tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11769795126989735802024-03-19T01:10:00.225-07:00Treasons, Stratagems & Spoilsthe bread so short, the circus so longroswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-52126692128387607672010-10-31T23:15:00.000-07:002010-10-31T23:33:02.950-07:00field of dreams1. Alive! Sorry to give no prior indication! How are you!2. At my newspaper this week, we published a Diwali-special issue about giving, with a focus on organisations who work with the urban poor. One of our stories highlighted the work of people who use football as a developmental tool to work with underprivileged children in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. You can read that story here and read the roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-53047681421654810412010-07-03T02:27:00.000-07:002010-07-03T02:50:51.804-07:00when i get olderBrian at the Run of Play did a very good job crushing the idea floated in The Atlantic that countries with an authoritarian history play more winning football. The idea memed, nonetheless. (Shocked that highbrow soccer dorks -- my favourite phrase this World Cup, used by TNR Goalpost to describe their ideal reader base) appear not to check RoP before coffee.) Laughable, snobbish solipsism -- it'sroswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-63893442969266768092010-06-30T10:59:00.000-07:002010-07-01T05:01:22.302-07:00socialism, bloody hellI was going to dissect John Barnes' comment on the failure of the English team coming down to their mental incompatibility with some forms of political practice, but Thomas Mueller took the wind out of my sails by offering a similar diagnosis of the breakdown of alien v/s predator man versus machine in the English team:"It is difficult to have so many 'alpha males' and have them row in the same roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-11235106948506947192010-06-21T03:16:00.000-07:002010-06-21T04:13:29.042-07:00favourite/favouritismDunga's Brazil is a fricking beautiful side. So effortless was their ability to press, build and rebuild play from the back, so relentlessly high their back line, so clever their crossing from the wings, that when Cote d'Ivoire scored their lone goal late in the game, it was honestly unexpected to see both Drogba and the ball run free out of Brazil's looming shadows -- if shadows can be roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-84454332440010532062010-06-18T22:00:00.000-07:002010-06-19T00:47:29.731-07:00the special onesPapa Capz will be the subject of much derision (and quite a few jokes a la my favourite man in blue, Nicolas Anelka), and in light What Just Happened, this is probably warranted. Capello's past record needs no defending, but England's awful start at the World Cup raises the question of whether he is in fact the colossus of the coaching world that he is otherwise supposed to be.Plenty of people roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-89036125173147622292010-06-14T00:51:00.000-07:002010-06-14T03:17:07.589-07:00winding the clock back up"I do not want a single Italian soldier to be hurt," said General Mustafa Tlass to his Lebanese guerillas in 1980s Beirut, "because I do not want a single tear to fall from the eyes of Gina Lollobrigida." Whatever my differences with General Tlass, I must similarly warn Italy's football team with regards to the eyes of Andrea Pirlo. He may not start today. Injury may have prevented him from roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-49685818505251542072010-06-12T11:12:00.000-07:002010-06-12T11:20:30.955-07:00freedom's just another wordI took a moment to curse Eduardo Galeano during Uruguay's disappointing non-starter of an attack on France during their game's second half, and said that there can be no beautiful football without shape -- by which I suppose I meant I come down on the side of organisation, cold mechanical brains, well-rehearsed moves, collective acumen over individual spontaneity, science over nature, and other roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-87410128202774253072010-06-11T02:29:00.000-07:002010-06-11T04:13:03.418-07:00nothing you can sing that can't be sung - IISing Sing SingItem. The best guide to national anthems at the World Cup anyone can read is Ian King's series, The World Cup of National Anthems at Two Hundred Percent. End item.It's two years since the last Eurocentric international tournament. It continues to be pointless for me to sing Fratelli d'Italia, since I'm not an Italian and nobody's fratello. Given this, it has been repeatedly roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-87966261259905242852010-06-09T22:55:00.000-07:002010-06-09T23:15:34.073-07:00the tea cosies are coming offStill thinking through this sports diplomacy stuff. I'm unsure of what to think about it, but if you want to avoid reading everything I've said below, then here's what I have so far: in a heavily imbalanced - and I dare say, vitiated - atmosphere, the act of protest itself can be toxic rather than beneficial. The answer is not silence or compliance - I am wondering if it can, however, be roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-35423718512742260002010-06-05T01:32:00.000-07:002010-06-05T01:36:42.210-07:00north korea among the nightingalesThe total stupidity of confusing football with justice.Over the years, the World Cup has quietly dropped out of the mainstream of history, making it less painful and less fraught to associate nationalism with it - unless of course you are reading a British tabloid - and I'm almost confident that we can now argue against Orwell's aphorism about football being war minus the shooting. It's actually roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-75457932575857284962010-06-04T04:32:00.000-07:002010-06-04T04:49:15.387-07:00a kind of magicI appear to be writing for a real website this World Cup: I've just written my first post for them, here. I think this is their intellectual property now, so you should read it there. I will transmit it here following the lapse of a day or so. Does that work for everyone? Good, thanks.roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-22534014362764111352010-05-27T05:31:00.000-07:002010-05-27T05:36:36.753-07:00clothes, lack thereofHow have I not heard a single word of praise for Venus Williams' French Open outfit so far? Suddenly everywhere on the Internet appears to have become a Daily Fail bulletin board, full of people shocked and disapproving and taking the opportunity, of course, to offload astonishing quantities of sexist drivel. [Let me not go into those extra-special observations about 'gorillas in lace,' because roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-91198442257901389822010-05-21T05:22:00.000-07:002010-05-21T06:25:05.463-07:00alright.Write The Future from Nalden on Vimeo.Self-parody: it has finally spread from the football blogosphere to enter the mainstream. Writers, your work here is done. I'm not sure I love this ad, although I laughed out loud at several points [Gael Garcia Bernal. Who else?] I do enjoy the fact that it cocks a snook at the cliches that make up so much of our non-lived experience of football - the tabloidroswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-45810282266873277412010-05-06T10:03:00.000-07:002010-05-06T10:08:18.075-07:00book review: moti nandy, 'striker/stopper'Cross-posting this from my other blog; apologies if you run across it twice. Striker, Stopper: Two Novellas, Moti Nandy, translated by Arunava SinhaThere is a section in A Season in Verona where Tim Parks imagines how the average footballer's career seems to be encircled practically from the outset by a tightening noose. In the opening paragraphs of his chapter 'Lecce' [noting this so that those roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-54417103023049586952010-04-20T23:48:00.000-07:002010-04-21T00:00:39.495-07:00when i own milan, #2When I own Milan, I will hire sopranos to sing Handel arias beneath the open casement of Diego Milito's house all night long. Multiple sopranos.roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-4302990981355218172010-04-12T23:48:00.000-07:002010-04-13T00:04:55.799-07:00when i own milanThis is the first of an occasional series, When I Own Milan, that would really have been better off as tweets, but that I do not wish to tweet.When I own Milan, I will hire baritones to accompany Ronaldinho everywhere he goes, singing 'Non piĆ¹ andrai' in his ears constantly. roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-87914432544498180372010-02-25T04:35:00.000-08:002010-02-25T04:41:54.278-08:00look away please, i am being sentimental.Context. Context for people who don't follow cricket.I was over-Googling Sachin Tendulkar today, and I came across a piece in the archives of Outlook magazine, a cover story by the historian Ram Guha on the fraught and loaded question of How History Will Judge Tendulkar. ...That he is so marvellously cool about this is perhaps the most remarkable thing about him. His gifts of character, if roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-8161929332335124652010-02-01T02:47:00.000-08:002010-02-01T02:51:20.064-08:00book review: four years too lateI'm book logging through 2010 as an informal, self-disciplinary project [neither as louche nor as painful as it sounds, I promise you] over here, my old haunt o' generalities. I've also just returned from the Jaipur Literature Festival, where puzzlingly enough, no sports were played. Someday I hope Pitch Invasion can host a panel there. Here, I cross-post my thoughts on a book I ought to have roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-72873015231601380062009-12-06T08:38:00.000-08:002009-12-06T09:36:33.371-08:00a semi-open letter to susy campanaleI wrote an email to Football Italia's Susy Campanale about her blog today, which argues that Racism must be stamped out of football, but so must play-acting, provocation of opponents and the kind of gamesmanship that has become your bread and butter. Got that? Play-acting, provocation of opponents, gamesmanship, racism. Yes, you're right. One of these is in fact not like the others. They haven't roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-88199099452544162452009-11-19T04:49:00.000-08:002009-11-19T04:54:49.541-08:00no way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them.Only Nicolas Anelka showed up. Surely the most surreal words in any language.roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-10980375934492814262008-11-27T08:34:00.001-08:002008-11-27T08:35:58.806-08:00if you know someone in mumbaiWho needs any kind of help in terms of food, place to stay, communication, anything - let me know.roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-57855903212141883022008-11-04T22:35:00.000-08:002008-11-04T22:38:57.310-08:00what a beautiful dayA historic moment in world politics has arrived, and it has done so in my lifetime. Congratulations to the United States for making it possible. And congratulations to Roma, who have kept their Olimpico '09 dream alive.roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-1001991231716377902008-10-28T22:04:00.000-07:002008-10-28T22:06:30.823-07:00mcenroe award nomineeYOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS.roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-79708334830407144002008-10-25T02:19:00.000-07:002008-10-25T06:32:35.792-07:00meeting diego della valleThis Thursday Eva, my colleague at work, mentioned going to get an interview and photoshoot for the magazine with the owner of Tod's. After we put the glass back in the windowpanes whence they'd fallen upon hearing my unearthly screech, she decided to take me along, which is how I ended up in the Tata Suite of the Taj Mahal Hotel this Friday evening meeting with Diego della Valle. For those roswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1176979512698973580.post-37067382096891206122008-10-24T03:12:00.000-07:002008-10-24T03:47:30.410-07:00inzaghis to the leftPicture* courtesy the latest installment of my usually merch-pushing Milan newsletter, which today, instead of peddling 'Rossoneri Underwear' or 'Sleep with the devils' [bed linen, not the negotiable affection of Alessandro Nesta] announced a 'Goal By Goal' programme, whose substance is that Nutrilite will donate 10K dollars to the Milan Foundation every time Ronaldinho scores a goal. No pressureroswithahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05506297391055117723noreply@blogger.com3