"Soccer Explains the World" soccer & globalism

[conquerant]

I was reading an op-ed in WSJ today from Monday's edition (I get them a bit late at work) and as I am oft wont to do, I checked out the background of the writer to see what angle I'm reading from. It was written by a man named Franklin Foer, a writer for the The New Republic who is releasing a book this spring called "Soccer Explains The World." My first reaction was "oh boy, book about soccer from a TNR writer" but when I did a bit of a search turns out he's a huge soccer fan, and the book seems kinda interesting.

(At this point I'd like to state I'm sorry if this has been brought up before, but I don't remember seeing it, and I did a search and nothing came up)

Anyway, taken from the following article: http://slate.msn.com/id/100584/ it's a bit old, from 2001, so I expect it's his initial thoughts on the subject and not his final conclusions, but he basically praises globalism and compares it to what he sees as the positives of globalism in soccer; specifically he talks how in Europe indvidual national champonships have lowered in importance (good, according to him, as they're usually one horse races) and instead importance has been shifted to the Champion's League (where there's much more question of the outcome) He also remarks how the influx of foreign players into England, Italy, etc.. have produced much more enjoyable soccer to watch; again an example of the benefits of globalization.

I also found another article that he wrote, that, whether you agree or disagree with him (either on soccer or globalization!) you will be sure to like: he wrote it during KJ 2002, and is a rebuttal to all the anti-soccer media types: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020701&s=diarist070102

[RichardL]

I'd actually disagree with his belief that national championships have become less important. What you've got instead is the attention that used to be on three european trophies is now 90% focussed on just 1.

His phrase "Every year it seems there's a new international cup to chase after—the Champions League, UEFA Cup, Super Cup, the Cup Winners Cup, the World Club Championship. It's a fan's sweet dream, the chance to watch the best in the world battle each other rather than their own inferior countrymen." shows he is clearly no expert. The champions cup and UEFA cup have been around for decades, the cup-winners cup has been scrapped, the world club championship suspended due to lack of interest and the super cup (also around for decades) is little more than an irrelvance.

All he's done is state that the rich clubs are getting richer, and there are very few claiming that's a healthy state of affairs.

I'd also doubt his claim that there are 10,000 Brazilians playing professionally outside of Brazil

[superdave]

Originally posted by RichardL
I'd also doubt his claim that there are 10,000 Brazilians playing professionally outside of Brazil
There are 200 nations in the world. If each of those nations had 50 Brazilians playing, that would be 10,000. Obviously, there are at least 150 nations whose combined total is 1000 or less. I doubt any Brazilians are playing in New Guinea. That means in the other 50 nations, there'd have to be an average of 180 Brazilians in each.

[anderson]

According to the CBF, there are over 2,000 Brazilians playing abroad. The numbers I've seen tossed around most often in the press over the years are in the 2,000-3,000 range, but they probably get those estimates from the CBF. It must be a massive effort to keep current with the constant in and out transfers of Brazilian players and I'd be shocked if the CBF were organized enough to do it accurately.

http://www.cbfnews.bol.com.br/cbf

FWIW, Alex Bellos, The Guardian's man in Rio, claimed in his 2002 book, Futebol - The Brazilian Way of Life, that there are about 5,000 Brazilians playing abroad.

[superdave]

5000 I can believe. I'd be surprised if it were true, but I could believe it. 10,000, no.