During the summer I was interviewed for a new film about how a group of American fans experienced the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, including the qualifying leading up to it. I think I made the cut. The trailer for the film, “Laduma” is now on Youtube and it is hitting the festival circuit (it’s showing tomorrow night in Philadelphia, at a film festival in Pennsylvania next month and I know there’s a New York City screening also lined up in the near future). You can see my man Tony Karon, who co-teaches a regular ‘Global Soccer, Global Politics’ course (Fall 2011 syllabus here) with me at The New School, in the trailer above. Other talking heads interviewed in the film include ESPN’s Bob Ley and Sports Illustrated’s soccer writer Grant Wahl. Here’s the Facebook page for updates.
Where do footballers playing in the top five European leagues come from?
Written by Elliot Ross
The CIES Football Observatory in Switzerland (they study football) recently put out an interactive map trying to show where footballers playing in the top five European leagues come from. Unsurprisingly, West Africa’s big five – Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria and Cameroon – dominate the African numbers, each contributing around 20 players. Mali has ten, South Africa four, and perennial trophy-hoisters Egypt just two. Ghanaian representation in the big leagues has more than doubled in just the last four years, but overall the numbers are pretty flat, bad news for anyone fretting about the “progress” of African football.
Political Football in Egypt
Remember way back when in 2011, when I shouted out Egypt’s crazed football fans for kicking ass during and after the fall of Mubarak? Well, in honor of the upcoming protests marking one year since the initial #Jan25 uprising, it looks like the Egyptian Football Association has decided to pick sides–the wrong side–again. [Read more...]
The French advantage
Academic and soccer fan Andrew Guest previews the 2012 African Cup of Nations for Football is Coming Home. He points to the French influence on teams that qualfied for the finals that start later this week. The post that comes complete with a table illustrating his findings: “The French influence this year seems ubiquitous; 9 of 16 teams have Francophone history, the largest delegation of foreign coaches are French (4, compared to 7 locals—which is a fairly significant local contingent compared to recent tournaments), and 8 of 15 squads draw more players from French professional teams than from any other foreign league system (the 16th squad — Sudan — has an entirely domestic roster).“
Hugh Masekela’s football skills
This is a music break with a football reference in there. In 1984 Hugh Masekela’s single “Don’t Go Lose It Baby” (off the album “Techno Bush”) reached number two for two weeks on the dance charts. The song has a nice beat to do it. It can set any party alight. But it’s the video that I like more. It is probably the only footage of Masekela showing off his football skills. Watch from the 1:36 mark. Masekela also plays coach for a minute.
BTW, the video looks like it was shot in Botswana. Anyone can confirm that?
H/T: Antoinette Engel
Black at Beşiktas
I finally got around to reading the piece (in The New Yorker ) about football culture among fanatical supporters of Beşiktas, one of the three big three clubs in Istanbul, Turkey, by the writer Elif Batuman. Unfortunately you need to pay to read the piece. But here is a short excerpt:
Deniz has attended all but two of Beşiktaş’s games, home and away, for the past seven years. He often thinks with regret of those two missed games. He characterized Beşiktaş as the team of the unexpected, the team of underdogs, and talked about Çarşı’s slogans, which are unveiled on giant banners during matches. ‘We Are All Black,’ proclaimed one banner, after rival fans had made reference to the race of the French-Senegalese Beşiktaş star Pascal Nouma [who played for Beşiktaş between 2000 and 2001] . When Fenerbahçe disparaged a Beşiktaş manager whose father had been a janitor, there were banners saying ‘We Are All Janitors.’ And when an international committee of astronomers removed Pluto from the list of planets Çarşı took up the cause: ‘We Are All Pluto.’
If you wondered, the other two big Turkish clubs are Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe.
* You can also hear Batuman talk about football in Istanbul here.
‘Africa’s First World Cup’ Revisited
We’re allowed to talk about the 2010 World Cup until 2014. Later today our man, historian of African soccer, Peter Alegi, will deliver the keynote address at the 7th Sports in Africa Symposium at Ohio University. Since few of us are in Athens, don’t panic: The whole thing–including Peter’s keynote–will be webcasted live here. Here’s the description:
Shameless Self Promotion
Look out for a a special issue of African Journalism Studies on “The Fifa World Cup 2010 in the News.” I guest edited. While you’re contemplating whether you’d pay to read the opinions of academics on the greatest sporting event in the world, here’s the relevant parts from my introduction to the special issue:
Sunday Ephemera No. 4
Sean Jacobs
This is worth remembering. In 2004 the Liberian footballer George Weah was awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the Espys. (For those who don’t care: that’s sports channel ESPN’s versions of the Oscars.)
This is the man who scored the greatest goal of all time and the only African player to win the World Player of the Year and European Player of the Year. Beat that. (BTW, Weah is contemplating a run in Liberia’s presidential elections next year.)
