Dispatches from the 'zone of alienation'

Near Chernobyl, the ‘football forest’ designed to radiate life

Pripyat, Ukraine, Apr 29 | Twenty-two years ago, more than 1,000 buses commandeered from Kyiv rumbled north toward this company town to evacuate its 50,000 residents. By sunset on 27 Apr 1986, as Chernobyl reactor no. 4 burned, in one soldier’s recollection, like a “beautiful blue fire,” the town was empty.

Left behind in the silence: a newly built football stadium sitting just to the north of a bright yellow Ferris wheel, a gift from Soviet authorities in commemoration of the upcoming May Day holiday.

From the archives

Cinema | ‘Futbol Palestina 2006′

22 Apr 05 | Body searches, travel restrictions, arrests and martial law are not conditions usually associated with international football. These however have been familiar realities for members of the Palestinian national team. In spite of daunting odds, these players have succeeded in representing their nation. Futbol Palestina 2006, Nelson Soza and Marcelo Piña's (left) film in progress, is a record of the players’ struggles, determination and pride. See also "In 'Tiro Libre,' Walls of Separation and Misunderstanding" (Apr 23) »

Site News, Updates, Links & Resources »

• Argentina | Maradona welcomed as Peronism's new number 10 Diego Maradona has affiliated as a Peronist, assigned registration number 10 by Mayor Alejandro Santiago Granados of Ezeiza, in Buenos Aires province. "The No 10 of Judicialism will be Maradona," says former president Nestor Kirchner. (AP, 25 Apr 08) Go to post »
• Netherlands | 'Cruyff! Get us some sugar,' to which he obliges Hollanders have long known about the attempted kidnapping that Johan Cruyff says proved persuasive in keeping him out of the 1978 World Cup, but many "stick to the old 'Danny' version”—crediting a travel ban imposed by his wife. (ESPNsoccernet, 23 Apr 08) Go to post »
• The Global Game: Writers on Soccer is scheduled for November release—the product of some three years of compiling, winnowing and permissions seeking by myself and editors Thom Satterlee and Alon Raab, along with strong support and belief from the University of Nebraska Press in Lincoln and heroic efforts from a network of translators, working in Spanish, French, Italian, Danish, Portuguese and Slovenian. (Apr 24) Go to post »
• A film conceived by Chileans about the aspirations of Palestine's national team has stirred a Chicago film festival—at least judging by an 11-page torrent of comments that debates which filmmaker deserves credit for the idea and which has the more authoritative connections to justice struggles (Ed M. Koziarski, "Social Justice, with Soccer," Chicago Reader, Apr 3). Go to post »
• Brazil | Paranaense seeks to end free radio days Atlético Paranaense wants to charge £5,000 for each radio broadcast, crimping the ability of small stations to cover matches and perhaps diminishing the synchronized seal-like shouts of "gooooool!" (BBC, 21 Apr 08) Go to post »
• Astronomy | Mapping football culture onto the lunar landscape According to a NASA mapping project, Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's meanderings as part of the Apollo XI lunar landing in 1969 barely ranged from penalty area to penalty area on a standard-sized football pitch. (StrangeHarvest, 19 Apr 08) Go to post »
• Poland | Lots of talk, little concrete, ahead of Euro 2012 With 29 clubs implicated in a match-fixing investigation and a casual attitude to venue preparation, Poland's role as Euro 2012 co-host may be in jeopardy. Construction has yet to start on a national stadium in Warsaw. (Guardian Unlimited, 16 Apr 08) Go to post »
• Israel | League leaders Betar face pitch-invasion tribunal The Israel FA meets Apr 17 to decide a penalty for Betar Jerusalem, whose fans flooded the pitch four minutes before the end of a match Apr 13. "We have nothing to celebrate, we're losers," said Betar owner Arkadi Gaydamak. (Jerusalem Post, 14 Apr 08) Go to post »
• Which was the first American association football team? Some evidence points to Oneida Football Club of Boston, honored with an obelisk in Boston Common as "the first organized football club in the United States." While Oneida played one of the football codes—perhaps a soccer-rugby hybrid—beginning in 1862, photographic evidence offered by a descendant of a Paterson FC captain suggests that the New Jersey side, formed in 1880, staked claim early to playing by the Football Association rules established in London in 1863 (see also Mar 30). (Apr 16) Go to post »
• According to an extended allegorical match account mailed to the Zimbabwe Standard (“Matchless Match," Apr 12), the Destroyers—meaning the state apparatus of entrenched president Robert Mugabe—hold a 10–2 edge over political opponents, the Rebuilders. (Apr 15) Go to post »
• Art | Portrait of the artist as a Barcelona fan The Icelandic-Catalan artist Yrsa Roca Fannberg dials down the testosterone in her Barça-based works, but not beyond recognition. "Oh, that's Messi, for sure, look at how he holds his head," notes a waiter serving tapas. (From a Left Wing, 12 Apr 08) Go to post »
• Avant garde photographer Spencer Tunick has requested 2,008 nude participants—each with football—for a May 11 "installation" at Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna, site of the Euro 2008 final. (Apr 14) Go to post »
• Brazil | Amid mania over 1970 team, 2 dissent over the rush to cash in Three cheers for Jairzinho and Tostão, World Cup winners who held out for charitable contributions rather than falling in line with a high-end publisher's ambition to assemble the 1970 team's signatures in a Pelé collectible. (Independent, 10 Apr 08) Go to post »
• USA | In brewers' capital, the rise of the soccer bar The "evolution" of U.S. soccer includes the satellite-assisted rise of soccer bars in Milwaukee, the home of Anheuser-Busch. "Most Milwaukeeans under 40 have played soccer," says Peter Wilt. (OnMilwaukee.com, 7 Apr 08) Go to post »
• As one should not judge a book by the cover, one should not judge a film by its trailer. But the trailer for Maradona: La mano de Dios, which opened the 11mm Fußballfilmfestival in Berlin on Apr 4, sounds a warning: handle with care. (Apr 5) Go to post »