament that with the likes of Rooney, Gerrard, and Lampard on attack, England put only one ball in the net in the third minute, and then failed to score in the subsequent 90 minutes of play. This will be said, but that collective failure will not register as neatly as Green's one terrible mistake because it can't be captured in a single image, condemned as a single mistake. Howard's marvelous performance is as deserving a candidate for the "cause" of England's failure to win that match as is Green's mistake.  It gave the US room to attack - time and time again Howard collected the ball where others cannot, retaining possession to change the game's direction. But as marvelous as it is, and as much as we are all talking about Howard right now, it won't be remembered as long, or dissected nearly so intensely as Green's fumble.

And that's the keeper's curse in a nutshell.

South Africa/Mexico: A Game of Nerve

There is not much for me to say about today's match: it has already been said, not even an hour after the match's conclusion. We even broke Twitter, twice the whole network seized up - too many of us telling each other all about it.

It was a game of two halves, and two nervous teams. Throughout the first act South Africa was afraid to attack, and the whole side seemed to play stopper. Mexico was the opposite - too quick to attack, too quick to strike, throwing away one great chance after another. Siphiwe Tshabalala's 55th minute screamer was made the instant South Africa connected as an attacking side - lightening quick and strong it caught El Tri's defense completely by surprise. Mexico's one goal was both quick and deliberate - Guardado found Márquez, who was miraculously alone. With the ball at his feet, the Barcelona center back put the ball neatly and deliberately past Khune (who had had a couple brilliant saves).

The game was a great introduction for newbies to the offside rule which can confuse even experienced players and journalists, especially on corners.  Apparently Martin Taylor, ESPN's play-by-play guy got it wrong when he accused the referee of making a mistake in waiving off a goal as Mexico's player was offside. Twitter went crazy, too as we all tried to figure it out. I thought the call was wrong myself until Univision put up their graphic marker for the offside line and I could see that, indeed, it was.

Corners are especially confusing because the player who directly receives the corner kick (the "first touch") can be in an offside position - Vela did not receive the ball from the corner kick itself, however, but from a teammate - which is why he is required to be behind the second-to-last defender. Normally the last defender is the goalie, but it is not necessarily the goalie. Here, the goalie Khune was the second-to-last defender, and Pienaar was on the line alone.  For a perfect explanation of all that stuff read Erin Bolen's breakdown for News-Leader.

I watched the game at a Oaxacan restaurant with several hundred Mexico fans. We were all feeling quite broken until one woman ran up to the front of the room with a Catholic saint candle (Virgen de Guadalupe?), and placed it in front of the screen. Márquez scored shortly after. Olé!