Joachim Loew - German manager

Kyle Machlachan. Desperate Housebloke.

]]> http://nocambiasso.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/separated-at-birth-2/feed/ 0 nocambiasso Actor Kyle Maclachlan and his wife are expecting their first child. joachim_copy http://nocambiasso.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/letter-from-america/ http://nocambiasso.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/letter-from-america/#comments Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:39:56 +0000 nocambiasso http://nocambiasso.wordpress.com/?p=145 Continue reading →]]>

This is a letter from my friend Mark who was out visiting his American in-laws during the latter stages of the tournament. Here he meditates on the American’s uneasy relationship with the Beautiful Game. [Note the latest brilliant headline in the New York Post. C'mon shouty British people they are JOKING.]

Americans just don’t get it. Not for the want of trying. There is an excitable majority in the country who will genuinely get excited at any sport whatsoever, so it stands to reason that an interest in footb.. sorry SOCCER, would come naturally.I watched the USA-Ghana match in a bar in Cape May, the most southerly seaside town on the New Jersey coastline. I sat with my brother-in-law, who has maintained a respectful interest in all things World Cup, my father -in-law, and several of the enthusiastic locals. It was clear that these Americans at least had made the effort: they have embraced the subtleties of the offside rule although strangely they are still unsure about the yellow card, red card system. “So if he is missing the next game because he got two yellow cards, why don’t they just send him off now so he can miss this game?” I was asked by one perplexed local.

There were cheers as well and there were moments of discussion but most of the time the punters  chattered idly while waiting for the next point of interest to start commenting on it again. They struggled to find them. To be fair however, it wasn’t completely their fault. The match had flashes of interest but it was for the most part a bit of a midfield slog. However watching the Americans watch the Americans it was clear why football (yes, I’ll call it football) will never catch on here in the US to the extent of the other four main sports: baseball, football, hockey and basketball.

This is because Americans have bolstered every sporting event to make them massive spectacles. Even the World Cup with all its hype is still a platform for football.  In America, the sport – especially with baseball and American football – is secondary to the spectacle. This is perhaps why Americans can easily spend up to four hours supposedly watching sport in a building that not only has scores of different retail outlets contained within it but enough varieties of food and booze for sale in them to make you forget why you were even there.

Football ebbs and flows. It lacks the peaks and troughs that Americans have become accustomed to in their sport. Even a great 1-0 win would be viewed by them as a failure simply because of the score, or lack of it. Anyone who experience the grinding joy/pain of Arsenal of the early 90s will understand that a result like that must be taken like the defensive sporting ambrosia it is.

A sheepish Bob Bradley and Landon Donovan grinned, grimaced and nodded their way through an appearance on Jon Stewart last night and you couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for them. Their team actually did OK in the tournament considering the quality of their players, and when you look at England who stumbled and faltered, amazed that they weren’t winning. Next to France’s team of petulant toddlers, they came out of it with dignity. Let’s just hope they don’t expect many of their fellow countrymen to notice.

Just to ease you in. According to a news reporter from an Indian TV channel, England were seeking revenge for their elimination at the hands of the USA in 1950.

OK. She’s back – the reporter who clearly doesn’t know ANYTHING about football. But check out the headlines, ‘England Fans Distraught at Sorry Display.’ ‘Barmy Army Shocked by German Juggernaut’ and note the glee in her voice when she says ‘embarrassing’. And loads of English people dealing with their drunken grief in time-honoured fashion.

Some more unhappy English fans.

Another unhappy English person.

And some historical context. Here are some unhappy English fans two years ago.

Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, England vs Trinidad and Tobago, 15 June 2006

This is a letter from my friend Margot who is a journalist and broadcaster. She’s from the north-east of England but lives in Berlin with her children. My wife and I stayed with her during the last World Cup in 2006 and her apartment in Prenzlauer Berg was as full of excitement for the tournament as the Fan Mile in the centre of the city.

So here it is – the clash everyone wanted,  just far too early in the tournament. The Germans, it has to be said, are confident. Certainly World Cup history is enough to make them feel good about their chances but if they needed their confidence boosting any further, the country’s favourite eight-armed oracle, Octopus Paul, has identified Germany as the certain winner of Sunday´s game against England. The mollusc who, bizarrely was actually born in Britain, lives in a sea life centre in Oberhausen. Octopaus Paul has so far, correctly predicted the outcome of all of Germany’s games and he is by no means the only one who is convinced that a German victory is inevitable.

The whole country is awash with flags, face-paint and red, gold and black vuvuzelas. Germans are salivating at the prospect of meeting their arch rivals and can talk of little else. Since the clash with England became a certainty, the coverage on TV has been incessant and one thing is very clear – it has simply never dawned on anyone here that there is even a theoretical chance of their team losing. The newspapers are full of stories mocking the England squad for practising penalties and Beckenbauer is wheeled out at every possible opportunity to say scathing things about Rooney and company’s lack of fitness.

This World Cup has seen a new word enter the German vocabulary. “Schland” (short for Deutschland). This abbreviation has unfortunately given rise to the latest Tutonic display of bad musical taste – a hastily recorded World Cup song “Schland, oh Schland”, to the tune of  Germany´s recent Eurovision winner, ‘Satellite’. It is as if they are linking their Eurovision contest victory to their football squad and this will somehow improve their chances.

Oddly though, when Sunday comes around, England will not be without support here. There is still a section of German society that feels deeply uncomfortable about such overt displays of national pride. Whenever there is a major football tournament , they like to demonstrate that they are “good” Germans by supporting whoever Germany is playing against – especially if it is England.
It is a perculiarly German phenomenon.

As for me, I’ll be far too nervous to sit through it. I’ve been thinking of trying to find somewhere where no one is watching the World Cup. France or Italy spring to mind.

Margot interviewing me on the Fan Mile in Berlin in 2006

PS Margot’s done some great reports for the BBC World Service’s World Football programme, particularly from Eastern Europe. (I met her at a game between Iceland and Latvia in 2004). She also does news reporting from places like Georgia.

My Aunty Liz is General Director of Medecins Sans Frontier in South Africa. As a consequence of this awesome task, she has come up against the most extreme problems facing her country. I asked her how she felt that the normal South African was benefitting from the World Cup. No-one likes to be continually reminded of serious matters when they are enjoying the game, but I thought her answer, even in the face of huge  frustrations, was superbly balanced and incredibly insightful. In terms of its impact on the economic well-being of the local citizens, I would say that few people are making money. (Apart perhaps from the sellers of vuvuzelas and flags on street corners.)

Traditionally in South Africa, unemployed women from the townships make their money by selling “pap and vleis” – meat and stiff maize porridge – outside the stadia.Needless to say under FIFA rules they are not allowed within 10 kms of the stadia and the only authorized food seller is that well known purveyor of health foods, McDonalds. Similarly hotels have not made the money they would have expected. FIFA took over large amounts of accommodation that could only be reserved through their reservation system. When they found out that 200 000 less visitors than were excepted were coming to South Africa, they then released this accommodation back to the South Africans.

June / July is usually the height of domestic tourism in South Africa, especially in Durban where the weather is warm. Domestic tourists have put off planning holidays because they thought that it would all be taken up by World Cuppers and be more expensive so now Durban hoteliers etc are sitting with lower occupancies than they have when there’s no world cup

Despite not wanting to be an unpatriotic wet blanket I must say I don’t think SA except for the construction industry has benefitted at all from the exercise. We have produced some beautiful stadia. The Moses Mabida in Durban (where Bongani is going to work for R28 [around £2.50] an hour for some horrible American company and he is not allowed to watch the games) is a really special space with a spiritual feel to it.

Soccer City in Joburg was built to resemble an indigenous pumpkin and does so in a rather charming way. One feels that if our fairy godmother came and waved a wand over it, it might turn into something useful – like a proper transport system or proper housing for the poor. Then there are some awful stadia like the Cape Town one that looks like a bedpan and the one in Nelspruit with orange crane-like structures giving it an unfinished look.

These have all cost billions so other programs like hospital renovations and fixing the roads have been put on hold until after the world cup. With the upkeep of the stadia, most of which will be white elephants as there are gew big events (soccer is poorly supported except for the big teams like Kaiser Chiefs and Orlando Pirates) and paying off the debts incurred in building the stadia.

It is unlikely that we are going to see new hospitals in 2012. I believe that it took the citizens of Montreal two generations to pay off the 1972 Olympics. Edendale Hospital in Pietermaritzburg where I worked on and off from 1991 has not changed at all since the first day I started there, 1st February 1991. It first got bumped off the renovation program by the building of a high tech vanity hospital and then by the World Cup.

Another nice irony is that FIFA has trademarked Africa’s humanity. The official slogan for the 2010 WC is Ke Nako (means “it’s time”) Celebrate Africa’s Humanity (TM). So as you can see I am not Sepp Blatter’s biggest fan. In fact I am competing for the world record for time taken to hit the off button on the remote every time he appears on television. I could rant on but there is a very good article called Fifa’s great SA rip-off’

PS  MSF is organizing a day of football matches where people living with HIV from MSF projects in the region, including the Positive Ladies Soccer Team from Zimbabwe, and MSF staff will make up the People’s Team and play against HIV. The project is called Halftime because at half-time the score is one to the People’s Team and one to HIV. The match is stopped and the question asked of national governments and international donors “Is halftime any time to quit funding ARV’s? Without these funds the People ‘s Team will not  be able to finish the match and HIV will win the day.”

We also hope that the football fans who have enjoyed the excitement  of the World Cup, the beauty and warm hospitality of South Africa will go home and speak out against the indifference of their societies and governments to the future wellbeing of those in the country with HIV…  even if it’s in the pub watching football.

Not even ruined by the silly Dutch people introducing it. Two Algerian fans enjoy the warm-up to their stunning 0-0 draw with England. I think I’ve watched this about 12 times and still makes me laugh. 

God knows what he’s saying. But we are sure it’s genuinely funny. Maradona takes to the vuvuzela like he was born to it.

God knows what Iniesta is saying as well, but he can’t play a vuvuzela like Maradona. Must be something to do with dribbling skills. Bless him. Wee soul looks really embarrassed.

This is exceptional. Bloke with a Commodore 64 recreates the noise of the vuvuzela with uncanny accruacy.

How to play famous tunes  on the vuvuzela by When Saturday Comes.

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