The New Republic

The front pages have spoken: Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of Manchester United FC has retired. David Moyes, presently in charge of Everton (the other Liverpool club) will take over this summer. Ferguson, lovingly referred to by Man U fans as SAF, as if he were a unit the British Special Forces, has won for the club thirteen English Premierships, two Champions League and world club champion titles, and a number of cups. READ MORE >>

A sad fact of life is that there are few great soccer novels. There are many reasons: In soccer, the true drama is enacted on the pitch; great players, whose success is reliant on repetition and discipline, are cads at best, colorless characters at worst; the managers comply with the stereotype of the fatherly figure. The only serious runner for a great soccer novel is Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, narrated by someone who never gets into the fray—a committed fan. READ MORE >>

In Sarajevo, Bosnia, where I grew up playing a lot of soccer, the slang word mahalaš refers to a cocky player who much prefers feints to passes; who’d rather nutmeg someone than shoot; who deplores defending. All the lost balls and all the teammates ignored while in scoring position are relegated into oblivion by each small masterpiece: dribbling past an entire defense, scoring from an impossible angle, bamboozling a goalie. READ MORE >>

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The beauty of tournament soccer is that there is no way of knowing what might happen in a single game. Can Portugal beat Spain? Of course. Can Spain beat Portugal? Of course. READ MORE >>

I am still reeling from the awfulness of England in the game against Italy. The greatness of Pirlo notwithstanding, Italy was/is not that good. Consider what the Italian team would have been like without his constant orchestration; consider how bad Balotelli was/is, ever eager to show the extent to which he is overrated. But Italy, such as it was, was all over England and the lads could not string two passes together for two hours or so. READ MORE >>

If you have a headache, which is somehow related to a sense of utter meaninglessness; If baseball looks like fun; If you start craving food like French fries and bacon frappé; If you catch yourself reading the NYT Magazine while watching the game, until you realize that might be an even greater waste of time; If you start wondering if all the hours, days, and years you have spent watching soccer may have been misspent; If you start devising insults as answers for questions you anticipate coming from friends and family (”How was the game?”); READ MORE >>

I once knew a quiet guy who liked to play soccer because playing, he said, allowed him to communicate without talking. You could see how football communication worked—and how it didn’t—in the Spain-France game. The Spaniards kept chattering, boring everyone who was not in on their tiki-taka lingo, laughing at their own jokes, confident that there would be no interruption coming from the French. READ MORE >>

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I grew up hating Germany, but at this time no other national team—not even Spain—provides more football-watching pleasure than Germany. For some time now, the Bundesliga matches have been compulsively enjoyable. Borussia Dortmund is fantastic, having built a core team from no-names, beating Bayern (spending money like crazy by German standards) as they wish. Most of the German clubs are in the black, the tickets are cheap, the stadiums are full and the football academies have been steadily developing young, exciting players. READ MORE >>