England’s pro league is far stronger than France’s, yet its national team is far weaker
Holland
Euro 2012: Soccer Gets its War On, But Players Can’t Take the Patriotism Seriously
How international tournaments remain an opportunity for nostalgic but usually harmless pantomime jingoism.
No, England Did NOT Invent Football (Soccer) As We Know It
A soccer official claims that the game has been “stolen” from England. Here’s why that argument is flawed.
Spain vs. The Netherlands: A Neutral’s Dilemma
World Cup soccer is often the continuation of war by other means, a ritual reenactment of past conflicts that allows those who perceive themselves as victims to claim some sort of symbolic vengeance. Algeria’s coach sought to raise his players’ passion for their showdown with England by showing them watch The Battle of Algiers, a movie …
Holland Bests Uruguay, 3-2, to Reach the Final
Uruguay took the longest, most difficult route to the World Cup, the last to qualify in South American and only after winning a playoff. No wonder they wanted to stick around so long. Let’s also give Holland its due: this team deserves its spot in the World Cup final. Holland has run the table in both qualifying and in the World Cup. …
Orange You Glad You’re Not Brazil?
Wow.
Well, my earlier criticism of the Dutch is that they’ve tended to play up or down to the level of whatever team they’ve faced each day—a tactic that got them through the group round, but risked being trickier to replicate in the knock-out stage against the cream of the world’s footballing crop. The Netherlands not only …
“Insipid” Sounds About Right
Jeezo peezo. If that farce was a World Cup 1/8th final match, I wonder how we managed to avoid death by narcolepsy during the group rounds. Certainly the Netherlands deserved its 2-1 victory over Slovakia, but only because it lost what for the most part looked like a sleepwalk competition: the Dutch couldn’t quite manage to be as …
All Bets are Off in a Multipolar World Cup!
The unceremonious (and richly deserved) dumping of Italy and France out of World Cup 2010, and the travails of England, Germany and Spain — and arguably even Serbia and Denmark — are a sign that world soccer has gone multipolar. “Multipolarity” was a term coined by French foreign policy wonks fretting over the Bush Administration’s …
Eljerio Elia, the New Flying Dutchman
He hasn’t made too many of those “five young players to watch at the World Cup” lists, but that didn’t stop Dutch winger Eljero Elia – in his 30 minute cameo on Monday – from briefly setting the tournament alight with some breathtaking skills and thrills. Coming on as a substitute for the listless (and, IMHO, overrated) Rafael Van Der …
