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• Chicago | 30 September . . . Two architecture critics give contrasting reviews to the newly reopened Soldier Field, home to the Chicago Bears and, after their exile to outlying Naperville, Illinois, to the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer. Herbert Muschamp of the New York Times hails the "liberation of sports architecture from sports architects" and the possibility that the field, shorn of sports' architects "retro" desires, "has become the central plaza of a European town." The Chicago Tribune's Blair Kamin, however, avers that, with a cantilevered glass seating bowl plopped inside the structure's Doric façade, "the stadium is Klingon meets Parthenon." Soldier Field, Kamin feels, has improved on the inside—no word if this improvement extends to soccer—but creates a "horrific eyesore" on Chicago's glorious lakefront. Additionally, fans will be segregated in the new facility, with skyboxes on one side and plebeians on the other:

Stadiums are supposed to be like parks, giving people of various classes a chance to rub shoulders, but the new Soldier Field extends the social stratification present in all American stadiums to a new and distressing extreme. Inevitably, there will be frigid and windy winter days when bundled-up fans in the grandstand will look across the field to see, in the suites, the masters of the universe lounging comfortably in shirtsleeves. | back to top

• London | 25 September . . . An important article on British perceptions of the BBC appears today in the New York Times (Sarah Lyall, "The BBC Loses a Bit of Its Luster"). The story, assessing the tarnish on what Brits call "Auntie," or the "Beeb," in the wake of BBC's reporting on the Iraq war, does not relate directly to football. But the network, especially its far-reaching radio broadcasts and websites, mediates much of reality, including sport, in Europe, Africa and Asia. Americans and others might also be surprised to learn that, according to Lyall's article, each British household that owns a color TV is required to pay a $192 annual license fee. (The fee is only $63 if your TV is black-and-white. Do such TVs still exist?) | back to top
• London | 22 September . . . In advance of the 25 October induction ceremonies at the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, N.Y.—which will recognize builders and players from the North American Soccer League—the Times (London) notes the many British greats who cashed their checks and donned "some outrageous kits that rivalled those of the Village People." Interesting, though, are the stories of players who did not go to America, including Alan Woollett, who wouldn't leave his dog behind, according to Steve Earle of the Detroit Express. "He went to Northampton and knew he'd made a mistake when they pulled up at a Wimpy and were given a £1 meal voucher." | back to top
• Boston | 21 September . . . A vignette about the worldwide reach of American sports (from Charles P. Pierce, "The Goodwill Games," Boston Globe Magazine):

Ten years ago, before the United States turned Qatar into an aircraft carrier with sand, the Qataris hosted the Asian zone qualifying round for soccer's 1994 World Cup. Three American journalists went off into Doha, looking for souvenir gewgaws to buy, and they stopped at a store with a sign that said "Sporting Clothes." They asked if they could buy jerseys for any of the competing teams—in this case a historically fractious bunch made up of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, and both Koreas. (Iraq's soccer mission was led that year by the not-then-yet-late Uday Hussein.) The man behind the counter shook his head.

"Sorry," he said. "All we have is Michael Jordan." | back to top

• Madrid | 19 September . . . Has it been more than a month since we last mentioned Real Madrid? We'll try to fill that void by linking to Simon Kuper's Financial Times column, in which he raves about los merengues. They are, according to Kuper, playing the football of our imaginations, "the football we all had in our heads"; they might even be providing us "glimpses of a higher beauty." The players are free, happy, not needing stern oversight:

You don't scream at Zinedine Zidane for wandering across the park, because Zidane probably knows what he is doing. You don't tell Roberto Carlos to mark his man. So the galacticos play their own game, like the mythical children on the sandlots of long ago who litter the essays of Jorge Valdano, Real's sporting director. Zidane is free to dribble as if he were still a 13-year-old on Marseille's Place Tartane. | back to top

• Dunfermline, Scotland | 18 September . . . Dunfermline Athletic is just two days away from playing its Scottish Premier League fixture against Hibernian on a plastic surface, part of a UEFA trial in several European grounds. Naturally, there are detractors. "On an artificial surface, you get artificial football," Kenny Dalglish once remarked, according to the Financial Times. The aim is to save money on turf maintenance in places like Dunfermline, where grass suffers from weather and wear; the Financial Times article also mentions stadiums such as Stamford Bridge (Chelsea) and Old Trafford (Manchester United), whose high stands block sunlight. John Richards of Pitchcare.com, a magazine for groundsmen, says, "Players prefer grass, it's as simple as that." | back to top
• Los Angeles | 8 September . . . As part of a National Public Radio report on cellist Yo-Yo Ma's latest CD, Obrigado Brazil, percussionist Cyro Baptista speaks of choro master Pixinguinha's "1x0 (Um a Zero)." Baptista strangely describes the song as a meditation on the 1950 World Cup final between Brazil and Uruguay. Yet Uruguay won that game, the last game of the Brazil-based tournament's "mini-league" format, by 2 to 1. The loss became a Brazilian national tragedy. Alex Bellos in liner notes to Música de Futebol, a CD companion to Bellos's book Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, more credibly explains that Pixinguinha authored the song following a 1-0 Brazilian victory over Uruguay in the 1919 South American Championship. The song "was Brazil's first major composition about football," Bellos writes. Yo-Yo Ma adds in the entertaining NPR report, "You literally get the sense of the game with the interplay between the clarinet and the cello lines." [Update: Yo-Yo Ma and Paquito D'Rivera appeared on WBUR-FM in Boston on 13 February 2004 to discuss Obrigado Brazil. D'Rivera straightens out the business about "1x0," although he has the date of the match wrong.] | back to top
• Baghdad | 8 September . . . The Iraqi national team has launched its 18-day tour of Germany, and the results are starting to come. Coach Bernd Stange has also begun his rehabilitation in the media after being photographed beside an image of Saddam Hussein, leading to Stange's demonization throughout Europe. The Times (London) portrays Stange as a savior for Iraqi football and as a friend of Sven Göran-Eriksson to boot. "This war destroyed football," Stange tells the Times's Daniel McGrory. "Of course, there are many things much more important than soccer. Iraq needs water, medicines, new hospitals but never underestimate how much football means to Iraqis." Stange's major complaints are about facilities. He blames a U.S. tank regiment for spoiling the team's training ground: "I won't call them bad boys in public until I've spoken to them, but you would think they would have repaired the stadium before they gave it back to us." | back to top
• Reykjavik, Iceland | 6 September . . . Rudi Voeller has caught flak for his use of profanity following a scoreless draw with Iceland in qualifying for the 2004 European Championships. Voeller had harsh words for German TV commentators and, according to Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger, Voeller "lambasted journalists 'on their high horses' as 'kill-joys' who are 'living in a different world' because they can't understand that Germany 'have played the first-placed team in this group.' " Personally, not having heard what commentators actually said, we're sympathetic to Voeller's frustration, especially his comments about journalists "in a different world." Now, a few days later, Germany having beaten Scotland 3-1, everything is all right, and we can pick on Berti Vogts for a while. (Vogts's side, by the way, is "distressingly unconvincing," according to The Scotsman.) | back to top