Answers: Writing on Football
Answers
1) Pele was among those named by Time magazine in its list of 100 Persons of the Century in 1999. The article on Pele began with the lines “Heroes walk alone, but they become myths when they ennoble the lives and touch the hearts of all of us”. Which German-born US diplomat, a rare soccer fan at the time among American public figures wrote the tribute?
Henry Kissinger. Kissinger’s tribute to Pele in Time magazine here. It was Kissinger, then the U.S. Secretary of State who persuaded the Brazilian government to allow Pele to play for the New York Cosmos in 1975. More here on Pele’s time in New York.
After leaving government Kissinger was a appointed chairman of the board of the North American Soccer League. He played a pivotal role in the failed U.S. bid to host the 1986 World Cup. After losing out to Mexico amid the machinations of FIFA President Joao Havelange, the New York Times quoted him saying, “The politics of soccer make me nostalgic for the politics of the Middle East.” Kissinger’s thoughts on the major teams of the 1986 World Cup here.
Kissinger was again involved in the bid for the 1994 World Cup. More on the successful bid here. He was then the honorary chairman of World Cup USA 1994.
For a third time Kissinger was roped in to assist a World Cup bid for 2022 but USA lost out to Qatar.
2) In November 1945, leading Soviet club Dynamo Moscow arrived in Britain to take on local clubs in what turned out to be a hard-fought series of football matches, while the Cold War was getting underway. A month later, a noted author wrote an article titled ‘The Sporting Spirit’ arguing that “sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will”. What phrase did he use to describe sport in that article (it was the title of a 1996 book by another author on the cricket world cup held that year)
George Orwell described sport as ‘war minus the shooting’. You can read Orwell’s article here. More on Dynamo Moscow’s 1945 tour of Britain here.
Mike Marqusee wrote the book War Minus the Shooting on the 1996 cricket world cup hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. More here, here and here.
3) The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano’s Football in Sun and Shadow is considered one of the best works on football, if not the best. What widely condemned action on the field in the 2010 World Cup was defended by Galeano as an “act of patriotic insanity”? This action of 2010 was remembered in 2022 in a particular match. What am I talking about?
Luis Suarez’s handball in the quarterfinal against Ghana in 2010. Suarez was sent off. Ghana missed the penalty and Suarez responded by celebrating unapologetically from the sidelines. Uruguay won in the penalty shootout. More here. More on how Eduardo Galeano viewed Luis Suarez’s action here and here.
I was at the Ghana-Uruguay match in 2022. While Ghana was heading for defeat, the mood dramatically changed in the last few minutes as South Korea took the lead against Portugal elsewhere. Uruguay won 2-0 but crashed out of the tournament along with Ghana. Ghana fans were visibly happy while leaving. More here. Four Uruguayan players were punished by FIFA this month for reacting furiously at the end of the match.
4) The author was a football goalkeeper in his youth (not professionally). In his memoir Speak, Memory he described the goalkeeper as “the lone eagle, the man of mystery, the last defender”. He also wrote a poem in his native language titled ‘Football’ about his goalkeeping at Trinity College in Cambridge. Who? (He’s also known for his prowess in chess)
Vladimir Nabokov. More here, here and here.
Nabokov wrote about chess as well and published several chess problems. His novel The Luzhin Defense features a chess grandmaster. His first work to be openly published in the Soviet Union in 1986 was an excerpt from his autobiography that dealt with his passion for composing chess problems. More in my earlier quiz here on Mikhail Gorbachev and his legacy.
5) Another literary figure was a goalkeeper at university who had to abandon football after contracting tuberculosis. He evokes his childhood passion for the game in his unfinished novel The First Man, which was published in 1994 more than three decades after his death. Who?
Albert Camus. More here and here. More about the The First Man here.
6) Among Nobel laureate Gunter Grass’ works is Mein Jahrhundert (My Century). a collection of stories with 100 chapters, each named after a year in the 20th century. One chapter has a fictional businessman talking about a sporting triumph, “We’re back, losers no more.” Which upset win is he talking about?
West Germany’s 3-2 win over favourite Hungary to lift the 1954 World Cup. It was known as the ‘Miracle of Berne’. More on Gunter Grass and football here and here.
The chapter on 1974 in Mein Jahrhundert is a fictional depiction of the dilemma faced by jailed spy Günter Guillaume on whom to support as East Germany and West Germany faced off in the 1974 World Cup (East Germany won 1-0 but host West Germany went on to lift the World Cup that year). Guillaume, who was a key aide to Chancellor Willy Brandt, was arrested earlier in 1974. The scandal forced Brandt to resign (Gunter Grass had earlier worked as Brandt’s speechwriter).
7) What was the theme of the successful 1967 British play Zigger Zagger by Peter Terson?
Football hooliganism. More here, here and here.
8) This popular memoir published in 1992 was about the author’s obsession with Arsenal. Name the book and author.
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. More here and here.
9) What move in the 1970s was described by Simon Kuper in his book on Barcelona as “the world’s best player was exchanging the world’s best team for a club of losers in a decrepit provincial city, in a backward league, in an impoverished dictatorship?”
Johan Cryuff leaving AFC Ajax in Amsterdam for Barcelona after inspiring Ajax to three consecutive European Cup victories. The Dutch legend’s arrival as a player in 1973 and later as manager in 1988 transformed Barcelona’s fortunes. More here and here.
10) The 2022 World Cup has highlighted my home state Kerala’s passion for football. A short story by N.S. Madhavan published in 1990 features a Catholic priest who is a fan of an unconventional football goalkeeper. The priest draws inspiration from his hero to save a tribal girl from being trafficked. What’s the title of the story? (easy one if you are from Kerala, otherwise there are clues to work out the title, also the name of the goalkeeper)
Higuita, after Colombian goalkeeper Rene Higuita. Higuita was known for venturing outside the penalty area to initiate moves. More here and here. Higuita was famously outwitted by Cameroon’s Roger Milla in the 1990 World Cup, ensuring Cameroon made it to the quarterfinals at Colombia’s expense. Higuita did not make it to the 1994 World Cup as he was entangled in a kidnapping case linked to druglord Pablo Escobar. More here and here.
N.S. Madhavan published the short story Higuita in 1990, the year of the World Cup in which Rene Higuita dazzled. More here. In December 2022, there was controversy in Kerala as Madhavan objected to ‘Higuita’ being announced as the title of an upcoming Malayalam film. More here, here and here.
Goalkeeper Rene Higuita is also remembered for his scorpion kick save against England at a friendly in 1995. N.S. Madhavan had a weekly column in the newspaper Malayala Manorama with the kicker at the end titled ‘Scorpion Kick’.
11) Final question from the another major football hub in India, West Bengal. Sports journalist Moti Nandi wrote multiple novels with sportspersons as protagonists. One of them was inspired by a match-winning goal by Shyam Thapa in 1978 for Mohun Bagan against East Bengal. What’s the title of the book? (Hint: Jawad El Yamiq for Morocco vs France in 2022)
Bicycle Kick. More here. More about Moti Nandi here, here and here. You can read about Pele’s visit to Kolkata in 1977 and how Nandi reported on it here.
More about Shyam Thapa and his bicycle kick here.