Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Staid and Standardized

Don Howe, manager of the English team, said in 1987: “A player who feels satisfied after losing a match could never be any good at soccer.”

Professional soccer, ever more rapid, ever less beautiful, has tended to become a game of speed and strength, fueled by the fear of losing.

Players run a lot and risk little or nothing. Audacity is not profitable. Over forty years, between the ’54 and ’94 World Cups, the average number of goals fell by half, even though as of 1994 an extra point was awarded for each victory to try to discourage ties. The highly praised efficiency of mediocrity: in modern soccer, ever more teams are made up of functionaries who specialize in avoiding defeat, rather than players who run the risk of acting on inspiration and who allow their creative spirit to take charge.

The Chilean player Carlos Caszely made fun of greedy soccer: “It’s the tactic of the bat,” he said. “All eleven players hanging from the crossbar.”

And the Russian player Nikolai Starostin complained about remote-control soccer: “Now all the players look alike. If they changed shirts, no one would notice. They all play alike.”

Playing a staid and standardized soccer, is that really playing? According to those who understand the root meanings of words, “to play” is to joke, and “health” is when the body is as free as can be. The controlled effectiveness of mechanical repetition, enemy of health, is making soccer sick.

To win without magic, without surprise or beauty, isn’t that worse than losing? In 1994, during the Spanish championship, Real Madrid was defeated by Sporting from Gijón. But the men of Real Madrid played with enthusiasm, a word that originally meant “having the gods within.” The coach, Jorge Valdano, beamed at the players in the dressing room: “When you play like that,” he told them, “it’s okay to lose.”