2006 FIFA World Cup
The Chinese commentator for whom soccer brought pain
Articles on the downfall of Chinese football commentator Huang Jianxiang and on the end of Lansdowne Road in Dublin.
Patriotic support | The fifth photo-contest winner
Artist Ruth Franklin of Decatur, Georgia—the Global Game’s hometown—submits from East Anglia our fifth photo-contest winner.
The culture cup | Copping awards for purple prose, Icelandic chic and fish graphics
FIFA may have its Golden Boot, but notable performances at the 2006 World Cup finals were not confined to the pitch. We present our awards in musical, advertising and website categories, including an homage to our favorite tonsured French footballer.
Maryland is not in Germany | Delta settles on new World Cup slogan, ‘A time to make enemies’
Decatur, Georgia | “We only travel to come back home,” writes Ludwig Harig, the German master of the football sonnet. These words have never seemed more true following an aborted trip to Deutschland, a trip that ended in tears on Jun 27 on a sweltering curbside outside the Delta Air Lines terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Obviously the disappointment is acute, all the more so as one of the missions of the Global Game since 2003 has been to connect to the wider world.
En route to Germany | Optimistic beginnings for all but the Ghanaians
Atlanta, Jun 27 | Why Atlanta civic leaders wish to revive downtown with outlets for consumer and cultural consumption continues to mystify. This is the heart of Atlanta—its airport. As we begin an 18-hour haul to Berlin, we ask ourselves, Could it be any noisier here?
Trove to treasure | Marañón’s ‘Fútbol y cine’ makes marriage work between film and soccer
Madrid | Fútbol y cine: El balompié en la gran pantalla (Football and film: The soccer ball on the big screen) represents the most striking book on football—on any subject—to come across our desk in some time. Which speaks volumes, because the text by Navarre native Carlos Marañón is in Spanish—traditional for books published in Spain—and his coveted spot for top football film goes to Victory (1981), the John Huston–directed star vehicle in which goalkeeper Sylvester Stallone has to be told where to stand on corner kicks.
Lure of the local | Passionate postmortems for the USA
Englewood, Florida | On holiday, near the one-time home of the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the North American Soccer League and Tampa Bay Mutiny of Major League Soccer, soccer and, specifically, the 2006 World Cup finals did not seem misplaced. Wait staff at a Tampa International Airport tavern did not object to tuning to the U.S.–Czech Republic in the first round, as long as you were stuffing your face with mahi-mahi. Others waiting for a lull in Tropical Storm Alberto set up camp, murmuring as the goals rained into the U.S. net.
Brush with round leather worlds | Football arts in the American South
Decatur, Georgia | Rare is the time when we can write from our own town about cultural happenings related to football. But the World Cup arts program has seeped into even this sweltering corner of the all-encompassing FIFA universe.
The Vinson Gallery on 8 June inaugurated a showing of the 14 official art posters commissioned for the finals. Except [...]
Global voices | Intriguing stories, beyond FIFA’s control
Cambridge, Massachusetts | We long ago realized the value of Global Voices Online, the Harvard University–based project that sorts and translates Web logs worldwide, but its ability to circumvent the predictability of mass media makes it a must-read during the World Cup finals. The writing lacks a high gloss but shows the integrity of individuals, [...]
News of import | Times of London plans to splash footie in U.S.
London | An American edition of the Times of London—for distribution in New York and Washington—will try to capitalize on “unsatisfied demand” for soccer coverage, especially during the World Cup finals. The staid London daily, owned by the Rupert Murdoch–controlled News Corporation, is responding to trends in Internet traffic that show close to 40 percent of [...]
Steppe-ing out | Before Cup, 2 lads spread sphere of influence
London | Christian Wach and Phil Wake have scheduled a Battersea Park kickabout for Sunday, 28 May, to launch the second consecutive pilgrimage of “Spirit of Football” to the World Cup finals. The two Brits, now 39, conceived the Olympic torch relay equivalent four years ago and embarked on a two-month cross-cultural football exchange across [...]
Magazines | How the media explains the soccer world
Washington | National Geographic in June features soccer as its main story package with a website supplement, “The Beautiful Game: Why Soccer Rules the World.” On the Web, and likely in the print version as well, NG includes lengthy excerpts from the soon-to-be-released (in the USA) Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup (see Apr 7). [...]
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