Soccer and Fine Arts
The great Soviet Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich argued that soccer was a type of art for the people: “Football is the ballet of the masses.”[1] Dmitry Shostakovich wrote three full-length ballet scores between 1925 and 1935. The Golden Age “revolves around the visit of a Soviet football team to a Western city (referred to as ‘U-town’) at the time of an industrial exhibition, only for its heroic sporting and social endeavours constantly to be undermined by hostile administrators, decadent artists and corrupt officials.”[2]
In this final chapter, I examine the relationship between soccer and fine arts. The main fine arts were historically painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and poetry. Increasingly, theater and dance are added to the fine arts. Today, the fine arts also include film, photography, conceptual art, and printmaking. In this chapter, I will also include poetry, creative writing, and literature under the ambit of the fine arts.
The connections between soccer and fine arts are not readily apparent, but speaking to artists, writers, and soccer players one comes to the conclusion that soccer is akin to an art form; soccer players paint their canvases on the pitch through their subtle movements, and the best players are as memorable as the most famous artists, architects, singers, photographers, or writers in history. Soccer, like art, is based on the interpretations of the players, fans, and critics. The players that you might hate are the players I most admire. Like art, soccer has its aesthetic qualities, beyond merely winning or losing. Soccer, like art, is based on the interpretations and creativity of the players, fans, and critics. Coaches might also “encourage” creativity among players “by holding practice sessions where there is no coaching and only free play,” insists Stan Baker, author of Our Competition Is the World.[3] Soccer stadiums have an aura of the theatrical with their rival teams, colorful hats and scarves, and unique banners. One soccer writer urges us to reject Orwell’s war metaphor and see soccer “as an art, not a war.”[4]
Given the diversity of art throughout human history from the bison on the wall of a cave in Lascaux, France, 50,000 years ago to the surrealism of Marc Chagall in the twentieth century, we all have differing artistic tastes and conceptions of beauty. For one renowned art critic, the majority of people “like to see in pictures what they would also like to see in reality.”[5] Does this apply to soccer fans? Do they want to see artistic and innovative players, or merely players that are efficient and win without any aesthetic criteria? For artistic purists, art of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is not really art, but E. H. Gombrich insists that this view is mistaken because you can “crush” an artist by telling them that what they are doing is “quite good in its own way, only it is not ‘Art.’”[6] Later in the chapter I discuss a unique professional soccer player that is also an artist off the field. He has even had an art exhibition and perhaps been told that he should stick to soccer alone.
It is interesting to note that soccer is today ubiquitous around the world and hence it is not surprising that artists have painted soccer players, matches, and fans. In chapter 5, I highlighted the notion of soccer stars as gods playing in soccer temples and in chapter 10 I posited the relationship between soccer players and immortality. I pointed out that artists have erected statues in homage to great soccer players from Zinedine Zidane to Eusébio and Duncan Edwards to Bobby Moore.
A Mexican artist based in Querétaro, Manuel Mancilla has a large series of soccer paintings: “gods” and warriors playing old Aztec and Mayan ball games, internationally famous soccer stars such as Franz Beckenbauer (one of the representatives of chapter 5), and a unique reconceptualization of Albrecht Dürer’s “Self-Portrait” wearing a German national team jersey.[7] Dürer (1471–1528) was a German painter, engraver, printmaker, and mathematician from Nuremberg. A native of Orizaba, Veracruz, Mancilla is no ordinary soccer artist. One of his most beautiful paintings is called “La chilena de Chac-mool,” an ancient pre-Columbian figure performing the difficult “bicycle kick” maneuver. Chilena connotes bicycle kick, while Chac-mool refers to a form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture showing a reclining figure with its head facing ninety degrees from the front, supporting itself on its elbows and holding a bowl or a disk upon its stomach. The figures first appeared in the Valley of Mexico among the Aztecs and the northern Yucatán Peninsula in the ninth century. When Mexico defeated Panama in a key World Cup qualifier at the fabled Azteca in 2013, the game-winning goal was scored through a spectacular Raúl Jiménez chilena. On the night of the goal, the artist Manuel Mancilla sent Raúl Jiménez the image of his “La chilena de Chac-mool” through Facebook and the Mexican star forward responded with a “like.”[8]
Other Mancilla paintings include his “Juego de los dioses” (Game of the gods) and “Dioses del estadio” (Gods of the stadium), which view soccer as a secular religion. Another has the god Itzama holding a soccer ball, as he stoically looks to the future. Yet another painting has four Aztec figures having a ritual ceremony in honor of the ball. Recall that in chapter 5 I highlighted the purposes of games in the history of humanity, including the ancient notion that the game was a reflection of the struggle of the gods. Mancilla is obviously a lover of the game. While he gets his inspiration from the relationship between ancient and contemporary ball games such as soccer, he also paints more modern pieces. One of his works is titled “The Virgin of the Ball,” with an angelic-like woman in a German national team uniform. Recall that in chapter 5 I highlighted the relationship between soccer and religion. For Mancilla, soccer is a secular religion and its practitioners and fans (including himself) experience the divine. Another painting entitled “Antonio Puerta” honors the Spanish soccer star killed on the pitch, which I mentioned in the introduction.
Brilliant photographs have immortalized the legends of world soccer and the game’s touching moments. Songs are sung by supporters and have been sung in memory of great soccer stars from George Best to Pelé. Soccer stars have starred in famous films. Countless books and poems have been written about soccer. Architects outdo each other to build the best soccer stadiums and statues. When we enter soccer stadiums, there is elaborate choreography in the songs, banners, and gestures of the home and away fans. The brilliant colors and banners combine ritualistic and aesthetic elements; soccer as a pagan religion (chapter 5) and soccer as art. Soccer scarves and uniforms are an art in themselves, in part reflecting fashion trends of the epoch and commercial imperatives to sell jerseys (chapter 7). The jersey of the All Whites, representing New Zealand’s national soccer team, plays on the All Blacks, the famous national rugby union team. The silver fern, a symbol of New Zealand, appears on the All Whites’ jersey. Another unique jersey is the pink, black, and gray color combination of the Italian second division side U.S. Città di Palermo. The team is known as Rosanero (“The Pink-blacks”) or Aquile (“The Eagles”) because there is a lone eagle on the pink-black jersey.
The left-winger or wide midfielder position is that of the number 11. Typically, the left-winger has tremendous pace and runs all day. He is known for his fakes, trickery and guile, dribbling skills, crossing technique, and the ability to terrorize defenders and goalies with his goal-scoring instincts. The soccer website Football’s Greatest neatly describes the evolving role of the number 11:
The role of the winger, or wide midfielder, has changed considerably over the years. Originally the job was well-defined, and crucial to the team’s creativity: stay close to the touchline, dribble past the full-back and float in a cross for the center-forward (as exemplified by Sir Stanley Matthews). The greatest wingers have always scored a healthy amount of goals too, sometimes a staggering amount given their position. The heyday of the traditional winger lasted until the 1960s. After that Alf Ramsey’s 4-4-2 and the Italian catenaccio defence changed everything. . . . The 4-3-3 system, popular in the 1970s, had either only one winger in a lop-sided formation (i.e., Garrincha for Brazil in 1962 or Overmars for Arsenal in 1996/97) or two wingers who also had to take it in turns to come inside to support a lone striker when the opposite winger stayed wide. Now, with the modern variation of 4-3-3 the winger also has to drop back when needed to help the midfield (as used by Mourinho’s Chelsea) . . .
With the newly popular 4-2-3-1 though the traditional winger is making something of a return. Able to stay forward, these players are definitely forwards rather than midfielders and are often not required to track back (for example Ronaldinho, Neymar or Ronaldo). However, these new wingers are now more likely to cut inside and make runs into the box rather than hugging the touchline to put crosses in; the crossing job is often left for the full-back. These new wingers are often played on their “wrong” sides (i.e. right footed players on the left and vice versa) to reflect this new role (i.e., as in 2009/10 by Mancini at Manchester City or van Gaal at Bayern Munich with Robben and Ribery). Wingers are becoming important again in the game and scoring many goals themselves in addition to setting up chances for others, and this can be seen by the goal tallies of players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi (who began as a right winger before being moved to a more central position). Throughout all these changes wingers have been probably the most exciting players on the pitch, doing what they do best: moving the ball at pace and using their skill to dribble past opponents and creating goal-scoring chances.[9]
While there are numerous sensational number 11s in the history of the game, I selected the Stoke City winger (on loan to Barnsley in 2014), USA international, and artist “Brek” Shea (he actually paints and sells his abstract paintings) and the Brazilian international and Barcelona star Neymar. Shea best illustrates the links between soccer and art on and off the field. Neymar is a master artist with the ball on the field; a breathtaking dribbler; and a constant danger through his speed, trickery, improvisational skills, and excellent goal-scoring and passing abilities. Neymar has inspired numerous artists to create paintings of him.
Dane Brekken “Brek” Shea was born on February 28, 1990, in College Station, Texas. A tall winger at six feet three inches, Shea is known for his pace, energy, work rate, and dribbling skills. He is a winger with Stoke City in the English Premier League, signed with the club in January 2013, and wears the number 11 for the English club. He joined the club for a fee of £2.5 million (about US$4 million), a fraction of the price Real Madrid paid for Gareth Bale in 2013. He is also a member of the USA national team, helping the nation win the CONCACAF championship in 2013 by scoring the winning goal in the finals against Panama. He has played with the national team since 2010 and scored two goals in twenty-three appearances.
Shea began his career with Major League Soccer club FC Dallas. From 2008 to 2012, Shea made ninety-eight appearances for the Texas team and scored nineteen goals. He helped Dallas reach the MLS Cup Playoffs in 2010 and 2011.
While Shea is an artist on the field, he is a genuine artist off the field. In January 2013, Shea and a number of colleagues launched the brand Left Foot Studio.[10] The site contains Shea’s abstract art through different media: paintings, clothing, and longboards and skateboards. Shea paints often on his time off from duties to Stoke City and the USA national team. His studio is located at Left Foot Studio, in his garage, and the soccer star “most often paints the day after a game or on Mondays and Tuesdays before training picks back up.”[11] In June 2011, Shea showed ten of his abstract pieces to the Controlled Chaos Art Show and Auction at NYLO Hotel in Plano, Texas, and in the process raised nearly $10,000 for the FC Dallas Foundation for disadvantaged youth through soccer.[12]
Shea revealed how a knee ligament injury in a Stoke City training match in Philadelphia in 2013 allowed him to focus on his art as therapy from the injury and the pressures of professional soccer:
My hobby is painting; I wouldn’t say I’m very good I just enjoy it. It keeps my mind off things and gives me something to do instead of getting into trouble or playing video games. It’s a nice way to relax. There is no right or wrong, it’s just opinions so I can do whatever I want. It’s not like the pressure of winning Premier League matches. I’ve certainly been painting a lot lately while I’ve been injured. It keeps me busy, and the more I do it the better I get.[13]
Writing in Sabotage Times in 2011, Peter Karl called Shea “the American Gareth Bale,” compared his creativity to the USA national team captain Clint Dempsey, and highlighted his artistic character on and off the field:
Like Dempsey, the biggest draw about Shea is his creativity. But what sets Shea apart is his eccentricity on and off the pitch. Shea is a true lefty—freethinking and inventive. He expresses himself through six tattoos, his own abstract art studio, and a medley of unconventional hairstyles, be it cornrows or faux hawks. His unique image is one of a truly edgy footballer that America has hardly been familiar with. So please, excuse us for the hype. But at 21, Brek Shea has become one of the brightest talents in American soccer. And he’s far from a finished product.[14]
In 2013, the Brazilian superstar Neymar signed with Barcelona. As another great star and teammate Lionel Messi is the number 10, Neymar was handed the number 11 jersey. Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior has already scored twenty-six goals in forty-two matches for the Brazilian national team and an impressive fifty-four goals in 103 appearances for Brazilian club side Santos from 2009 to 2013. Playing for Santos, Neymar won three Campeonato Paulista (2010, 2011, and 2012), one Copa do Brasil (2010), one Copa Libertadores (2011), and one Recopa Sudamericana (2012). He was also voted Best Forward of the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A three times (2010, 2011, and 2012), as well as Best Player of the Campeonato Paulista four times: 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. He won the FIFA Puskás Award in 2011 for the most outlandish and audacious goal of the year. The Puskás Award is recognition for the most artistic or aesthetically pleasing goal of the year.
At the tender age of nineteen, Neymar won the 2011 South American Footballer of the Year award. He also won the award in 2012. In 2013, he was the hero of Brazil’s Confederation Cup victory on home soil where he scored four goals in the tournament. He won the tournament’s Golden Ball for best player. He is destined to become one of the all-time great number 11s in the history of the game. He is flashy, fast, creative, and an incredible dribbler that is able to expertly whizz by numerous players. He can create countless chances for his teammates, score on outlandish volleys or solo runs, and set the tempo of an entire match through his mastery in midfield. He is only in his early twenties, but already a master painter on the soccer pitch.
Artists have taken note of Neymar’s artistic skills on the pitch. One writer comically commented on a surrealistic portrait of Neymar:
I may not completely understand this, but it’s definitely interesting. The work of artist/designer Bruno Hamzagic, this Neymar portrait is exactly how I imagine Neymar looks to people who watch Neymar play while they’re tripping on mushrooms. Not that I’m implying Bruno was tripping on mushrooms when he created this piece of art. Nothing is in the right place, but that’s probably the point, right? Still, Bruno nailed the hair.[15]
Another artist was also moved by Neymar’s skills and challenged by Neymar’s “ever-changing hairstyles.”[16] A new comic book was created in partnership with legendary Brazilian cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa. The Associated Press neatly described the comic book: “Neymar will be portrayed as a child with his own football-playing friends and his well-known Mohawk hair style. The first issue is called ‘A boy with talent.’. . . The series will include Neymar’s real-life family and friends and De Sousa sees it spreading beyond Brazil and to the rest of the world like his other footballer based comics.”[17] Interestingly, other Brazilian players have become children’s comic book characters, including Pelé, Ronaldinho, and Ronaldo.[18]
Another famous artist took note of Neymar. Aware that Neymar is an emerging global superstar, the world-renowned rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur Jay-Z was “reportedly interested in signing him to Roc Nation Sports” in 2013.[19] Jay-Z is launching his own sports agency, Roc Nation Sports, a sport management group, and it will work as partners with Creative Artists Agency.
Soccer players and non-players have been known to view the craft of soccer as an art. The retired and mercurial French international winger David Ginola said the following: “Football is a matter of creativity and imagination.”[20] The brilliant and retired French international Lilian Thuram, a winner of the 1998 World Cup, said this about the relationship between soccer and art: “Footballers can be like artists when the mind and body are working as one. It is what Miles Davis does when he plays free jazz—everything pulls together into one intense moment that is beautiful.”[21] Thuram had his greatest Miles Davis moments in the semi-finals of the 1998 World Cup against Croatia when he scored his only two international goals in a 2–1 victory. Even the feminist theorist Germaine Greer stated: “Football is an art.”[22]
Tom Utley, a British journalist who writes for the Daily Mail, went further than Thuram, Ginola, and Greer in his assessment of soccer and art: “Football is only a game. That is the most outrageous nonsense of the lot. Football is a science, it’s an art, it is war, ballet, drama, terror and joy all rolled into one.”[23] Utley’s assessment of soccer supports what The World through Soccer has shown, that although soccer is a simple game, it can inform us about art, politics, business, ethics, leadership, childhood dreams, immortality and the meaning of life, and the fine arts. The Arsenal manager Arséne Wenger could opine that soccer and art are essentially one:
I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art. When you read some books they are fantastic, the writer touches something in you that you know you would not have brought out of yourself. He makes you discover something interesting in your life. If you are living like an animal, what is the point of living? What makes daily life interesting is that we try to transform it to something that is close to art. And football is like that.[24]
The performances of some gifted soccer players can also be compared to poetry. The website of AC Milan pays homage to one of its legends by comparing his play to poetry: “The class and style of Gianni Rivera earned the midfield playmaker the Golden Ball for the European Footballer of the Year in 1969, earning this wonderful tribute: ‘in a barren world of football, Rivera is the only one to possess a sense of poetry.’”[25] Internationally, Rivera played for Italy sixty times and scored fourteen goals. He appeared in four World Cups (1962, 1966, 1970, and 1974) and his greatest glory came when Italy won its first European Soccer Championship in 1968.
Soccer stars have also been immortalized in song and literature. Cátulo Castillo, the poet and composer of Argentine tango, dedicated a tango to Arsenio Erico and said that the soccer star played with “the elegance of a ballerina.”[26] Castillo’s tango contains this powerful line in memory of Erico: “It will be a millennium before anyone replicates your heel or head passes.”[27] He was called the “Gardels of soccer,” in homage to the tango legend Carlos Gardels.[28] Arsenio Erico (1915–1977) was not Argentinean, but a brilliant Paraguayan striker. He is the all-time highest goal scorer in the Argentine first division, with 295 goals, almost all scored for Buenos Aires club Independiente. He is considered the best Paraguayan soccer player of all time, even better than José Luis Chilavert, one of the representatives of chapter 1.
There are lots of songs in honor of the two greatest soccer immortals of all time: Pelé and Maradona. One is called “Pelé Ou Maradona” by Caju and Castanha, which tries to make a case for which is the greatest soccer player in history. “O Rei, Pelé” by Jackson Do Pandeiro is a famous Brazilian song, which pays homage to “The King of Soccer.” There is a “Maradona” hip-hop song by the German group The Business. Maradona’s cult-like following at Napoli led to an album by The Underachievers about the soccer star entitled “Maradona è meglio ‘e Pelè” (Maradona is better than Pelé). There is a soccer song in homage to the diminutive former Scottish international Gordon Strachan called “Strachan” by The Hitchers. “George Best” is a song in honor of the former Northern Ireland and Manchester United star. The U.S. band Barcelona recorded a song called “Kasey Keller,” after his heroic shutout performance against Brazil in the 1998 Gold Cup.
Coca-Cola’s 2010 World Cup campaign song, Canadian K’Naan’s “Wavin’ Flag,” has become a worldwide hit.[29] K’Naan has also turned the song into a book. The “guiding spirit” for both the book and song “Wavin’ Flag” is K’naan’s grandfather, Haji Mohammad, a celebrated poet in his homeland Somalia, “who could stop people fighting with a poem,” insisted K’naan.[30] The song highlights K’Naan’s love of soccer well before fleeing Somalia’s civil war to Canada and was recorded at the Centenario in Montevideo, the site of Uruguay’s World Cup triumph in 1930. The song is extremely catchy, yet also tells the story of the immigrant experience, its difficulties, and love of soccer embodied by the waving of national flags at World Cup competitions. The key refrain of the song is the following: “When I get older I will be stronger, They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag.”[31]
In addition, Shakira’s “Waka Waka,” the theme of the 2010 World Cup, remains on the list of most viewed YouTube videos of all time.[32] In June 2013, the music video for “Waka Waka” became the sixth most watched music video of all time on YouTube, with more than 500 million views. The song has sold more than four million copies worldwide, thus making it the best-selling and the fastest-selling World Cup anthem. The Spanish-language counterpart of “Waka Waka” was released simultaneously as “Esto es África” (This Is Africa). “Waka Waka” is based upon a traditional African soldiers’ song named “Zamina mina (Zangaléwa),” a 1986 hit for Cameroonian group Golden Sounds and also a 1980s radio hit in Shakira’s Colombian hometown Barranquilla. “Waka Waka” was performed by Shakira and Freshlyground (a South African group) at the 2010 FIFA World Cup Kick-Off concert in Soweto, South Africa, on June 10, 2010, as well as at the final on July 11, 2010. Shakira’s soccer connections go beyond her native Colombia. She is married to the brilliant FC Barcelona and Spanish international defender Gerard Piqué.
The most famous melody associated with soccer in Brazil is “Na Cadência do Samba,” or more popularly known as “Que bonito é” (How beautiful it is), which served as the theme tune for a popular radio station from the early 1960s to 1980s. It is a soft samba composed and written by Luis Bandeira, although the song was used by newsreel producer Carlos Niemeyer in an instrumental version. “Forward” was composed by Miguel Gustavo and used in the film of the same name for the 1970 World Cup. It is a harsh criticism of the military dictatorship’s use of soccer to alienate people and to hide the horrors of the military regime’s political repression. Recall that in chapter 2 I discussed the relationship between soccer and dictators, while in chapters 3 and 4 I pointed out that soccer and culture in general could be used to either support or challenge the ruling ideology.
Less than a week before demonstrators in the streets of Brazil began protesting the high costs of hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup, among other grievances, Coca-Cola sent a more positive message about the international event out to Brazilian soccer fans, posting a video of one version of its new World Cup anthem on YouTube:
The song teams regional techno-pop singer Gaby Amarantos, MTV Brazil’s 2012 Artist of the Year, with samba big band Monobloco for a tribute to the game. The stadium friendly pop song backed by a Carnaval beat features shouts of “Gol,” calls for hand clapping, and the sound of a referee’s whistle.[33]
Soccer fans have also contributed to immortalizing the game and its players through their supporters’ songs.[34] They have been at the forefront of adding humor and the politically incorrect to soccer. Here is one of the oddest, but funniest, supporters’ songs by USA national soccer team fans:
I saw my mate the other day,
He said to me he saw the white Pelé,
So I asked, who is he?
He goes by the name of Clint Dempsey,
Clint Dempsey, Clint Dempsey,
He goes by the name of Clint Dempsey.
Dempsey is a veritable superstar and captain with the USA national team. He currently plays with the Seattle Sounders FC. Dempsey is one of the representatives of chapter 8 because of his leadership skills. The song in question is funny because Dempsey looks nothing like Pelé, especially considering the differences in their skin colors. Moreover, if one has seen Dempsey and Pelé play, the gap is wide in terms of talent and style. Pelé is undoubtedly one of the greatest players of all time and he was an elegant striker. As pointed out in chapter 10, along with Maradona, Pelé is the greatest soccer immortal of all time. Dempsey is surely talented and a great leader, but gets many of his goals from hard work and tireless running.
Another song by the Sunderland faithful pays homage to their former manager Paolo di Canio in politically incorrect terms that would make feminists and most women wince with disbelief: “Paolo Di Canio. You are the love of my life Paolo Di Canio I’ll let ya shag my wife, Paolo Di Canio.” Shag is a colloquial term for sleeping with someone. In this case, it connotes Di Canio sleeping with the wife of a hardcore Sunderland fan. As the white English working classes have lost their power and status in a more neo-liberal and anti-racist age, they now use the soccer stadium as one of the few places where they can express politically incorrect and sexist sentiments. Recall that in chapter 1 I pointed to Di Canio’s neo-fascist worldview as a player and his smooth transition to a de-politicized and technocratic manager that merely gets results. As Di Canio saved Sunderland from relegation from the English Premier League in 2013, some of the hardcore fans were willing to overlook Di Canio’s pro-fascist past.
Some supporters’ songs borrow from local cultural traditions. There is a famous Mexican folk song that has been adopted by Mexican national team fans:
Ay, ay, ay, ay,
Canta y no llores,
Porque cantando se alegran,
cielito lindo, los corazones.
The translation of this refrain is the following: “Ay, ay, ay, ay, sing and don’t cry, because singing gladdens, pretty little heaven, the hearts.” The song “Ceilito lindo” was popularized in 1882 by Quirino Mendoza y Cortés (1859–1957). It means “Lovely Sweet One.” Cielo actually translates as sky or heaven, but it can also mean sweetheart. Lindo connotes cute, pretty, or lovely.
Hapoel Tel-Aviv, a famous club in Israel, is known for its vociferous fans and affinity with the trade-union movement and socialism. Yet there is one song that highlights the dark underbelly of some supporters’ songs and the de-humanization of one’s rivals:
To any place I come to—I cause chaos,
I go with Hapoel in bad times and good times,
Beitar are illiterate and Maccabi are pigs,
I will always love the Red Devils . . .
Yet there are also culturally beautiful moments with respect to supporters’ songs. Parma FC in Italy was formed in 1913 as Verdi Foot Ball Club in honor of the centenary of famous opera composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901). The Italian composer was born in the province of Parma in Italy. Parma fans have been known to even chant lines from Verdi’s operas. Verdi’s operas are known in popular culture throughout Italy and the world, including “La donna è mobile” from Rigoletto, “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” (The Drinking Song) from La traviata, “Va, pensiero” (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, and the “Grand March” from Aida.
Many supporters’ songs have nationalistic and militaristic overtones. One Spanish national team supporters’ song repeats the following refrain: “Gibraltar is Spanish! Gibraltar is Spanish! Gibraltar!” Gibraltar is located at the southern tip of Spain and has belonged to Britain since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, but many Spaniards claim it as their territory. An Anglo-Dutch force invaded Gibraltar and wrestled it from the Kingdom of Castile in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Recall that in chapter 1 I highlighted the linkages between soccer and nationalism. Moreover, in chapter 7 I introduced the concept of “marketing nationalism” in which FIFA includes more member “nations” than sovereign members of the United Nations. Despite the protestations of Spain and the aforementioned supporters’ song, Gibraltar is one of the newest members of FIFA. Although Gibraltar has a miniscule population of about 30,000 people, in 2013 it gained the right to compete for qualifying for the UEFA European Championship in 2016.
Some supporters’ songs are clearly ideological and militaristic. French national team fans chant the country’s national anthem, La Marseillaise. La Marseillaise was originally known as “Chant de guerre pour l’Armée du Rhin” (War Song for the Army of the Rhine). It was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. As a result of the French Revolution in 1789, the French National Convention adopted it as the new liberal republic regime’s anthem in 1795. The name Marseille in the song’s title is in reference to the first volunteers for war from Marseille who chanted the song.
Soccer has also been celebrated in literature. In a Ted Richards edited work entitled Soccer and Philosophy: Beautiful Thoughts on the Beautiful Game, Tim Elcombe compares Cristiano Ronaldo’s on-field dribbling and moves, as well as soccer technique in general, to poetry.[35] He asks whether Ronaldo is a “modern Picasso.”[36] Elcombe views Ronaldo’s “magical play” as akin to poetry in motion, which allows the spectators to connect to our common humanity.[37]
David Peace, the English author of Nineteen Seventy Four (1999) and The Damned Utd (2006), remembers his father comparing two English soccer stars to artists: “My father used to say, ‘If you want to know the artist, look at the art.’ He was usually talking about Stanley Matthews or Don Bradman when he said it.”[38] The Damned Utd is a novel based on Brian Clough’s short forty-four-day spell in 1974 as manager of Leeds United FC. Peace is a supporter of Huddersfield Town, a key local rival of Leeds United, and the team that Leeds United played in Clough’s first and last games in charge of the club. In the book, Peace tells the story of a man troubled by a fear of failure and a hunger for success. He “offers a compelling insight into the mind of a footballing genius, proud father and legendary drinker.”[39] The former soccer player and manager Johnny Giles successfully sued Peace for The Damned Utd as to what he perceived were falsehoods in the book, and Peace was ordered to remove from any future editions the references highlighted by Giles as damaging and untrue.[40] The Damned Utd has been made into a film entitled “The Damned United,” with actor Michael Sheen playing Brian Clough.
In 1977, Nottingham Forest was promoted to England’s top flight and the following season won its first ever league title, making Clough one of four managers to have won the English league with two different clubs. Under Clough, Nottingham Forest won two consecutive European Cups (1979 and 1980) and two League Cups (1978 and 1979). When Nottingham Forest was relegated from the Premier League in 1993, Clough retired from soccer. Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, his assistant at Derby County and partner during the Nottingham Forest glory days, are immortalized through the Brian Clough and Peter Taylor Statue at Pride Park (the home of Derby County). In the 1968–1969 season, Derby County was promoted to the First Division under the Clough and Taylor partnership. Three years later, Derby County was crowned champion of England for the first time in the club’s history. There is also a Brian Clough Statue in Nottingham paid for by his fans. Another Brian Clough Statue can be found in Middlesbrough, as Clough scored 197 goals for the club as a player from 1955 to 1961.
Camus, Nabokov, Dimitrijević, Galeano, and Villoro have all opined about soccer from distinctively literary lenses. These writers see soccer and the world poetically, aesthetically, spiritually, socially, and politically. They might differ in their assessments about soccer in the context of the wider world, but they all view soccer as a microcosm of the human condition, including its joys and tragedies. The Mexican writer Juan Villoro has used the soccer field (for example, his God is Round) to provide us with metaphors about life and the contemporary state and society in Mexico. “Soccer has much less to do with sporting triumphs than with the desire to form an emotional community,”[41] insisted Villoro in a New York Times interview in 2013. Carlos Fuentes, a god in Mexican letters, once told an interviewer asking him about soccer, “If you want to talk about soccer, go talk to Juan Villoro.”[42]
The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, in his Soccer in Sun and Shadow, shows us how soccer is really about visceral passions formed early in life; how the commercialization of the game kills “fantasy” and “daring”;[43] and the way the quality of soccer on the pitch is related to the political and economic events of the day. Galeano’s romanticized version of soccer is the image of a group of boys kicking a ball in a dusty street, and then singing: “We lost, we won, either way we had fun.”[44]
Vladimir Dimitrijević, the Skopje-born Swiss writer, like Galeano, longs for a more romantic, spontaneous, and adventurous soccer.[45] He criticizes modern soccer for its win-at-all-costs philosophy, its rapid commercialization, and the attendant “boring” and “predictable” matches where teams play “not to lose.” He longs for the more spontaneous soccer of his ex-Yugoslavia; a soccer that was characterized by more liberty on the pitch and individual genius.
The academic world has also caught note of the relationship between soccer and literature. Birkbeck, University of London, recently held a pre-match panel followed by the Champions League final on May 25, 2013, entitled “Literature and Football.” The panel sought to discover the links between soccer and literature, such as: Can Zidane’s head-butt teach us about Camus? What is Shakespeare implying when Kent calls Oswald a “base football player” (King Lear)? Why is Joey Barton like Ezra Pound?
It is a testament to literature and culture that Garcilaso de la Vega, one of the greatest Latin American writers of all time and the author of The Royal Commentaries,[46] has a soccer stadium named after him in the ancient Incan city of Cusco and a soccer club named in his honor, Real Garcilaso (Cusco-based). Founded only in 2009, in 2013 Real Garcilaso shocked the soccer world by reaching the quarterfinals of the Copa Libertadores (South American club championship) before bowing out to superior Colombian opponents. It says a lot about a culture that it names its soccer stadium after a literary hero and mestizo son of an Incan princess and Spanish conquistador.
Soccer has not only been immortalized in literature, but in photography and film as well.
The filmmakers Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon shot a ninety-minute documentary about the French superstar Zinedine Zidane during an entire match entitled Zidane: A Portrait of the 21st Century Portrait. In 2013, the film toured Sherbrooke, Quebec, as part of a National Gallery of Canada initiative:
Spectators taking in the soccer matches at the Canada Summer Games—running to August 17 at a variety of Sherbrooke venues—can also get a completely different view of the sport at the Musee des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke. The downtown museum is hosting Zidane: A Portrait of the 21st Century, a video installation on tour from the National Gallery of Canada. Artists Douglas Gordon of Scotland and Philippe Parreno of France trained 17 cameras on French soccer star Zinedine Zidane during a match between Real Madrid and Villarreal on April 23, 2005, at Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, aiming to capture his every gesture and expression. The result is “a radically different experience of both soccer and portraiture,” says the museum.[47]
Escape to Victory is a 1981 film directed by John Huston that included a star-studded cast consisting of Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, and Max von Sidon. The film also included numerous professional soccer players: Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Audiles, Kazimierz Deyna, Paul Van Himst, Mike Summerbee, Hallvar Thoresen, and Pelé. Numerous Ipswich Town players such as John Wark, Russell Osman, Laurie Sivell, Robin Turner, and Kevin O’Callaghan were also part of the cast. The plot is based on a team of Allied prisoners of war coached and led by English captain John Colby (Michael Caine), a professional soccer player for West Ham United before the war, as they agree to play an exhibition match against a German team.
Or there is Heleno, the tragic story of Brazilian soccer legend Heleno de Frietas (1920–1959) directed by Brazilian filmmaker José Henrique Fonseca in 2012. Known as “Prince Cursed” for his tragic story, the Brazilian striker spent the majority of his career with Botafogo, scoring 209 goals for the club, mostly with his head. De Freitas scored nineteen goals in eighteen appearances for Brazil and was a member of the national team that finished runners-up in both the 1945 and 1946 Copa América. He was joint top goal scorer in the 1945 tournament. De Frietas died in 1959 at the age of thirty-nine in a sanatorium in Barbacena, Brazil. He was sadly known for his alcoholism, drug addiction, womanizing, and wife beating. De Freitas, like Barbosa, is the flip side of our love for soccer immortals, as I showed in chapter 10.
As I write these lines, I am glancing at a book of soccer photographs, a collaboration between the AS Roma fan and photographer Andrea Staccioli and Monica Maristain entitled En el nombre del fútbol (In the name of soccer).[48] The book has a number of wonderful texts about soccer by the Mexican writer Juan Villoro, the former coach of Argentina’s 1978 World Cup victory César Luis Menotti, and the esteemed soccer writer and scorer in Argentina’s 1986 World Cup finals triumph against West Germany Jorge Valdano. Although there are photographs of international matches, the wonderful photographs are heavily focused on Roma and its immortal hero Francesco Totti, who has spent his entire career with AS Roma since 1992 and is a folk legend for the Roman club. He has scored well over 200 goals for Roma. Totti also endeared himself to the Italian national team and won the 2006 World Cup, shortly before his retirement from international soccer. The Italian midfield playmaker or lone striker has won a record five Italian Player of the Year awards and two Serie A Player of the Year awards. Pelé thought Totti was so talented that he named him in his list of the 125 greatest living soccer players of all time. As a result of his exceptional technical skills, ability to chip goalkeepers for outlandish goals, and his longevity with one club his entire career, Totti is one of the most loved Italian players of all time. This book of photographs and text immortalizes the lives of living soccer players for future generations.
Although not a major soccer fan, the Brazilian artist named Andréia Michels based in Forquilhinha, Santa Catarina, was moved to paint soccer paintings during the 2013 Confederations Cup in Brazil. One untitled painting plays on the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting “The Scream,” but in this case the scream is not the infinite scream of nature, but rather the anguished scream of a solitary figure and the screams of angry anti-government protesters during the Confederations Cup.[49]
There is also a famous soccer artist from Great Britain: Ben Mosley. Arthaus Galleries states the following about the artist:
Ben Mosley is one of Britain’s leading sports artists, his work capturing the emotional energy, overflowing passion and dynamic movement of athletic display in pieces that may be described as at once figurative, cubist and abstract expressionist. Commissioned by the biggest organisations within football, including the League Managers Association and the Professional Footballers Association, Wembley Stadium and Manchester United, his work can be found in many private collections throughout the UK, United States and Europe.
In addition, Mosley is the first artist to ever paint a mural at the immortalized Wembley Stadium, as well as having a permanent collection of work on display in Club Wembley. His mural traces the history of Wembley from 1923–2013 and stretches over an area of 20m2.[50]
Mosley’s soccer art is known as “action painting—or, more broadly speaking, abstract expressionism—is a style of painting which artist Ben Mosley has used to powerful effect to capture the drama of sport.”[51] Like his abstract expressionism predecessors, such as Wilem and Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Lee Krasner, Mosley “values spontaneity and creates his images by stroking paint directly on to each canvas in a gestural, dynamic fashion.”[52] His process is to create bonds between his art and the athletes, and thus effectively representing “the unfurling action and emotion.”[53] The combination between soccer and abstract expressionism creates a colorful, dynamic, and moving take on “the beautiful game.” Two of his famous paintings are related to Manchester United, with which he had a relationship to sell paintings for charity. “The Rooney vs. Man City” depicts Wayne Rooney’s stunning overhead kick in the Manchester derby in 2011, while “Legends” features Denis Law, Denis Irwin, and Peter Schmeichel and was painted “live” during a dinner in London where the three United stars were guests of honor.[54] The Rooney painting was depicted from many different angles, argues Mosley, “due to the enormity of the goal. It was quite spectacular and I wanted the viewer to become engrossed by it.”[55]
A Manchester United legend and former Welsh international, Ryan Giggs, has also been compared to a soccer artist for his on-field performances and depicted by artists. Alessandro Del Piero, a former Italian international legend who could score artistic, curling free kick goals with ease, could admit that he “cried twice” in his life “watching a football player”: the first time was watching Maradona and the second time seeing Ryan Giggs.[56]
An artist named Felio Sotomayor was moved to depict Giggs in art as a result of his longevity, consistency, skills, and accomplishments:
Ryan Giggs continues to dazzle us on the pitch with his soccer wizardry and with over 20 years of high level soccer experience, the term “seasoned veteran’” suits him well. His skill and consistency is unmatched and in the words of his coach Sir Alex Ferguson “. . . Ryan can leave the best defenders with twisted blood.” This comment from the veteran coach inspired artist Felio Sotomayor to create an intricate vector illustration depicting the Manchester United winger in his element. The visual doubles-up as an infographic by creatively representing some of Gigg[s]’s major sporting achievements.[57]
Giggs is perhaps the most decorated player in English soccer history. He also holds the Manchester United club record for competitive appearances, having made his nine-hundredth appearance in 2012. With Manchester United, he has won an amazing thirteen Premier League titles, four FA Cup winner’s medals, three League Cup winner’s trophies, and two Champions League winner’s medals. Giggs has captained Manchester United, particularly in the 2007–2008 season. As a result of these incredible achievements, the artist Heather Gail Harman had a two-year affiliation with Giggs, who she dubbed “the most decorated player in British football.”[58] One of her paintings is a pastel entitled “Ryan Giggs” and it is set against the backdrop of Old Trafford (the home of Manchester United) at sunset.[59]
In chapter 10, I discussed the notion of how some soccer stars such as Bobby Moore, Eusébio, Duncan Edwards, and Zinedine Zidane have been immortalized through the works of artistic statues. One such statue is located in Hanley, England, one of six towns to join together to form the city of Stroke-on-Trent in 1910. The statue is of Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE (1915–2000), a veritable legend of English soccer and perhaps the greatest England has ever seen. The statue is revealing because it consists of Matthews with a soccer ball literally glued to his feet. Matthews was a dribbling sensation, one of the players that revolutionized the game with his dashing solo runs.
Matthews is the only player to have been knighted while still playing. He was the first winner of both the European Footballers of the Year and the Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year awards. Known as “The Wizard of the Dribble” and “The Magician,” Matthews played top flight soccer into his fifties. He was the oldest player to play in England’s first division and the oldest player to represent the country. He played his final competitive game in 1985, at the age of seventy.
Matthews spent nineteen years with Stoke City from 1932 to 1947 and from 1961 to 1965. He helped Stoke to the Second Division title in 1932–1933 and 1962–1963. He spent fourteen years with Blackpool, where he became an FA Cup winner in 1953. Between 1937 and 1957 he won fifty-four caps for England, playing in the World Cup in 1950 and 1954.
Neymar and Shea are the soccer artists of our times. They are soccer legends for their fans and they paint their canvases on the pitch through their fancy footwork, dribbling, passes, and goals. These soccer stars are united by an artistic desire for beauty, a struggle between liberty and determination, mimicry (with their own twist) of the idols of the past, a creative, interpretive capacity, and a dialogue with other soccer artists, their fans, and critics.[60] Like art, soccer has its standards of what is beautiful and ugly, its rules, and its limits. Great soccer stars, like gifted artists, transcend the limits of the possible. Our standards of great players, like great artists, vary based on individual preferences and interpretations. Yet we might try to neither lapse into a complete relativism, which insists that all players are equally artistic, nor a total romanticism in which our standards are so high that we only allow Maradona and Pelé to enter the hall of fame of universal soccer artistry.
Neymar is already a soccer star and time will tell whether he will be one of the greatest soccer artists of all time. Shea is at the start of his promising career and is an artist on the field and painter off the field.
In this chapter, I examined soccer through literature, song, photographs, films, painting, and statues. Sometimes one also senses that players such as Neymar and Shea are like well-trained ballerinas or gymnasts, who even get better with age. In fact, Mexican artist Manuel Mancilla has several paintings of gymnasts in their complicated poses with a soccer ball tied to their feet. Soccer is a sport. It is not the fine arts. Yet some soccer players become stars and are thus immortalized by their fans and future generations. They are akin to artists in their movements, strategies, discipline, hard work, vision, and commitment to an overarching ideal. The best soccer artists such as Neymar still have the popular touch of street soccer in their unpredictable, innovative, and unique styles. Neymar or Giggs are soccer’s equivalents to Don Quixote or Breughel.
Shea will not be a Picasso or Dali, but his abstract paintings project a different idea of a soccer player as an artist and integral human being. Recall that in chapter 7 I highlighted the relationship between soccer, business, and marketing. Shea is in the business of professional soccer, but also in the art and assorted gear business. Through Left Foot Studio, Shea markets himself as a soccer star and as an artist. Shea’s abstract art includes images of Albert Einstein and Bob Marley, two geniuses that the soccer star hopes to emulate. Indeed, one of his abstract pieces is entitled “Emulate.”
Left Foot Studio also markets another professional soccer star, Lee Nguyen, a friend of Shea’s who was born in Texas and, like Shea, played for the Dallas Texans in his youth. The team has produced numerous domestic and international soccer stars including Clint Dempsey and Omar Gonzalez (USA national team), the Honduran and FC Dallas attacking midfielder Ramón Fernando Núñez, the Texas-born Japanese midfielder Hirofumi Moriyasu, and the retired Venezuelan striker Alejandro Enrique Moreno Riera. Here is Nguyean’s interesting biography:
Lee grew up in Dallas and played for Dallas Texans, one of the nation’s elite youth teams. A winger with creative dribbling skills, he was the only high school player to be named in the U.S. squad for the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship and was named the 2004–05 Gatorade National Boy Soccer Player of the Year. Nguyen turned down an offer from Major League Soccer, choosing instead to accept an offer from PSV Eindhoven in Holland. He was the first professional soccer player of Vietnamese decent to play in Europe which boosted his fame within Vietnam. He eventually decided to go back to his roots and play in Vietnam for 3 years before returning to Major League Soccer where in 2012 he proved to be one of the New England Revolution’s most valuable players.[61]
Shea and Lee have used their capital as soccer stars to sell various products, fashion gear, and even art. While Shea and Lee are artists on the field, they are also artists and businessmen beyond the pitch.
* * *
In conclusion, this chapter advances the idea that soccer players such as Shea and Neymar are the soccer artists of our times. I purposefully selected active players for this lesson because although people admire the immortal players of the past, they also want to see the latest player-artists and their theatrical performances. Books, films, songs, poems, and sculptures have paid tribute to the game, its great stars, and the fans. Shea created art as a soccer star, as well as off the field through his abstract paintings and gear designs. Yet soccer, like art, has its aesthetic standards. While we might disagree on whether Maradona or Pelé was a better player, or which star was more of an “artist” on the field, few people will dispute that these were two of the greatest soccer stars of all time.
Neymar is in an aesthetic league of his own when it comes to on-field soccer artistry, which Shea will unlikely ever match. Neymar is thus far more of an accomplished on-field artist compared to Shea, but both players are merely beginning their artistic output. Shea can still dream of improving his artistic talents for many years to come both on and off the field.
Quoted in Good Reads, “Quotes About Soccer,” 2013, http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/soccer (11 November 2013).
Naxos, “SHOSTAKOVICH: Golden Age (The), Op. 22,” Naxos, http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.570217-18 (11 November 2013).
Mike Woitalla, “View the Game as an Art, not a War (Book Review),” Soccer America’s Youth Soccer Insider, 18 February 2013, http://www.socceramerica.com/article/50388/view-the-game-as-an-art-not-a-war-book-review.html (10 November 2013).
Ibid.
E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art (London: Phaidon, 2006), 21.
Ibid., 21.
Manuel Mancilla, “Manuel Mancilla Artista plástico,” Manuel Mancilla, http://www.manuelmancilla.com/index.swf (19 September 2013).
Author’s e-mail conversation with Manuel Mancilla, 16 October 2013.
Football’s Greatest, “Shirt number 11,” Football’s Greatest, http://footballsgreatest.weebly.com/left-wingers.html (13 August 13).
Left Foot Studio, http://www.leftfootstudio.com/LFS.html (13 August 2013).
Robert Casner, “FCD Notebook,” MLSsoccer, 27 June 2011, http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2011/06/27/fcd-notebook-loyd-notches-first-goal-front-family (13 August 2013).
Ibid.
The Sentinel, “Stoke City: Shea reveals his abstract way to ease injury pain,” 19 September 2013, http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Stoke-City-Shea-reveals-abstract-way-ease-injury/story-19815709-detail/story.html (10 November 2013).
Peter Karl, “Everything Arsenal Fans Need To Know About Brek Shea, The American Gareth Bale,” Sabotage Times, 12 November 2011, http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/everything-arsenal-fans-need-to-know-about-brek-shea-the-american-gareth-bale/ (10 November 2013).
Sean Davis, “Here’s a Surrealist Portrait Of Neymar That Will Definitely Infiltrate Your Dreams,” KCKRS, 27 September 2013, http://www.kckrs.com/heres-a-surrealist-portrait-of-neymar-that-will-definitely-infiltrate-your-dreams/ (20 November 2013).
Brooks Peck, “Neymar becomes a comic book character, frustrates artist with his hair,” Dirty Tackle, 19 April 2013, http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-dirty-tackle/neymar-becomes-comic-book-character-frustrates-artist-hair-041118168--sow.html (20 November 2013).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Chris Yuscavage, “Jay-Z Reportedly Wants to Sign Soccer Phenom Neymar to Roc Nation Sports,” Complex Sports, 7 May 2013, http://www.complex.com/sports/2013/05/jay-z-reportedly-wants-to-sign-soccer-phenom-neymar-to-roc-nation-sports (20 November 2013).
Quoted in Philosophy Football, “Philosophyfootball.com quotations,” http://www.philosophyfootball.com/quotations.php (13 August 2013).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Quoted in Pete Gill, “Our Favourite 60 Arsene Wenger Quotes,” Football365, 22 October 2009, http://www.football365.com/f365-features/5643990/Our-Favourite-60-Arsene-Wenger-Quotes (13 August 2013).
A.C. Milan, “A.C. Milan: The Most Successful Club,” n.d., http://www.acmilan.com/en/club/history (11 November 2013).
Armando Almada Roche, “Arsenio Erico, el Gardel del fútbol,” ABC (Paraguay), 8 July 2012, http://www.abc.com.py/edicion-impresa/suplementos/cultural/arsenio-erico-el-gardel-del-futbol-423290.html (13 August 2013).
My translation. Ibid.
Ibid.
Greg Quill, “The story behind K’naan’s ‘Wavin’ Flag,’” Toronto Star, 27 September 2012, http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2012/09/27/the_story_behind_knaans_
wavin_flag.html (13 August 2013).
Ibid.
Lyrics to K’naan’s “Wavin’ Flag,” composed by Philip Lawrence, Keinan Warsame, Bruno Mars, Jean Daval, William Adams, David Guetta, and Nik Van De Wall, available at: http://www.metrolyrics.com/wavin-flag-lyrics-knaan.html.
PR Newswire, “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa) From Shakira’s Forthcoming New Album Sale el Sol/The Sun Comes Out—Makes World Cup and YouTube History,” http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/waka-waka-this-time-for-africa-from-shakiras-forthcoming-new-album-sale-el-solthe-sun-comes-out----makes-world-cup-and-youtube-history-101996118.html (13 August 2013).
Judy Cantor-Navas, “First Official 2014 World Cup Song Released by Coca-Cola in Brazil,” Billboardbiz, 25 June 2013, http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1568148/first-official-2014-world-cup-song-released-by-coca-cola-in-brazil (15 September 2013).
For the lyrics of thousands of clubs and national teams around the world, see the website FanChants: http://fanchants.com/ (19 August 2013).
Tim Elcombe, “Is Ronaldo a Modern Picasso,” in Ted Richards, ed., Soccer and Philosophy: Beautiful Thoughts on the Beautiful Game (Chicago: Carus Publishing, 2010), 161–171.
Ibid., 161–171.
Ibid., 164.
Quoted in Good Reads, “Quotes About Soccer,” Good Reads, 2013, http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/soccer (11 November 2013).
The Guardian, “The genius of the life of Brian,” The Observer, 31 December 2006, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/dec/31/sportandleisure.features (11 November 2013).
The Independent, “Publish and be Damned: Giles fights back for Revie and Clough,” 13 November 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/publish-and-be-damned-giles-fights-back-for-revie-and-clough-2132719.html (11 November 2013).
Randal C. Archibold, “Mexican Writer Mines the Soccer Field for Metaphor,” The New York Times, 25 October 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/26/world/americas/mexican-writer-mines-the-soccer-field-for-metaphors.html?_r=0 (21 November 2013).
Ibid.
Eduardo Galeano, Soccer in Sun and Shadow, trans. Mark Fried (London: Verso, 2003), 2.
Ibid., “Epigraph.”
Vladimir Dimitrijević, La vida es un balón redondo, trans. Antonio Castilla Cerezo (México, D.F.: Sexto Piso, 2010), 55.
Garcilaso De la Vega, The Incas: The Royal Commentaries of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, trans. Marie Jolas and ed. Alain Gheerbrant (Lima, Peru: PeruBook, 2004).
The Canadian Press, “Soccer star Zidane profiled in Quebec museum exhibit,” Herald, 2 August 2013, http://thechronicleherald.ca/travel/1145803-soccer-star-zidane-profiled-in-quebec-museum-exhibit (10 November 2013).
Monica Maristain and Andrea Staccioli, En el nombre del fútbol (México, D.F.: Ediciones B, 2005).
E-mail conversations with the artist throughout 2013.
Art Haus Galleries, “Ben Mosley,” http://arthausgalleries.co.uk/artist/Ben-Mosley (13 August 2013).
Johnny Weeks, “Beautiful Games: action paintings by Ben Mosley,” The Guardian, 10 April 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2013/apr/10/painting-art (21 November 2013).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Adam Marshall, “Feature: A work of art,” Manchester United, 26 March 2013, http://www.manutd.com/en/Fanzone/News-And-Blogs/2013/Mar/artist-ben-mosley-describes-work-for-the-manchester-united-foundation.aspx (21 November 2013).
Ibid.
Jake Watson, “The Welshman makes his 900th appearance for the Old Trafford outfit against Norwich and Goal.com have compiled the greatest soundbites on English football’s most decorated player,” Goal, 26 February 2012, http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2012/02/26/2924348/he-gives-players-twisted-blood-ryan-giggs-manchester-united (10 November 2013).
John Thairu, “Wizard of the Wing: Ryan Giggs Vector Art by Felio Sotomayor,” A Sporting Life, 13 September 2012, http://www.asportinglife.com/ryan-giggs-vector-art-felio-sotomayor/ (10 November 2011).
Heather Gail Harman Fine Art, “Ryan Giggs,” http://www.heatherharmanfineart.com/lg_view_multi.php?aid=2120263#.UoEUX2yFDIU (11 November 2013).
Ibid.
Mauricio Beuchot, Perfiles esenciales de la hermenéutica (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2008), 59–74.
Left Foot Studio, “Lee Nguyen Bio.”