The German shoe and sportswear company, Puma, sponsors at least 12 African national football teams–five of which qualified for the 2010 World Cup. To commemorate the World Cup year (and because it is good PR and to sell shirts), Puma commissioned artist Kehinde Wiley to create four new works of arts inspired by the footbal stars Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon, John Mensah of Ghana and Emmanuel Eboué of Ivory Coast. Wiley painted individual portraits of the players and a fourth painting (above) of the three players “symbolizing the united countries of Africa.” The players are wearing the “Unity” kit, a limited edition uniform designed to be a third kit (apart from home and away kits) shared by all African teams, symbolizing unity.
Here‘s a link to a video of Wiley at work on the project with Mensah, Eboue and Eto’o.
The paintings will be exhibited during the World Cup in South Africa.
Author: Sean Jacobs
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Who will benefit from 2010?
Just as the football at the 2010 World Cup will be great, someone will make lots of money. It is not going to be local businesses for sure. This excellent 13 minute short documentary (“Trademark 2010″) for Dutch TV channel, VPRO, covers the fantasy that local people–small businesspeople, informal traders–will make money or get jobs during the tournament.
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‘The 100 Best Players in the World’
British football magazine FourFourTwo, just published (in the November issue) the list of the “100 Best Players in the World.” The choices are based on the input of the magazine’s journalists. Of course it will lead to all kinds of debate as “lists” are always subjective and don’t mean anything beyond getting fans talking. Generally I agree with the list. If you haven’t seen the list, here’s the top ten (I’ve listed them by country, since that’s an affiliation that does not change):
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Did Stephen Colbert play himself?
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Is it Time to Care About Soccer? | ||||
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Like a number of other US commentators, comedian Stephen Colbert, who plays a faux-Bill O’Reilly on his show, had to discuss the future of football in the United States. As he describes soccer in the video, above: “.. The sport that [Americans] are the world champions at ignoring.” The US’s success in the Confederations Cup (against all expectations they made it to the final where they lost, after leading 2-0, to Brazil on Sunday), leads Colbert to mock-ask: “Is it time to care about soccer?” What follows is a send-up of American caricatures of football: rioting, David Beckham and warm beer. It’s satire after all. But then Colbert asks his producer to show some “thrilling soccer highlights” and we see video of players of a team in blue passing the ball around sort of aimlessly. The camera then cuts back to Colbert snoozing.
The thing is, unless Colbert or his producers (and his audience?) were in on the joke, they made fools of themselves with that clip as they missed one of the greatest goals of all time: a 25-pass move that resulted in a goal for Argentina against Serbia in the 2006 World Cup in Germany: