The New Republic

Which team should the large majority of us who are neither Dutch nor Spanish support? At the final there are sometimes strong pulls of sentiment even for neutrals, though such sentimental longings can be disappointed, with Germany the likely culprit. I mean the 1954, “Aus! Aus! Aus!” final, when so many people wanted to see the World Cup got to Ferenc Puskas and his wonderful Hungarians, and 1974, when so many of us rooted for Johan Cruyff’s Dutchmen, only for both to be defeated by what we no longer call Teutonic efficiency. READ MORE >>

“But I think we can take it there won’t be any air raids, not on London at any rate,” Sir Joseph Mainwaring says confidently on the day the Second World War, and Put Out More Flags, both begin. “The Germans will never attempt the Maginot line. The French will hold on for ever, if needs be ...” For the rest of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Sir Joseph's taste for of lofty predictions—“But there is one thing of which I am certain. Russia will come in against us before the end of the year. That will put Italy and Japan on our side”—becomes a running gag. READ MORE >>

With the group stages over, the sextodecimal matches played, and the quarterfinals about to begin, what kind of a World Cup has it been so far? It has been good for South Africa, with large, happy crowds and none of the violence that pessimists predicted, altogether nothing worse than the horrible vuvuzela. The home nation were eliminated, but not before a glorious victory over France, who scuttled home in disgrace, as did the Italians, and then the English. READ MORE >>

As if there weren’t enough transatlantic rifts already, from the Middle East to the environment, another has opened over economic policy. European governments are still reeling from the dégringolade of late 2008 and now the crisis which began in Greece and nearly brought the Euro to its knees.  READ MORE >>

Some of my earliest memories are of international football matches, between England and Germany among others, like the game this Sunday afternoon. I can’t honestly claim to have seen the famous England 6-3 defeat at the hands of Hungary in 1953, or even to have been more than vaguely aware of it. Much later, my friend A.J. Ayer told me that he had been taken to the game by Arthur Koestler, still enough of a Hungarian to gloat over his native country’s victory. READ MORE >>

Two days after the British general election, Alan Watkins died. He was the doyen of London political columnists, after nearly half a century of writing weekly, wisely, and wittily about Parliament, and the Tories (his book, A Conservative Coup, is the best account of the fall of Margaret Thatcher), but, above all, the Labour Party, which he knew intimately. Since he died, I’ve often wished I could ask Alan what he thought about the latest contest for the Labour leadership. READ MORE >>

When the greatest war in their, or anyone’s, history ended in 1945, the British people were quietly proud, but exhausted. Five years earlier, Winston Churchill had inspired them by preaching defiance against Hitler; but with victory assured, the British rejected Churchill and his dreams of greatness, elected a Labour government under the reticent (but formidable) Clement Attlee, and turned inward, from war and empire to domestic reform. READ MORE >>