Selling soccer

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 10:56 AM - 4 Comments

Nike Write the Future (2010)
Days after being released, this epic 3-minute masterpiece set a viral record for most views of a viral video ad in a single week. The commercial was directed by famed Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu and stars renowned footballers Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, and Cristiano Ronaldo. If you believe Iñárritu, the film has a profound message behind it: that the legacy of a player, a team, or a country can hinge on a single second of performance.

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Five books about the Beautiful Game

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 5:28 PM - 3 Comments

Canadians have books about their national sporting obsession, from kids’ classics (The Hockey Sweater) to the scholarly (The Game), while Americans write elegant stories about baseball (The Natural). But for most of the world, great sport books means books about soccer. The writing follows the same familiar pattern: the game (whatever game it is) as a metaphor for life, or, for true devotees, life as a metaphor for the game. But what the world outside North America calls football also has deep historical roots in every kind of ancient pride and animosity, from ethnicity to class to religion, and its literature resonates with those themes. But sometimes writing on the Beautiful Game is just that, a tribute to its beauty. Continue…

Top 10 players to watch at World Cup 2010

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 5:17 PM - 10 Comments

Soccer’s net losses

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 4:56 PM - 9 Comments

Isac Zagury, former chief financial officer with Aracruz Celulose SA (Photo by Douglas Engle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Europe is the centre of the soccer universe, and for good reason. The continent is home to the game’s most prestigious clubs, whose rosters are stocked with the best players on earth. If the World Cup is a showcase for the game’s stars, this is their proving ground. Yet European soccer is in trouble. Reckless spending habits and a winning-at-all-costs mentality has created a financial crisis that has reached its breaking point. Continue…

The World Cup’s biggest fakers

By Martin Patriquin - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 4:43 PM - 28 Comments

Rivaldo
Brazil v Turkey, World Cup 2002
Who knew that hits to the leg are felt in the forehead? Brazil’s Rivaldo, apparently. After receiving a ball to thigh, Rivaldo tumbles to the ground and covers his face in world-ending agony. It works: Turkey star Hakan Ünsal is thrown out and Brazil wins the game–and, eventually, the cup.

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Penalty kicks as retributive justice

By Andrew Potter - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 2:58 PM - 11 Comments

In a former life I was a soccer goalkeeper. I was pretty good – strong shotstopping skills and good distribution, bit weak on positioning – but one thing I was never any good at was penalty kicks. I think I saved two pks in gameplay in my entire career. It wasn’t a big deal though, since you’re not really expected to.

The bulk of my activity took place before the rule change in 1997 that allowed keepers to move back and forth across the goal line before the shot is taken. That changed the equation a bit and allowed smart keepers to play a bit of head-games with the kicker (a tactic Craig Forrest used brilliantly in his career highlight, the 2000 Gold Cup). But things have evolved (as they always do in sport), and the heavy overbalance in favour of kickers never really went away. In international soccer, around 85% of penalty shots result in a goal. That contrasts with the success rate of the penalty shot in the NHL, which is much lower (the consensus stat seems to be around 30% success).

Which raises the question of what the point is of a penalty shot: Is it to attempt to restore something like the game’s status quo ante, i.e. put the fouled player back in the position he or she was in before being fouled? Or is to go further, and actually punish the offending team for breaking a fundamental rule of the game? The answer appears to depend on the sport in question. And it also reveals some interesting contrasts in the way different professional sports address the question of intramural justice. Continue…

Beautiful game’s got debt trouble

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 2 Comments

The English Premier League, home to some of soccer’s biggest superstars and most storied clubs, is facing tough economic times. Overspending on salaries and transfer fees, along with a laissez-faire approach to governance—teams are often bought and sold by questionable characters, including Thailand’s disgraced former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who once owned the Manchester City franchise—has left many clubs buried under mountains of debt.

Last June it was reported that the 20 Premier League clubs owed a combined $5.2 billion. Two of the league’s most successful teams, Manchester United and Chelsea F.C., led the way with debts of roughly $1.2 billion each. Manchester United’s owners have since launched a plan to borrow $837 million to help refinance its existing debt load. Liverpool, another of the league’s famed clubs, has accumulated $400 million worth of debt since 2007. The 18-time Premier League champion was told earlier this month that it must cut existing debt by $167 million before bankers would consider refinancing the club’s existing loans.

And it’s not just the top clubs that are in trouble. Portsmouth, the worst team in the league, is buried under $101 million of debt; its players are not being paid on time, and last week the club shut down its website for a few hours because it couldn’t pay its service provider.

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A blight on the beautiful game

By Charlie Gillis - Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 4:20 PM - 6 Comments

When Declan Hill’s account of pervasive match-fixing in international soccer hit bookstores last year, the doubters popped up like spring grass on turf. FIFA, the governing body of the so-called “beautiful game,” dismissed The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime with a rhetorical wave. European sports commentators scoffed, while even Hill’s hometown paper, the Ottawa Citizen, brushed off his first-hand accounts of a match-rigger in Asia paying off players, referees and coaches as a “slash at the game” that “proved little.”

“It was as if because I’m Canadian, I couldn’t possibly be an expert,” says Hill, a seasoned investigative journalist who now lives in Britain. “There was an enormous amount of push-back.” But at least one man in a position of influence found Hill’s exposé compelling. Michel Platini, president of the European Football Associations (UEFA), ordered a copy of The Fix and read it carefully, says Hill, then quickly announced the formation of an “integrity unit” charged with ferreting out schemes to manipulate game results to the benefit of gamblers wagering on illegal networks in Asia. In October 2008, Platini invited Hill to a summit in Geneva to discuss findings with members of the newly formed task force.

Hill was careful not to give away his sources—“Some of these people would kill me if they thought I was co-operating,” he says. But he did offer ideas as to how UEFA might fight back, most importantly by monitoring betting patterns in places like Shanghai and the Philippines. And the results weren’t long in coming. Last week, German police stunned the soccer world by announcing the arrest of 15 people as part of a sweeping investigation into match-fixing in nine European countries, at levels ranging from third-division pro to Champions League qualifying games. At least 200 matches are under suspicion, but investigators say that’s a mere fraction of the rot caused by the Asian gambling interests Hill had documented. Continue…

Handballs are only the beginning: fraud in international football

By Michael Petrou - Friday, November 27, 2009 at 9:50 AM - 3 Comments

German prosecutors are investigating almost 200 high-level soccer games in a match-fixing inquiry that is shaking European football.

My friend Declan Hill deserves some credit for getting the investigation rolling with his book, The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime. He explains in his blog.

UPDATE: Colleague Charlie Gillis covers the story in detail in the print edition of this week’s mag.

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 27, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 1 Comment

So a blond walks into a courtroom

Mississauga, Ont., native Jordan Wimmer cleared more than $1 million last year working for Nomos Capital, a London-based hedge fund. But all was not a bed of roses for the attractive, 29-year-old blond financier. Indeed, her blondness is at the heart of her $7-million wrongful dismissal suit against her multi-millionaire boss Mark Lowe. Sexist jokes, piggish behaviour and even an attempt to run her down on the street were part of a campaign of harassment, Wimmer testified last week. She told a London employment tribunal that Lowe made cutting personal remarks, emailed sexist “dumb blond” jokes throughout the office and cavorted in front of her with a stripper, causing her to suffer depression and an eating disorder. Lowe accused Wimmer of “gross distortions,” though he admits “entirely as a joke” to calling her “decorative” and a “dumb blond.” As for his emailed gag about a blond confusing a Corn Flakes box with a jigsaw puzzle, he says that “feeble joke” wasn’t told at her expense. Depending on the tribunal’s sense of humour, the joke may be on Lowe. Continue…

Hand of Gaul goal, the gall

By Andrew Potter - Friday, November 20, 2009 at 5:32 PM - 7 Comments

It appears to be business as usual in Europe: The Irish are never happier than when they are miserable, while the French are hiding their mauvaise foi nationale behind a fog of bureaucratese. Oh, we’d love to replay the game, they say. Except FIFA won’t let us. Les règles sont les règles and and all that.

I’ve written about cheating in soccer before – mostly with respect to diving, or what the Europeans charmingly refer to as “simulation”. There are key differences between diving and a deliberate handball (one is an attempt at drawing a penalty in the absence of a foul, the other at trying to avoid getting called for an actual offence), but both are symptoms of the very serious problem with professional soccer.

I actually think that Henry is being honest when he says that the handball was instinctive, but that’s precisely the problem. All manner of cheating has become second-nature in soccer, to the point where the shame is not in trying to get away with it, but merely in getting caught. Everyone is expected push, tug, dive, poke, swipe, and otherwise do whatever it takes to gain the slightest advantage, while players who eschew these tactics are generally seen as old-fashioned gentlemanly suckers.

Soccer has a culture problem, but at least part of it stems from the incentive structure of the game. Goals are so hard to come by that any behaviour that achieves any advantage at all is seen as fair game.

What can be done about  it? The obvious answer is that the risk/reward calculus needs to be fixed.  One possibility would be to change the game to make it easier to score. Another would be to make the cost of being caught cheating too high. The first solution is probably not on (it would hardly help to make the goals wider) while the second just misses the point: the problem is not that referees aren’t punishing cheaters harshly enough, it is that they aren’t catching them at all.

That’s why, in the uproar since the French “victory”, people are calling for a change to the refereeing system — either bringing in more refs, or adding video replay or other technological aids. That should be done regardless. But that is an indirect way of addressing the  fundamental problem, which is that soccer is a sport that continues to reward and even celebrate dishonourable behaviour.

France should insist that FIFA allow a rematch. And if FIFA refuses, then France should refuse to go to the World Cup.

A Portrait of the Scientist as a Predator

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 10:23 PM - 0 Comments

Even though it follows a single player through a single game, Zidane is not a movie about a soccer game or a soccer player. It isn’t really about soccer or sport. If anything, this remarkable film is a study in the fiercely focused intensity that the highest levels of competition can bring out in one of the human species’ top predators.

Ok, if that sounds pretentious, try this: The film follows Zinedine Zidane – and ZIdane alone – over the course of a 2005 match between Zidane’s club, Real Madrid, and Villareal. Seventeen cameras, a score by Mogwai, and long stretches of nothing but Zidane’s silent and almost expressionless face, with cuts to his feet, his calves, and very occasional shots of the whole field from high above.

Zidane spends most of the match walking or loping along, with short explosions of two-and-three touch play breaking up the zenitude of it all. If you didn’t already know, you would never gather from this film that Zidane is one of the all-time geniuses of the game, a man whose ability to sweet-talk the ball into doing his every bidding is almost unparalled. Indeed, it is hard to tell what is going on in the game at all; the viewer gets no sense of the pace and flow of the match, which side is winning the most balls and showing the most grit and desire. Goals are scored offstage as it were, and it is not clear what series of moves even brought them about. Continue…

Canada's soccer triumph. Well, sort of.

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 11:38 AM - 0 Comments

Although most of you were probably watching the war of words unfold between John “I’d jump over this desk and punch you if I could” McCain and Barack “Smile big when feeling uncomfortable” Obama last night, Canada’s men’s national soccer team pulled off a mini miracle by tying Mexico in a World Cup qualifying game at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton before an embarrassingly pro-Mexico crowd. Unfortunately for our boys the result, an exciting 2-2 draw, does little to enhance our chances of participating in the biggest tournament in world as last weekend’s loss to Honduras snuffed out all hope of our advancement to the next stage. Nonetheless, a job well done.

York University's soccer scandal

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Friday, October 3, 2008 at 5:48 PM - 3 Comments

It’s a rare occasion in this country when a university sports story garners any media attention. I mean let’s being honest, you can’t name one player on any team unless that person is your brother who plays on the McGill varsity ultimate-Frisbee team. But this story is quite tasty. York University was ranked No. 1 in the country as of this morning in men’s soccer–undefeated in their first eight games and really enjoying life–until a giant bomb fell from the sky and ruined their season. It appears you can’t use former pro soccer players and get away with it. The fact that they managed to play four games with this illegal player (former Toronto FC forward Andrea Lombardo) is just mind blowing. The fact that they didn’t know it was illegal is somewhat hilarious.

Organized crime and the beautiful game

By Michael Petrou - Sunday, August 31, 2008 at 10:25 PM - 0 Comments

Declan Hill is a good friend and a hell of a journalist. His book, out on Tuesday, alleges match fixing in the 2006 World Cup and is going to be a world beater.

An earful, and eyeful

By Ken MacQueen - Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 12:49 AM - 0 Comments

Women’s soccer, or football as it’s called in the Olympics, is providing some of the best team excitement at these Games. The Canadian women, all grit and muscle, have a win, a draw, and a loss. They’ve been in every game they’ve played, tying the dominant Chinese women in their pool, and losing 2-1 to a strong Swedish team. Next up, the powerhouse Americans.

Naturally, China’s women are crowd favorites here, but the Chinese men, yikes, not so much. They’ve had their, ah, butts handed to them in their two games so far. And they’re certain to get booted from the Games later today when they play Brazil. Just as well, the home country fans are fed up. Posted on the Internet are the lyrics of one of the feel-good Olympic songs that are replayed here to the point of distraction. It’s undergone a sarcastic rewrite at the hands of an ex-fan of China. Sing along if you wish:

Our gate is open now.

Welcome all the ball

One, two, three or even more

We don’t care at all.

If you think that’s unsporting, look at what Agence France-Presse is reporting. Toronto Raptors guard Jose Calderon, a star member of Spain’s Olympic basketball team, is defending a photo where the national team posed with slit eyes before heading off to China. Said Calderon: “it seemed to us to be something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture.” Some of his best friends in Toronto, he adds, “are of Chinese origin.”

In another gesture of affection, Tuesday, the Spanish team beat China 85-75.

Samll Balls

By Steve Maich - Monday, June 30, 2008 at 10:58 AM - 0 Comments

La première étoile: The entire nation of Spain! Viva Espana! Spain Spain Spain! Land of fine hams and lovely weather! Also, really good at soccer! Hurrah!

Two minutes for… Indecision. Really Mats, It’s not that hard. I know that the trendy thing to do, these days, is to go all Niedermayer, and spend the summer on a deck someplace, doing a Hamlet impression. But really…you’re a multi-millionaire athlete, and there’s really only one question to answer: do you want to play or not?  Kindly come up with an answer while there is still one lonely strand of DNA in my being that gives a crap.

Who’s got tickets? Wimbledon. Big day on the grass courts. So big, in fact, even I have heard of several of the players in action: Federer, Nadal, Murry.  And, courtesy of the great sports time machine: The Williams Sisters! I thought they were full time fashion designers by now

Fun police: A swimmer has swum faster than any swimmer before. Splendid. Good for you Michael Phelps. You are the envy of aquatic animals everywhere. But I still share the late, great, George Carlin‘s view.  Swimming is not a sport.  Swimming is a way  to keep  from drowning.

Extra bases:

Kevin Lowe is quietly building an interesting team in Edmonton. Newest addition Lubo Visnovsky from the L.A. Kings gives them some real fire power on the blueline, especially is Souray can find a way to stay healthy…. Chipper Jones is hitting .394 at the end of June, and is heading for a (hopefully-brief) stay on the DL. Get healthy chipper, and make a run for .400….   Let me say that I love Manny Ramirez. But manny is starting to act even crazier than usual. And it’s not that endearing “isn’t Manny so wonderfully strange?!?” kind of crazy. It’s, like, unstable crazy.  If I’m Terry Francona, I want to fix that….  No…No…No…No…Noooo!

I'm such a loser. Will you marry me?

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 2:30 PM - 0 Comments

Let’s all try to be charitable as we consider the weird spectacle of Raymond Domenech, coach of the French national side, proposing to his girlfriend Estelle Denis after France bowed out of Euro 2008 with a lousy performance against Italy.

It’s hard, after all, for North Americans to grasp the pressure the coach of a major European country faces at these tournaments. It makes you do crazy things, like blame your team’s “closed” style of play on the cul-de-sac layout of their hotel digs. Or imagine you’re a character in a Nora Ephron comedy.