If FIFA Applied Sharia Law

by Robert Mackey, as featured on NYT online.

Third Place Game

Here we go!!!  Will Paul the Octopus Oracle get it right again? Sorry for a complete lack of updates. Thanks to the seacom cable failure I've been without internet for the past week.  Oh seacom, you promised so much...

Hi from London

Arrived in London yesterday early am (after an overnight flight) and by the time Spain-Switzerland rolled around I could barely stay awake.  I lay on the couch and half-watched, half slept through the match.  Then I woke up about an hour later thinking I'd dreamed that Spain had lost, haha. 

Day 3

So I needed to do work today and stayed at home to watch the games.  Well, "doing work" hasn't happened, but I did cheer load and clear for Ghana.

As for videos, my computer is currently busy burning DVD's for film festival submissions, but as soon as it's done with that I'll post video from watching USA-England yesterday in a Richmond, VA pub.

We are not indifferent.

Ppl love to talk about US indifference toward football but I'm in a bar in richmond va which is already packed with USA fans (doors closed) 2.5 hours before kick-off.

Blogging from the Bar

I'm at penny lane and going to try some blogging and tweeting from my iPod on their wireless Internet... We'll see how that goes. It's 9:50 and the bar's already got a healthy crowd who seem to be waiting for USA-England. But for now, come on Nigeria!!!

Why write new things, when you can dig up the old?

I just stumbled across a research paper I wrote for my African Societies course a couple of years ago and had all but forgotten about. It's 13 pages and clearly was written in an all nighter, so I won't subject you to the whole thing, but here is an excerpt on football as an instrument for peace and unity in Africa.

As the story goes, a ceasefire was called in the Nigerian war when Santos (Pele’s club) traveled to play in Nigeria in 1969. The Nigerian government has also held “peace matches” between civil servants to resolve tension among different governmental branches (Boer, 2004), not dissimilar to the way in which pre-colonial Nigerian groups resolved inter-clan conflicts by man to man feuds in hopes of avoiding larger scale conflict. 

During Angola’s civil war in the late 1980’s football pitches were marked as “demilitarized zones” (Mankell, 2006). And five years into the Sierra Leone war, amid ceasefires, peace-talks and the shaky beginnings of reconciliation, Paul Richards wrote that one of the keys to helping child soldiers reenter normal society could be football, stating that the spirit and bonding involved in the game had the potential to “contribute to healing some of the most glaring social wounds of war,” (Richards, 1997). Following suit at the beginning of the 21st century Josiah Johnson, once one of the stars of African football, called out to the child-soldiers, “Put down your guns and go to the stadium and enjoy the game; you don’t become a millionaire shooting someone, [but] you might if you play good football” (quoted in Goldblatt, 2006).

In countries with borderlines drawn arbitrarily by men in Europe and without any regard to human demography or ethnic distribution, football can be one of the few things to unite the people under their flag. Darby writes that football has played a crucial role in “the process through which people construct their identity and affiliate with the communities and nations in which they live... the world game represents one of the most potent and visible vehicles for the expression of national pride and identity” (Darby, 2002). This is evidenced in the days of countrywide celebration and the declaration of a national holiday when Togo qualified for the 2006 World Cup, as well as in the way that Mobutu’s power in Zaire was firmly cemented after the national team won the 1974 African Nation’s Cup (Darby, 2002). 

There is no doubt that Africans take an enormous sense of pride in the successes of their national football teams, and that this plays a major role in their ability to identify as Rwandan in addition to Hutu or Ghanaian in addition to Ashanti. It even carries over to the continental level, when Africans from all different countries often support whichever African teams succeed on the world stage. Nigeria’s gold medal in the 1996 Olympics was labeled a victory for all of Africa (Boer, 2004).

If you are for some reason masochistic and want to read more, click here.

Meet the Twiga Stars

No, this doesn't actually have anything to do with the World Cup... but they are people in Africa playing football, so close enough. Watch my introduction video for the Twiga Stars. The idea was blatantly stolen from Nike, but with a twist: the ball actually changes direction every once in a while. That and they're girls...

Twittering from the World Cup

I'm not normally a huge twitterer, but I figure if there's a time to tweet, it's the world cup. So while France and Uruguay were boring me to tears, I started looking to see who's twittering from the South Africa. Here are some pundits, players and regular old people I'd recommend following:


DaMarcus Beasley (@DamarcusBeasley)
The speedy American winger seems to be a pretty prolific twitterer. I'm pretty positive it's him doing the tweets and not some PR firm in NYC.
Quote: "Made it to Rustenberg. Wicked hotel, wild animals right outside ure room. Shit is crazy! Hopefully we have the same luck this go around USA!"




Barry Glendenning (@bglendenning)
Probably my favorite sports writer. His minute-by-minute coverage for the Guardian always has me laughing out loud. Quote:"Do the people at Google know the striker nearest the goal in their World Cup logo is almost certainly offside?"


Kaka (@RealKaka)
Um... he's only, like, the best player in the world. Unfortunately I don't speak Portuguese, but I follow him anyway. And every once in a while he goes for a tweet in English. This one's adorable: "I wanna say thanks to @pregadorluo .. He made 2 musics for me !! Amazing .. Tks Luo, God Bless u .." I wish people would make musics for me!


Abigail Clancy (@Abigail_Clancy)
What's the world cup without the WAGs? Abigail Clancy is Peter Crouch's girlfriend, and she tends to tweet about, well, herself. She posted: "5 things someone should take to south africa?...." then retweeted "NeeNee4789 

  

@Abigail_Clancy gorge shoes, maxi dress, sun lotion, gorge hat, sexy sunnies :)" 

Me... duh! (@nishaligon)
I have yet to tweet anything that deserves a quote, but I promise I will!

What a start!

And we're off and away! I'd have loved to see South Africa win the first match, but Mexico played a great game and the draw was deserved. I love how both teams played such fun, attacking football. Let's hope for more of that.

Here's a really cool way to follow the world's reaction to the match via Twitter. The Guardian's "Twitter Replay" graphically shows the number of people tweeting top words like "goal" and "mex" as the match progresses.  Pretty cool.

I didn't film today, because I wanted to just soak in the joy of the opening day... however I will be filming tomorrow at Richmond's Penny Lane Pub for the USA-England match. The place is owned by a Liverpudlian, and tends to be a mix of Americans and English expats, so the atmosphere's sure to be electric.  The bartender recommended I arrive by 7am (the match begins at 2pm). I'm going to hope he was exaggerating and show up around 10 or 11.

Okay, France - Uruguay now.  We'll see if France can pull it together and do better that "the hand of Gaul" and if Uruguay (winners of the first ever World Cup) can win back some of that glory of the old days.

Soccer Ethnography 2007

The World Cup starts tomorrow... but for now I've got some soccer ethnography vids I made for a visual anthropology class way back when  These were filmed in 2007 at Nevada Smith's bar in NYC (this is THE place to watch football in the USA).  I originally made the videos as extras for the DVD of Sunday at Smith's: A Soccer Ethnography.  Watch that if you want the general overview.  Here are some clips on specific topics.

FC Army USA (this is the mini-project that started the whole thing off)

FC Army USA from Nisha Ligon on Vimeo.

Ethnographic extra on Kinship


Soccer Ethnography: Kinship from Nisha Ligon on Vimeo.

Ethomusicology (warning: may contain lots and lots of offensive language)


Soccer Ethnography: Ethnomusicology from Nisha Ligon on Vimeo.

Socialization



Soccer Ethnography: Socialization from Nisha Ligon on Vimeo.



There's lots more where these came from, and I'll continue to post periodically as I get them up online.  Check out the Filming the Fever vimeo channel here: http://vimeo.com/channels/filmingthefever

World Cup ads that put superbowl ads to shame.

I haven't managed to get the camera out yet... but here are some videos to get you psyched about the world sport. And yes, most of them are advertisements for some of the world's most heartless corpora... blah blah blah. But they're sweet. So just suck it up and watch them.

Puma "Journey of Football" - You have to give it up to Puma.  They've supported and sponsored African teams since long before the World Cup was heading there.



Compare to Nike's glitzy superstar showcase. I do love Rooney's vision of the future if he fails...



Awesome is the only word to describe this Visa's "Evolution of Football"



Robinho and friends dance to Beyonce for Brazilian food giant Seara.



This Puma video isn't World Cup. It was for Valentine's day... but it cracks me up and warms my heart every time I see it. I could watch these guys over and over and over again.  "I'll be your love, be every-fing that you need!"



And the non-commercial stuff:

K'naan live performance of raising flag. Gives me chills whenever I watch it. You know you wanna learn the dance.



Top football goals ever:

The Plan

So here's my plan for the World Cup... and the blogging/ vlogging to go along with it.

June 11 - June 15: USA, where footballs are thrown

I'm starting off here in the good old USA, where football following has been somewhat underground for the past few decades (see Sunday at Smith's). But I really do believe this year is going to be different, and the World Cup will be center stage over the next month. Listen closely while you're sitting in the coffee shop or riding public transport, and I bet you a buck you'll be hearing funny words like "Eto'o" and "Obi John" (no, he's not a Jedi). If you're at a girls' high school, it'll be "oh my gawd Ronaldo!" or at a bar, "that #(*$&#^;@ Howard Webb!  Check back in for posts on our unique All-American fandom.

June 16 - June 25: United Kingdom, home of THE ORIGINAL HOOLIGANS (TM)

I'll be in London for a bit... and it's always fun to watch matches in pubs full of Brits.  England used to be my team, but that was back in the days of Scholes and Andy Cole and Becks and Owen.  With Rio Ferdinand out, my only England love left is Wayne Rooney.  And the poor boy's already got the weight of a nation resting on his shoulders... so I'm trying not to add anymore.  This year I'm TEAM USA and ALL OF AFRICA.

June 26 - July 11: South Africa, World Cup ground zero

And then I'm heading right into the thick of it.  I'll be blogging and vlogging like mad from Jo'burg, Cape Town and Durban, from the round of 16 through to the final, in stadium!  Anyone who knows me well knows I'm both an afrophile and a football maniac-- so I can barely contain my excitement. !@#aksdjhaw#$(*dslfj3284-u#)$(!!!! WORLD CUP SOUTH AFRICA!!!!!!

My plan is to film the fans and the atmosphere through it all and continue the "soccer ethnography"... and just to have fun and enjoy the beautiful game.  Keep checking back to join in on the fun!

Also check out Twiga Stars:

www.twigastars.com

Sunday at Smith's: A Soccer Ethnography

Since the *WORLD CUP* is still a few days away, I figured I'd start with a relevant a work from my past... Sunday at Smith's: A Soccer Ethnography.  A short ethnographic (or maybe mock-ethnographic film) I made at legendary NYC soccer bar Nevada Smith's back in 2007.  This is the basic idea for the rest of the blog-- quirky stories, crazy fans, the love of the game.

Sunday at Smith's: A Soccer Ethnography from Nisha Ligon on Vimeo.