The Beauty and the Beasts.
This photograph was taken the day of the "Hand of God" and the Goal of the Century. It was taken from the top of the stadium through binoculars. It is a relic and evidence of a miracle.Soccer is also known derogatively in Mexico as “panbol” which means the sport of the bakers. It is world wide the cheapest and easiest sport to play. Kids play it with bottle caps and balls made of masking tape when there is not a proper ball.
I was in the nose-bleed section of the Azteca stadium and saw the apocalyptic final of the Pan American games between Mexico and Brazil that ended up as a tie when power in the stadium went out. It was the first time I witnessed the popular local ritual of the “agua de riñón” (kidney water). A drunkard sitting next to me passed me a fetid warm paper cup and asked me to contribute. The cup was half full with urine. Once he figured I wouldn’t dare to help him filling it he threw it down to the more expensive level of the stadium beneath us shouting, “here goes the kidney water!”
Years after, my father took my sister and I to see the most legendary World Cup game. Great Britain kept those freezing rocky islands in the South Atlantic but Diego Armando Maradona beat England two to one and later lifted the cup for Argentina. While he was doing slalom with the British defense and scoring with the help of “God’s hand” I saw two Englishmen wearing their national team jerseys charge against hundreds of Argentinean fans that were dancing with a stolen Union Jack. It was the most stupid act of courage I had ever seen. They ended up rolling down the stairs like tumbleweeds. All hell was breaking loose to the hypnotic beat of drums. A fat guy down below was wearing the light blue striped jersey and punching Brits all around them - beer was flying. A lot of hooligans were arrested that day, after vandalizing the neighborhood. It has been said that rugby is a beastly sport played by gentlemen and soccer is a sport of gentlemen played by beasts.
Not any more. Now the sport of the “El Primitivo” Madariaga and the “Hunchback from Coapa” Cuauhtemoc Blanco, is mutating in the United States into a suburban game where mommies drive their kids to play in SUV’s and is mostly played by women. Another extreme mythological transformation is happening. Through David Beckham the game is being sanitized, associated with the rich and the beautiful and made palatable to Anglo America.
While San Francisco competes as the capital of “football” with places like Dallas and Green Bay, Los Angeles places itself around cities like Milan, London, Buenos Aires, Rio and Barcelona. Beckham is certainly not the best soccer player in the world, or from Europe, or England even. He wasn’t the best player for Real Madrid. In fact, he might not even be the best player in the Los Angeles Galaxy. However he is blonde, cute, metro-sexual, relatively decent, married to Posh Spice and friend of Tom Cruise. His cockney accent connotes Hollywood on this side of the pond. His soccer skills are eccentric and not good enough to make England or the Galaxy win, but will his beauty tame the beasts?
I was in the nose-bleed section of the Azteca stadium and saw the apocalyptic final of the Pan American games between Mexico and Brazil that ended up as a tie when power in the stadium went out. It was the first time I witnessed the popular local ritual of the “agua de riñón” (kidney water). A drunkard sitting next to me passed me a fetid warm paper cup and asked me to contribute. The cup was half full with urine. Once he figured I wouldn’t dare to help him filling it he threw it down to the more expensive level of the stadium beneath us shouting, “here goes the kidney water!”
Years after, my father took my sister and I to see the most legendary World Cup game. Great Britain kept those freezing rocky islands in the South Atlantic but Diego Armando Maradona beat England two to one and later lifted the cup for Argentina. While he was doing slalom with the British defense and scoring with the help of “God’s hand” I saw two Englishmen wearing their national team jerseys charge against hundreds of Argentinean fans that were dancing with a stolen Union Jack. It was the most stupid act of courage I had ever seen. They ended up rolling down the stairs like tumbleweeds. All hell was breaking loose to the hypnotic beat of drums. A fat guy down below was wearing the light blue striped jersey and punching Brits all around them - beer was flying. A lot of hooligans were arrested that day, after vandalizing the neighborhood. It has been said that rugby is a beastly sport played by gentlemen and soccer is a sport of gentlemen played by beasts.
Not any more. Now the sport of the “El Primitivo” Madariaga and the “Hunchback from Coapa” Cuauhtemoc Blanco, is mutating in the United States into a suburban game where mommies drive their kids to play in SUV’s and is mostly played by women. Another extreme mythological transformation is happening. Through David Beckham the game is being sanitized, associated with the rich and the beautiful and made palatable to Anglo America.
While San Francisco competes as the capital of “football” with places like Dallas and Green Bay, Los Angeles places itself around cities like Milan, London, Buenos Aires, Rio and Barcelona. Beckham is certainly not the best soccer player in the world, or from Europe, or England even. He wasn’t the best player for Real Madrid. In fact, he might not even be the best player in the Los Angeles Galaxy. However he is blonde, cute, metro-sexual, relatively decent, married to Posh Spice and friend of Tom Cruise. His cockney accent connotes Hollywood on this side of the pond. His soccer skills are eccentric and not good enough to make England or the Galaxy win, but will his beauty tame the beasts?
Labels: Futbol, Photography
posted by Rubén Ortiz Torres at
6:43 PM
2 Comments:
Right on about Beckham-although I find the whole Beckham/Posh spectacle hilarious! My whimsical theory (a la Da Vinci Code) is that Posh is really here on a mission from Pope Benedict to rescue Katie Holmes and bring her back to the true faith. It only APPEARS that Beckham is here for soccer, but he is just a front to distract everybody from what Posh is doing.
(In a few months, this will go the way of my fantasy -a la American Me meets Legally Blonde- that Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton, after being in jail and seeing some of tragic situations of regular folks in the penal system, would become advocates for prison reform!)
BTW - Do I detect a bit of hostility towards soccer moms? How are they any different from the fathers in San Fernando or Riverside or Santa Ana who drive in their Tundras and Avalanches to take their sons to practice?
1st things 1st, i think you need to research on beckham alot more before making comments like you have cause its obv you know nothing about football or beckham! he won man utd, england and real madrid countless games, he was the best passer and dead ball specialist of his generation and won alot of trophy's both at home and abroad.
everybody thinks of beckhams england career as the sending off in the world cup but if it was'nt for him we wouldnt have been there at all and the following euro championship and the next world cup again!!
he was pretty much was the driving force for two of undoubtedly the best teams in the world in united and madrid.
the move to la galaxy was nothing to do with football at all, he was nearing the end of his career and when he joined la galaxy alot of people though his career was well and truly finished (as probably did he) and it was blatently obvious, like many world class players before him, he only went to america because of the HUGE wage packet he recieved to and not for the football or match minutes!
now his career has been bought back to life by the loan to milan and cappello's re-call to the england set-up, alot of people still see why he was such a driving force in any team he played in (except la galaxy) because of the passion, determination and damn right doggedness and will to win he puts into a team!!!
and to karen, regarding posh, it was well publicised over here that her popularity with the young girls of england was waining rapidly due to the spice girls splitting up and a rubbish attempt at a solo career so she would have been a factor in beckham goin to america because she belived that they would make alot more money outta the americans when she never really had any talent at all!
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