The sports

We’re all still sick, but we feel much better – except for Karin, who feels poorly again. She did go to the office today.

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I picked these teams to reach the Final Four:

Indiana, because of my loyalty to the state. ELIMINATED!

Purdue, also because of my loyalty to the state (not to former University President and former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels). ELIMINATED!

Kansas, because I used to live near the Kansas-Missouri border. ELIMINATED!

Mizzou. Ditto. ELIMINATED! Who’d’ve thought Mizzou would finish second to Princeton in the Battle of the Tigers.

Now I’m cheering for Kansas State. It’s a respectable prairie team. I saw Kansas State beat Kentucky in the Battle of the Wildcats. I’d like the Big 12 Conference to secure its third straight title, or at least its fourth straight title game appearance.

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The schedule has been set for the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final of the UEFA Champions League:

In the top half of the bracket, Chelsea will play against Real Madrid, and the winning club will face either Manchester City or Bayern Munich.

On paper, the bottom half is much easier: Napoli will play against Milan, and Benfica will play against Inter.

I’m pleased that Napoli is likely to scale greater heights than ever before in this tournament. I’ve seen Napoli play in several games. The players are smart, they work hard for each other, and, skill-wise, they range from excellent to breathtaking. Look out, especially, for the Cameroonian, the Georgian, the Nigerian, and the Pole.

The ghost of Maradona is smiling down …

R.I.P. Diego Maradona

… arguably the greatest soccer player. A “great man,” I heard one commentator say. I wouldn’t go that far, but, clearly, very few players have been as naturally gifted as Maradona.

In terms of natural talent, who else is in his class? Puskás? Pelé? Probably. But I know them mostly by reputation. Maradona himself admired Mágico González.

Among those I’ve watched in real time, the two players who stand with Maradona are Ronaldo Nazário de Lima and Lionel Messi. Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldinho Gaúcho, I relegate to the next tier – far, far beneath the others.

It’s also worth mentioning that Romário and N’Golo Kanté have displayed genius in their circumscribed roles. (Kanté works hard, yes, but with an instinctive clarity.)

What, then of such a determinant player as Xavi Hernández – or Johan Cruyff, perhaps the greatest soccer figure of all time (for what he did in management as well as on the field)? They were obsessives, constantly working, constantly scheming to improve. Were they naturally gifted? Surely. But their place on the podium of naturalness is hard to ascertain. The natural ability of Andrés Iniesta is more apparent than that of Xavi. (Iniesta is less conspicuous than Ronaldinho or Zidane, but he might be in their class.)

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Maradona’s other distinction, besides the naturalness of his talent, is the role he played as the “conduit” of his teams’ successes. His teammates floundered badly when he was absent. This was true at the club level and at the 1994 World Cup. The same has happened again and again with Messi. (Cruyff and Xavi also were “conduits” through which play flowed, but, when they left, their teammates were not without recourse.)

Unlike the other forementioned players, Maradona and Messi have inspired cult-like devotion among their teams’ supporters – and in an entire nation. Maradona encouraged this sacrilege; Messi, as far as I can tell, has been indifferent to adulation (though, in other respects, he’s hardly been faultless). In such cases as theirs, talent rather than personality is what has inspired devotion. Fans and teammates will tether themselves even to such a wastrel as Neymar, who is gifted but ultimately rudderless.

One achievement of Maradona’s was that, for nearly two decades, he overcame the idolatry and dependency of his worshipers forcefully enough to deliver the goods.

In Group F, South Korea flogs Germany, two goals to zero

… KO’ing Die Mannschaft from the World Cup.

This is a happy day, except in Germany.

The one sad thing is that the Germans were KO’d while wearing their classic green “away” uniforms. I’d waited well over a decade for the Germans to bring back those uniforms. I hope that the color doesn’t fall out of favor with them again.

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The result developed as follows:

Sweden and Mexico weren’t scoring (their game was being played at the same time as Germany vs. South Korea).

Germany and South Korea weren’t scoring.

Up until that point, the Germans were on course to qualify for the second round at Sweden’s expense.

Then, the Swedes scored, leapfrogging the Germans and Mexicans in Group F and obliging the Germans to defeat South Korea.

Then, the Swedes scored again, for insurance, with a penalty kick.

Then, the Mexicans scored against themselves.

The Germans needed just one goal to go ahead of the Mexicans (they still would’ve trailed the Swedes).

The Koreans defended tenaciously.

The Germans became desperate.

The Koreans scored.

The Germans sent all their players, including their goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer, down the field to chase the victory they needed. The Koreans stole the ball from Neuer and launched it into the space he’d vacated. South Korea’s star forward, Son Heung-min, reached the ball first and tapped it in.

This lifted South Korea above Germany in Group F. Germany finished butt-naked last.

The Mexicans wept all over the field, grateful that the Koreans’ defeat of Germany had allowed them to qualify for the next round (in which they surely will be KO’d by Brazil).

The Germans tried hard not to weep, but some of them did.

The Swedes looked about the same as ever.

The Koreans celebrated as if they’d won the World Cup, even though Mexico’s failure to defeat Sweden ensured that they, too, were eliminated.

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At the beginning of the tournament, it was understood that Son Heung-min, who plays for Tottenham Hotspur, would have to leave that club to complete his military service – unless the Korean team performed especially well, in which case he would be granted an exemption.

Well, the Koreans are now disqualified. But they’ve performed a service to their country – and to the globe – by KO’ing the Germans.

I hope that the Korean government recognizes Son’s contribution and lets him off the hook.

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The Germans may have been KO’d, but the Argentinians raised themselves from the dead against Nigeria. Messi scored a wondergoal. Then, when the game had nearly expired, Argentina scored again to stave off elimination. (In the stands, Maradona celebrated both goals very strangely.)

When Argentina shows more grit than Germany, you know there’s something in the water.

The gringos vs. FIFA

Old news: in Switzerland, the U.S. government has caused a dozen or so of FIFA’s bigwigs to be arrested.

No doubt these bigwigs are guilty of corruption. No doubt they’ve violated international law – or, under U.S. jurisdiction, U.S. law. I don’t know the details … but I’m sure the gringos can legally justify the arrests.

According to the Russians, this is just “another case of illegal extra-territorial implementation of American law.”

But I don’t think it is illegal. Or I’ll assume it isn’t, for discussion’s sake.

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Nor will it matter to what I’m going to say that the arrests are being done in a vindictive spirit.

What if the U.S., and not Qatar, had been awarded the 2022 World Cup hosting rights? Would the gringos have pursued the bigwigs? I doubt it.

But I won’t dwell on this.

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What interests me is how FIFA’s members will react to the arrests, and what all of this means for international tournaments.

FIFA’s members, the national soccer bodies, determine how FIFA is governed; and up until now, what they’ve done is to insist on FIFA’s (and their own) autonomy from sovereign states. No national soccer body is permitted by FIFA to be housed by an interfering state. A national soccer body is punished by FIFA if the state which houses it does not refrain from meddling in its affairs (and in those of the soccer bodies of other nations).

This is to preserve the integrity and voluntariness of the sport. FIFA wishes to arrange neither gladiatorial contests between slaves, nor “champion” warfare between nations.

Punishment takes the form of simple banning. FIFA isn’t going to confront anybody with planes and tanks, but it may disallow teams from playing in tournaments.

There are lighter bans, too.

For example, in 1993, the Aussie government refused to allow Diego Maradona to play against Australia in a World Cup qualifier. (Aussie law blocked convicted drug offenders from entering the country.) FIFA judged that this was an unwelcome political intrusion upon the sport, and threatened to move Australia’s home game to a neutral site. The Aussie government relented. Maradona was allowed to play.

Notice: the Aussie government could have permitted its soccer federation to receive punishment. Or, in protest, it could have withdrawn the Socceroos from the World Cup. It did neither of those things. It chose to refrain from enforcing the law of the state.

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Faced with lawbreaking, the U.S. government also could have chosen this option. But instead it has chosen to prosecute FIFA’s elected officials.

Let me stress that in the present case, the gringos aren’t just reacting to a crime. In effect, they’re enforcing their own idea of how FIFA should be governed, not minding that these officials were elected, wisely or foolishly, by FIFA’s other members.

Now usually when the U.S. government behaves like this, there is little that the opposition can do. But this time the opposition has a good deal of clout. The national soccer bodies have the power to impose some kind of ban against the U.S. Soccer Federation.

Will they do it? My guess is, no. Should they do it? Well, yes, if they want to preserve their autonomy from the states.

This is the situation. X, Y, and Z have long been coming together to hold a sporting contest – jointly deciding how to hold it. Those who won’t cooperate simply are left out. But now the godfather of one of the contestants is insisting, coercively, that the contest not be held in a certain way.

Suppose X, Y, and Z acquiesce. Whose contest is it, then? Is it still theirs? One thing, for sure: it’s the godfather’s. The participants, X, Y, and Z, are no longer making the decisions of this joint activity all on their own.

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Do the various national soccer bodies really want the gringos to have de facto veto power over them?

My guess is, they’ll put up with it, because the U.S. has a lot of political and cultural influence – as well as a lot of money, some of which will trickle down.

In effect, the soccer bodies will be selling out, again … and then again … and as long as they continue to allow the U.S. to have de facto veto power. And by selling out to this (de facto) administrator, they’ll be privileging one participant over the others; and not just for one tournament (as Qatar is being privileged for 2022) – or even for a handful of tournaments – but indefinitely.

If the soccer bodies set out to contain corruption on their own, they’ll at least be able to do it with some fairness. The sporting benefits of corruption will be spread out more or less evenly around the world. Contestants like Qatar will have fifteen minutes of glory, and that’s all.

But if the gringos have veto power over the governance of FIFA, the sporting benefits will skew towards them. I couldn’t specify the mechanism. But we all know how it’ll turn out.

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For the sake of sport, then, I think that what the gringos are doing is bad, and that FIFA will be shirking its sporting duty if it doesn’t punish them. This isn’t yet an argument about morality (though one may try to draw further moral lessons from it). Morally, is U.S. hegemony in global affairs a bad or a good thing? I know what I think about that, but I don’t have the time to discuss it here. It’s taken long enough for me just to hint at how tacky it is that the U.S. should dictate sporting justice. Moral justice is yet another problem.