The 2022 World Cup (and all that it entails)
Qatari: Barbaric Scum
Everyone knows that the FIFA World Cup of 2022 should never have been awarded to any country with a silly mediæval theocratic system of human rights suppression and a climate better suited to desiccation than any sort of athletic performance. If anyone ever doubted the innate corruption and money-grubbing venality of FIFA's executive branches, all such doubts were brusquely banished with the awarding of the world's greatest sporting spectacle to a nation with the same humanitarian track record as the Ku Klux Klan. The bizarre hypocrisy of advertising a female architect (Dame Zaha Hadid) as being the designer of one of the tournament's stadia despite the fact that she could never have been allowed to study in an institution of higher learning within the country compels one to shake the head vigorously.
To put it quite simply, Qatar did not earn, but bought the rights to hold the World Cup. They built stadia on the backs of exploited foreign workers who were treated awfully and fatally. Their society is built on a foundation of discrimination and institutional inequality. Without decades of oil wealth, they would be a primitive pack of illiterate desert nomads whose primary amusements would be stoning women to death and castrating camels.
Tone Down the Inflammatory Rhetoric?
And so amidst the foul stench of bribery, slavery, and discrimination, we find ourselves looking for salvation in the narratives of the beautiful game itself. And it is there that we find further frustration and aggravation.
Years of pandemic-enforced isolation have caused a shift in social conventions, and conversations are not what they used to be. As someone who watched every game of this year's World Cup, and being an avid follower of football as a whole, I can anticipate some of the questions that people may wish to pose. To save everyone time and exasperation at my usual dithering and equivocation, I shall try and address the hot topics as expeditiously as possible.
Canada: Historically Disappointing
Canada is not a footballing world power. Never has been. Even when it qualified for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, it disappeared from the group phase without scoring a single goal, let alone garnering a single notch in the win column. The upside of being perpetually mediocre is that expectations are low, and the risk of disappointment becomes equally unlikely.
Something changed during this most recent cycle of international football competition. Alphonso Davies became the golden boy of German football at Bayern Münich, graduating from being the understudy of legends Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry to a superstar in his own right. Jonathan David became the target man for French Ligue 1 side Lille, and players from MLS teams started to earn more respect despite playing in an internationally regarded bush league.
In short, Canada perished at the first stage of asking in a group that contained the eventual third and fourth placed teams in the tournament. The reason that explains both the short-term failure and the long-term hope is ambition. Manager John Herdman has been trying to build a culture or an ethos within the team that is markedly different from Canadian teams of the past.
In 1986, the overall feeling was inadequacy. The team played with a defensive mindset, hoping to weather the assaults of more talented teams and occasionally whack a long ball upfield to a lonely forward that might hit a lucky shot on net.
This time around, Herdman had his team play tight, one-touch, short-passing moves out of their own end whenever pressed. The problem with this approach is that the players must drill and practice with one another for a ridiculous number of hours in order for it to become effective. The Canadian team simply didn't have the time or the opportunity to develop the necessary cohesion to execute the tactical plans that Herdman envisioned. If you want to know what Herdman wanted, watch the first forty minutes of the Final game between Argentina and France. It never materialized, and if you want a sporting equivalent, imagine an NFL (or CFL) team that refuses to punt, and gambles on every final down. If it always works, your team is unbeatable. That was the brass ring toward which Canada reached and fell short.
Americans: Not All Dummies
One might be forgiven for thinking that a country with the world's highest incarceration rate, 50th ranked infant mortality rate, and a 40% penchant for electing a sociopathic narcissist with a predilection for destroying the democratic institutions that invested him with power would be riddled with inbred morons incapable of tying their own shoes without drenching themselves in their own drool. Sure, they seem to be a country populated by idiots hell-bent on voting against their own interests, but there are occasional moments when they stop warmly applauding NASCAR collisions or spraying elementary schools with automatic gunfire that they make sense.
Ask an average Crimson Tider, Jayhawk, or Volunteer about "soccer" and they will sneer about it being a game for sissies that fall over at the slightest provocation. The logical conclusion seems to be that if your sport doesn't involve horrific and irrevocable brain damage, it's not really worthwhile.
Background: Latin America
The tradition of "simulation" or feigning injury certainly didn't begin in the Americas, but it was definitely honed into a performance art by the footballing practitioners of the New World. In many ways, it is still praised as a way to enact impromptu timeouts for teammates to get a drink of water, catch a breath, or receive instructions from the manager.
The archetype of the squealing, effeminate would-be-victim used to be the Brazilian midfielder Neymar, Jr. His theatrical rolling and shrieking became an internet meme aimed at shaming other players. In England, the alternate example was set by players like Terry Butcher and Stuart Pearce, who would play through injuries that would nauseate even the most bloodthirsty American gore enthusiast.
