The Global Game

Afrika's tale—Saved from the streets to play on the streets

September 23, 2009

MP3 Audio: Interview with Martin Afrika (19.97mb) Download

Football's powers of resurrection have rarely had a better exemplar than Martin Afrika. The 32-year-old captain for South Africa at the Homeless World Cup, which concluded Sept 13 in Milan, literally has reconstructed his identity through sport.

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The 'wrong-footed soccer maiden' who bridged Manhattan and Beijing

July 18, 2009

MP3 Audio: Interview with Gay Talese (46.60mb) Download

Gay Talese refers to the setting at the Women's World Cup final on July 10, 1999 - the tableau of winning penalty-kick taker Brandi Chastain mobbed by teammates in a swirl of confetti and California sun - as a "stadium sky jet-streamed with jingoism." But his interest was in the Chinese player who missed her penalty kick, Liu Ying. Liu's story takes up much of Talese's memoir, A Writer's Life.

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20 years later, remembering East German film and football

April 3, 2009

MP3 Audio: Interview with George Springborg (29.19mb) Download

Twenty years from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the sixth edition of the 11mm Fußballfilmfestival revels in Ostalgie (Eastern nostalgia) by screening 14 films from or concerning the former East Germany as well as matches featuring Dynamo Dresden, Carl Zeiss Jena and BFC Dynamo (Berlin). We interview one of the organizers, George Springborg.

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Municipal de Fútbol, where Angelenos do not fear to tread

March 30, 2009

MP3 Audio: Interview with Jennifer Doyle (31.29mb) Download

The multimedia project Municipal de Futbol, published in 2008, focuses on what the project's essayist, Jennifer Doyle, calls the city's most developed subculture: improvisational soccer.

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Northern latitudes helped make Marta a player of Sol importance

January 11, 2009

MP3 Audio: Interviews with Mats Brastedt and Tomas Ruuth (22.98mb) Download

Interviews with Mats Brastedt, reporter for national evening daily Expressen, based in Stockholm, and Tomas Ruuth (left) of the Umea-based Vasterbottens Folkblad on the departure of Marta Vieira da Silva, 22, from Umea IK after five seasons. She heads for Los Angeles Sol of Women's Professional Soccer with what is reported to be a three-year contract.

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Israeli writers' trophy leads to 'emptiness of the day after'

December 19, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Assaf Gavron (22.39mb) Download

From Tel Aviv we interview Assaf Gavron, novelist, translator, editor and captain of a recently created team of Israeli writers. The team, with victories over England and Germany, lifted its first trophy, taking Gavron to the familiar day-after feeling of emptiness that resembles completion of a novel.

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In Atlanta, spreading soccer contagion at parade rest

October 2, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Ron Newman (46.10mb) Download

Interview with Ron Newman, former member of the Atlanta Chiefs (NPSL, NASL, 1967-68) and one-time coach of the Dallas, San Diego, and Fort Lauderdale teams in the North American Soccer League. He discusses his work in the 1960s in spreading suburban soccer in the South.

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A soccer player's escape from Argentina ... into philosophy

August 29, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Claudio Tamburrini (48.61mb) Download

The film Cronica de una fuga (Chronicle of an Escape) has released to DVD in North America. Within the film, director Adrian Caetano poses the quandary that faced Claudio Tamburrini—now a Stockholm University philosophy professor and one-time Almagro goalkeeper—and fellow prisoners before their extraordinary decision in Mar 1978 to "opt for life." The podcast contains a 53-minute interview with Tamburrini.

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A big day for Haiti, a big day for little Haitians

October 29, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Robert Fatton (24.25mb) Download

Interview with Robert Fatton, Haiti expert at the University of Virginia. He speaks of the Duvalier regime's partial dependence, "for its well-being," on the national soccer team's performance in the 1970s and alludes to particular clubs' associations with society's upper tiers.

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In Liberia's hidden places, amputee players wait for empowerment

October 29, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Ruthie Ackerman (13.17mb) Download

Journalist Ruthie Ackerman had come across a side of amputee footballers during a reporting visit to Monrovia. Unlike earlier media reports, the results of her investigation—including an article in The Nation (“Scars and Stripes," 28 Jan 08)—focused on the less seemly aspects of the amputees' stories: that they must beg for their bread and that many have been left in the lurch by oversubscribed and underfunded rehabilitation programs.

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For centuries, life has had its uppies and downies

October 29, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Hugh Hornby (24.57mb) Download

Hugh Hornby, author of a comprehensive account of Britain's 15 surviving festival football games—Uppies and Downies: The Extraordinary Football Games of Britain (English Heritage, 2008)—was busy signing books during the Jedburgh Ba' Game on 14 Feb 08, but says that the Uppies "may have prevailed by an odd hail." That he terms the annual rituals "mass-participation games" indicates that the emphasis is on taking part, not the result.

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A majestic history built around games

October 29, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with David Goldblatt (45.48mb) Download

The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer, by David Goldblatt, appears at booksellers in North America this week, and we wonder how many will read the title's four words as a direct challenge to the myth of American centrality in all things.

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‘Joyful fandom’ & the flares of Sarajevo

October 29, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Ozgur Dirim Ozkan (25.70mb) Download

Ozgur Dirim Ozkan, in fieldwork among supporters' groups in Sarajevo since Feb 07 and on the Bosnian Football Culture website, has examined football as but a small part of a society that, in the Western frame, implies little but ethnic-riven conflict and a constellation of indecipherable place names.

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In Brazil, an ‘invisible chain of solidarity’

October 30, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Paulo Coelho (16.58mb) Download

Within 24 hours of writing about Brazil's successful presentation to host the 2014 World Cup and the role of writer Paulo Coelho in the bid effort, we received a message from one of Coelho's assistants, taking note of our comments. We speak with Coelho about his role in the bid and the place of football in Brazilian life.

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The stoning of Steven Wells

October 30, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Steven Wells (36.26mb) Download

Unable by temperament and conviction to create a "conventional" sports report, Steven Wells has built a Web 2.0 following by trusting his punk-poet instincts and inducing an irony-challenged foamy slaver among his American and UK readership.

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At Spelman, women’s soccer pushes beyond expectation

October 30, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Spelman College Players (32.98mb) Download

As soccer tacticians do, Spelman College coach Philmore George speaks of building a team from the back, using combination play to instill belief in the collective. It makes sense, therefore, that the co-captains in George's fourth season, which begins 1 Sept 07, are defenders: seniors Ashley Hamilton (left) and Rabiah "Rabi" Jamar. Together they not only have led the Spelman Jaguars from the back but the spread of women's soccer into new territories in America's fragmented demographic.

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On the streets, Charlotte participants experience football as sole force

October 30, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Street Soccer 945, Charlotte (24.86mb) Download

Given the rigors of a night-shift job, Ron "Pop" Miller (left) sometimes would sleep until the last possible moment before practices preceding the Homeless World Cup. Physical conditioning, fatigue and poor nutrition all posed obstacles for Miller's participation in the fifth homeless tournament between Jul 29 and Aug 4 07 in Copenhagen. Further, Miller found himself learning a new game that some teammates from Central America had been playing much of their lives.

Interview with Miller and Lawrence and Rob Cann, coordinators of the Street Soccer 945 program, Urban Ministry Center, Charlotte, North Carolina.

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Professional league in waiting, competitive instincts still burn for U.S. women

October 30, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Nel Fettig Hayes (21.38mb) Download

Nel Hayes, who competed during the Women's United Soccer Association's three seasons as Nel Fettig, can be said to have grown up in the "early phase" of the American women's soccer boom. Now with a four-month-old daughter, Lily, of her own, Hayes speaks in our Aug 21 07 podcast of the prescient tactical awareness of girls in the Atlanta Youth Soccer Association, of which she is executive director.

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Iraqi Asian Cup victory reminds a civilization what ‘normal’ feels like

October 31, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Larry Kaplow (16.63mb) Download

A triumphant march through the Asian Cup tournament in Jul 07 contributed to the resurgence of the Arabic phrase Assood al-Rafidain (Lions of Mesopotamia) to refer to the Iraqi national football team. "It's a way of labeling them with this unifying and historic cultural icon," says Newsweek Baghdad corresondent Larry Kaplow, who appeared on our 7 Aug 07 podcast. Rising above divisions by ethnicity and sect, the Iraqi team, which trains and plays matches in Jordan, defeated Saudi Arabia 1–0 on Jul 29 to lift the Asian Cup for the first time.

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Sydney lesbian club shows Australia it is bats for football

October 31, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Danielle Warby (14.94mb) Download

The Flying Bats' fifth-division representative in the North West Sydney Women's Soccer Association suffered its worst outing of the season on 5 Aug 07: a 0–6 loss to Thornleigh. The taste of humiliation still lingered the following morning for team member Danielle Warby, who called the experience both "embarrassing" and "painful." But the community liaison for the Flying Bats Women's Football Club, the longest-running lesbian soccer club in Australia's capital, offers more fundamental reasons for the club's existence.

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Cruz Azul’s visit to Atlanta offers another cultural intersection

October 31, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Will Ramirez and Boris Jerkunica (22.30mb) Download

Much of soccer culture in the United States remains hidden, but matches such as the 28 Jul 07 Copa Amistad between the Atlanta Silverbacks and Cruz Azul cast light on the place of the sport in everyday lives of Latinos. Will Ramirez, publisher of Estadio, a Spanish-language sports weekly based in Tucker, Georgia, describes in our 24 Jul 07 podcast how he and many of the 425,000 Hispanics in the Atlanta area remain linked to soccer despite, or because of, displacement. Also joining us is Silverbacks owner Boris Jerkunica (left).

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Interview with Sam Quinones, 'Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration

October 31, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Sam Quinones (15.28mb) Download

Interview with Sam Quinones (24 Jul 07), Los Angeles Times writer and author of Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration (University of New Mexico Press, 2007). He includes a chapter, “A Soccer Season in Southwest Kansas,” on the soccer team at Garden City High School soccer team.

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Atlanta-birthed grassroots program teaches game and life in ‘Soccer 101’

October 31, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Jill Robbins and DeAndre Harrison (36.17mb) Download

On 10 Jul 07 we feature Atlanta-based Soccer in the Streets, part of the streetfootballworld network. The interview is with executive director Jill Robbins (left) and participant DeAndré Harrison.

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Evo Morales’s maneuvering in Zurich earns reprieve for La Paz

October 31, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Eduardo Avila (13.35mb) Download

Is it safe to play football on the Andean altiplano or the Tibetan plateau? FIFA has not decided yet, but it continues to modify its judgment, originally decreed in May 07, that FIFA competitions could not be staged above 2,500m. On 29 Jun 07 we interview Eduardo Avila of Global Voices Online to learn about Bolivia's reaction to FIFA's decision-making process.

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Worldwide, Scots lend ‘fitba’ their distinctive style

October 31, 2008

MP3 Audio: Interview with Billy Kay (35.65mb) Download

Billy Kay, author of The Scottish World, on 30 May 07 recalls Scotland's influence on the worldwide spread and ultimate dominance of the passing, artistic style of association football. Scotland will not let England forget that "it wes us."

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