I was looking for a internet streaming transmission of worldcup games, when I found an interesting journalist article/debate on the Worldcup in a canadian television broadcasting company website. The article entitled “why the worldcup matters” (addressed to a Canadian audience), points that the Worldcup is nowadays the most important single sport event in the world, and argues that its success is due because soccer is the simplest sports game. Why simple? The answers in the article come from some sports journalists (British and Canadian): it is simple because of its rules and gear. In this argument, anyone can understand soccer rules, since it is so simple. Soccer can be played anywhere including slums and the most impoverished areas in the world, bridging the economic gap of all countries worldwide. Soccer is the everymen’s game.

I am sad to see an argument like this, embedded in very elitist values, and I can’t agree with it. My answer is also “simple”: anyone could also understand and play basketball in any poor area in the North America, Africa, South America, or Asia. Basketball could also bridge all the so called economic and intelligence gaps and unite a nation as well as the world.

But the question itself is very interesting to the many academics that work under the fluid themes of games and culture, and I don’t think that an adequate answer is so simple.

Soccer bridges Europe to the world: soccer is the main sport in the richest parts of Europe and it was inherited in late XIX century or early XX century by Africans and South Americans. Compared to these geographic regions, soccer had a late spread in Asian countries, but Asian regions in the XX century to the present tend to absorb cultural values from both Europe and North America. Soccer is as popular in Japan as Baseball is; blame the Meiji era and everything that came after. The soccer phenomenon was slowly constructed through the XX century between Europe and its ex-colonies as a process of cultural heritage, except for North Americans, who created their own sports as part of their national identity.

Historically speaking, the soccer WorldCup is the opportunity to compete with other countries as equals, and this is something that has no meaning for North Americans as it does to South Americans and Africans. The kicks and goals are attempts to print a positive country image to a world that tends to see them as uncivilized, violent, poor, unhealthy no matter how well they develop their economies.

Advertising campaigns and the worldwide media build a stereotypical myth about Brazilian soccer (and all other sports), often suggesting the happy ending narrative of the poor slum kid with a dream that now shines as millionaire that “does it” or “writes the future”. Behind that player there is the work of a solid sports industry composed by excellent physical trainers, the best medicine doctors, sports agents and whatnot. And well, it is really really rare when a slum kid with a dream become a soccer player.

Soccer has its own technologies and economy, which sadly don’t bridge poverty to social inclusion – regionally and internationally – as much as it could. From South America, Chile, Brazil and Argentina (the most solid economies) usually print their names in the championship, but Bolivia and Venezuela are often out. The same can be said about the poorest countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. In the age of sports industry and all what that means, no international tournament is really fair…

but OK, I’ll stop the socialist argument here. Let’s discuss something else.

Soccer is not and won’t ever be a Brazilian game and Brazilians are aware of that, since soccer is a European/global sports industry phenomenon. And to this situation there are few distinct ideological frameworks: to create a sport (to reaffirm a unique identity), to play Ghandi (as passive resistance) or to play soccer (as strategic adaptation to what comes). What is at stake in the Worldcup is the game of the Other. The English created it, the Brazilians perfected it.

Take this match between Brazil and Netherlands. Soccer experts, media and supporters claim that Brazilians are playing like europeans while the Netherlands are playing like Brazilians. Result: it is kind of uncertain who won, the dutch or the Brazilian spirit?

Result: Uncertainty 1 x 0 Reality

But probably many people wouldn’t agree with this view, and IMO this is why soccer or any other game (yeah in a huge generalization) can be magic. I don’t think games are much like archeological sites, since archeological research takes a lot of effort and aims to reveal truth, while the relation between games and truth can be very complex. To stick with the soccer example, how about the so many judge errors, invalid goals that no human eye and no camera can assure the truth/reality?

Result: Uncertainty 2 x 0 Fact

But evidently, any game raises interpretations in distinct way from other media, and each game has its own readings, may it be sports, table games, card games, videogames, etc etc. You take the same soccer match, and each newspaper soccer columnist will bring a different fresh interpretation, and each of your friends will have a completely different opinion about game tactics, player performance, group performance, incidents and so forth.

Result: Opinion 5 x 0 Truth

And in the game of soccer opinions, it seems that what wins is the ghost of a given Brazilian soccer identity, revived by few image archives from the 1970 world cup. The whole world – including brazilians – expects to see the black slum kid from the third world doing those cool things they do with the ball and winning the tournament. (sorry reader, but images and stereotypes usually piss me off).

Result: Image 1 x 0 Gameplay

As soccer supporter (and not as academic), I have never felt so deeply sad about a game loss in my entire life as last week. For the first time that team was MY team, I mean, it was using the tactics I would, it was mostly composed by the players I would choose, and it had the perfect leadership of a coach that focused on the game necessities, and for such, resisted corruption and beautifully confronted the demands of the media and sports business patronage. I really believe in some values that the so called “Dunga Style” could positively mean to the country: strategy, integrity, innovation, responsibility, honesty, transparency and no-nonsense.

And sadly, defensive responsible honesty is translated into arrogant aggressive behaviour, and it seems that what matters to the soccer world is just the superficiality of nukers like Robben and tricksters like Ronaldinho Gaúcho repeating the same formula that sells snickers to the middle class reiterating old values. For now,

Result: Soccer Future 0 x 10 Repetition

It is very easy to write the future this way.

Soccer is dead… and I am grieving. But it has never been simple.