Two Foers

[dogofthefuture]

I just finished two books by authors with the last name Foer. It's not a coincidence. While searching the library's catalog for one, I saw the other and thought it sounded interesting.

The random one was How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer. It certainly kept my interest, tracing the various

Comments

[yiskah]

This is all really interesting - my interest in football itself is pretty marginal but I am fascinated by the culture that surrounds it (particularly in the UK, which is - obv - what I know most about). I guess it's linked to the point about football being 'socialist' (large clubs notwithstanding), as unlike the other big international team sports (rugby, cricket), you need neither a lot of space, nor a lot of equipment, nor a nice soft grassy area on which to fall down - you just need a ball and 2+ players. All over the world, football's the game I've almost invariably seen played by poor kids in the street (the exception being in India, where they played cricket). So because of that it became linked - in the UK, at least - to the white working-class (given that the UK didn't have substantial non-white immigration until the 1950s), a group that's become increasingly disenfranchised over the past several decades, leading in part to the ugly manifestations you describe above.

Anyway! This is probably all in the book, sorry. I should read it.

Never read the JSF book you mention, but I thought Everything Is Illuminated was stunning - would recommend it if you haven't already read it (but I imagine you have).

[dogofthefuture]

True enough - really, all you need is a ball and some space. (To be fair, that's all you really need for American football too, as long as you know the rules.) I actually have no problem with the game itself, though honestly I'm not interested in watching or playing it. It's the fanship that I was thinking of.

I actually have read Everything is Illuminated. I thought it was... okay. Didn't really grab me quite the way Extremely Loud did.

[yiskah]

Oh, really? I assumed you needed a soft surface for falling down on, and a considerable amount of padding and protective gear - however I now next to nothing about the sport other than what I've seen in the movies.

[dogofthefuture]

Nah, you can play "touch" football, where a tackle is just touching the person with the ball. My friends and I played a lot of this in the street growing up. I'm sure people who had to drive up the street hated us because we'd take our sweet time about getting out of the way, and then glare at the driver for interrupting our *game*.

There was plenty of bumping and jostling, of course, but probably a lot less than you'd see in a rugby scrum, and likely no worse than what happens in soccer.