The author, an American who knows his football, is an exception to the rule. And as an editor at The New Republic, Foer knows his globalization, too. The result: a riveting analysis of football’s struggle to come to terms with the forces of free trade, multinational brands and cultural imperialism.
Foer kicks off by tackling “the failure of globalization to erode ancient hatreds in the game’s great rivalries.” In the ’80s and ’90s, Red Star Belgrade supporters learned the hooliganism trade from newspaper accounts of English yobs. But they took the violence to another level, forming paramilitary groups that played a “pivotal role in the revival of Serb nationalism.” After Foer met with one particularly virulent group of fans, the Ultra Bad Boys, he was ordered to perform the salute of Serb nationalism–the same one Serb paramilitaries demanded of their Muslim and Croat victims.
Foer’s other stories are less chilling but just as bleak. As the author addresses the economic effects of globalization on football culture, we read of Nigerian stars playing through miserable Ukrainian winters and anti-Semitic Chelsea supporters coming to grips with their new Russian-Jewish owner. Foreign investors have fled Brazil because of rampant corruption, while the United States–which is “not exceptionally immune to globalization”–sees football as a foreign product and rejects it accordingly.
But globalization is not all gloom and doom, as Foer points out–particularly in his chapter on FC Barcelona. Thanks to the Internet and satellite dishes, he can follow his beloved Barca–as the team is known–as closely as any Catalan could. His unabashed bias toward Barca proves that while globalization may have failed to destroy football’s tribal hatreds, it has also helped its passions spread. This most aptly sums up how football “explains” the world: local communities will always battle outside threats to their identities, but it would be foolish–if not impossible–to reject outright the benefits of an interdependent world.
Foer admits at the start of his book, “I suck at soccer.” That may be so. But when it comes to writing about the sport, he’s world class. So good, in fact, that he can be forgiven for calling it soccer.
