The recent matchday of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League, played on March 6-7, saw the Korean side Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma host the Japanese team Nagoya Grampus in an exciting game that ended 2-2. Trailing until the very last second of stoppage time, the home team tied the game in the 93rd minute with a spectacular double-bicycle-kick play in which Brazilian forward Everton Santos assisted Brazilian midfielder Héverton Durães Coutinho for the goal that sent the home fans nuts and the Japanese ones into silent desperation.
Orlando Pirates striker Benni McCarthy scored the winning goal against Maritzburg United with a spectacular bicycle kick in the 75th minute. The game, played at Orlando Stadium on Sunday, February 25, saw Pirates prevail 1-0. The win placed Pirates level with second-placed Kaizer Chiefs on 33 points, just three behind leaders Sundowns in the Premier Soccer League of South Africa. McCarthy dedicated his fabulous goal to ailing former president Nelson Mandela.
“Every Saturday was derby day in Lebanon,” noted James Montague’s football travelogue When Friday Comes, “where Sunni met Shia, Shia met Druze, Christian met Muslim. Violence was inevitable.” In an article in today’s New York Times, Montague revisits football in Lebanon. The article casts a spotlight on Theo Bücker, the German coach of Lebanon’s national team, on the eve of the biggest game in Lebanon’s history: a World Cup qualifier against the United Arab Emirates. Needing a single point to earn a place in the final stage of the Asian Confederation 2014 World Cup qualifying round, Lebanon rallied around the team.
I don’t care if someone is Christian or a Muslim,” Bücker said. “There are only good and bad football players, that is all.” He goes on to add with the confidence typical of outsiders: “The Lebanese are tired of all the problems of the past . . . They are happy that this is uniting them.” In the end, UAE won 4-2, but Lebanon still managed to move on to the final ten.
Danyel Reiche, “War Minus the Shooting? The politics of sport in Lebanon as a unique case in comparative politics,” Third World Quarterly, 32, 2 (2011): 261-277.
Professional soccer in the U.S.A. took center stage at the Football Scholars Forum on Friday (Feb. 24). Ray Hudson not only braved the “football think-tank,” but also answered questions in the inimitable style he brings to broadcasting a Clásico on GolTV.
Using the documentary film Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos, FSF discussed Cosmos and the NASL, as well as the representation and construction of history on film. “We had it all, man!” said Hudson looking back fondly to his playing days with the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers. The audio recording of the conversation is here.
FSF is holding its next online session on March 16, 2pm EST. Author David Goldblatt will be in East Lansing, Michigan, to discuss the second half of his book, The Ball is Round. FSF’s discussion of the first installment is here. For more information, contact Alex Galarza: galarza1[AT]msu[DOT]edu
Uruguayan striker Gaston Ramirez scores the second goal in Bologna’s 2-0 victory against Fiorentina in a Serie A match on February 21. Ramirez finishes the cross from teammate Marco Di Vaio with a heel strike that leaves no chance to the “viola” goalkeeper, capping a classic, well-executed fastbreak.
In the Lebanese Premier League, Al Nejmeh forward Hassan Al Mohammad controls the ball right outside of his team’s box, sprints across the field, and scores the winning goal with a superb long shot from midfield in the 89th minute. Al Ahed goalkeeper can only watch the football flying into the net, settling the score at 3-2, and sending the home fans into a craze. February 15, 2012.
The room was tense. Zambia and Ivory Coast had played their hearts out in a goalless draw over 120+ minutes and now it came down to penalties. With me, watching a good stream on the big screen at work (on a Sunday), were three Zambians, a Kenyan, two American soccer aficionados, and my family.
Drogba had missed a penalty in regulation so the momentum seemed ever so slightly to favor the underdog Zambians. Chipolopolo prayed and prayed on the pitch, one of our Zambian friends commented wryly: “I didn’t know Zambians were so religious!”
As Zambia’s French coach Herve Renard would tell the media after the game, “I know we’re not the best, but we have a strength and force that animated our team.”
With the score tied at 7-7 in the shootout, Arsenal’s Gervinho shot wide and Sunzu stepped up for Zambia’s second chance to win.
Gooooooool!!!! The Zambians roared.
“I can’t believe it happened in my lifetime,” one of the Chipolopolo supporters exclaimed. We saluted the champions of Africa. Cell phones came out in an attempt to reach Lusaka.
The day after, not many people are at work, or so it seems . . . the Lusaka Times reports that “a thunderous welcome awaits the newly crowned Champions of African football” at Kaunda airport today.
With eight of the Zambian players based in South Africa, a national anthem based on Nkosi Sikelel’, and venerable liberation struggle ties, some of us delight in the fiction that a little piece of South Africa won as well.
That Chipolopolo became champions of Africa in Libreville, where the 1993 air crash killed the greatest Zambian team ever, made this triumph all the more special.
