#football eurocentrism

[postapocalypticromance]

One thing I think can be severely misunderstood about why an area is a centre of excellence, importance, or power within a sport is that geography, and probably population density, seems to play as much of a role as monetary input.

Eurocentrism in football/soccer, South Asian administrative dominance in cricket, the Rugby League powers of England and Australia, and Rugby Union's Northern Hemisphere powers didn't just come about by accident, the proximity of each to each other or another sport plays a massive role.

It's already pretty much codified that the majority of the winning power in football is concentrated in Western Europe, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands are eminent in that regard. If money was the reason, then England would be much more prominent over a number of years, but it's to do with the proximity to each other and the transfer of knowledge between clubs, coaches, players, and countries.

Hell, Joachim Low credited learning different principles from other countries for Germany's World Cup triumph.

In much the same way, there's a chance that Italy's relative isolation from the rest of the 6 Nations contenders contribute somewhat to their more recent struggles in the tournament, though the RFU's stupid 'players based in England' selection policy effectively achieves the same ends at the player level. Both rugby codes, mainly in England and Australia, benefit from the fact that they are so close to each other, so code switching can and does happen. Australia, in particular, can have players move between Aussie Rules as well as the two rugby codes.

India's eminence in cricket administration is also down to a network of information they've constructed in South Asia, with other full members of the ICC in Asia benefiting from an admittedly lopsided knowledge and facility sharing dynamic. (Again, the English are morons because there's the capability of England doing something similar in Europe and helping to improve countries here, damn you ECB)

That's not to say that sports can't thrive in a more isolated or individual sense. American football, basketball, baseball, and ice hockey are all massively popular with a much more limited reach, in terms of the share of the best players around the world.

But at the end of the day, breaking the hold that a region or countries have over a sport is about much more than money and players. The fact that Europe still holds the majority of the power in football is down to much more than the billions or trillions of pounds and euros invested into teams.

[whitehartlane]

am i the only one who thinks it’s weird that rival fans make fun of the fact that ange says mate

[sheisbeautyweareworldass]

amazing read. if anyone has free time or is just curious about why pelé is regarded as the best footballer of all times by most people, i’d recommend checking this thread

[maiteo]

whenever I see that im blocked im always 90% sure of the post that was the reason for it

[alexbkrieger13]

M's newest column

Ive been thinking this week about Fifa’s plans to expand the Club World Cup and create a Women’s Club World Cup and wondering where the welfare of players ranks in their priorities.

At a time when we’re seeing so many serious injuries to top women players I found it alarming that they did not consult the leagues or the players. Instead, Fifa president Gianni Infantino just announced it out of the blue.

Fifpro, the players’ union, were right to complain about the lack of consultation. I’m all for new ideas but you have to think about the players. If you just add more and more games, there’ll come a time when it just becomes too much.

From my personal viewpoint, if Chelsea were to win the Champions League, I’d love to get the chance to play the best teams from other continents. I can also see the benefit of making the game less Eurocentric. However, you have to talk to the players’ union first.

As for a 32-team tournament for the men, the loading is already extreme for them and I’m intrigued to see how they cope when the Premier League returns on Boxing Day, just a week after the World Cup final and two weeks after England’s quarter-final exit.

When I think back to last summer after the Euro, it took me at least a week for my mind to stop playing back the images of all I’d experienced. For us, there was the trauma of losing a semi-final 4-0 and feeling humiliated. Emotionally that was tough and for three days I lay on a sunbed and tried to read a book but I just could not focus on the letters.

My head was still in the tournament, processing all I’d been through, and I needed at least 10 days to start feeling enthused about the new season. Then, when I went back into Chelsea, I had issues with tendinopathy – inflammation in my hamstring and achilles, which is the product of overloading. Every footballer has it somewhere once they reach a certain age, yet it was clear to me my body was struggling.

I’ve got friends in the Sweden national team who tell me they are still feeling fatigued from the Euro and the news this week about Vivianne Miedema’s ACL rupture – less than a month after Beth Mead suffered the same injury – only accentuates the need to give more serious thought to player welfare in the women’s game.

This isn’t just about Fifa either. We have so much to improve on regarding knowledge of women’s bodies and loading. At Chelsea we’re lucky as we have a big squad and they’re very good at monitoring load and thinking about physical and mental welfare.

However, only a handful of women’s clubs have it like this; few others can afford it. Before I came to Chelsea, I’d never worked with full-time physios, for example.

It’s just my hypothesis but I wonder whether women players might be less fragile if we’d received better medical attention early in our careers. It doesn’t help that all the research has been based on men’s bodies.

More women-specific research is required to understand how to train and load us. At Chelsea we’ve just taken part in a study by a woman who is scanning the feet of female footballers and collecting data about their foot shape, and this is what we need more of before Fifa start adding even more games.

I would also question the timing of women’s tournaments, which tend to run until late in the summer. Next year’s World Cup will start on 20 July and end on 20 August. It means you get a few weeks off before the tournament but you end up wanting to stay fit and doing some training on your own. It’s afterwards when you need the break and, as I’ve mentioned above, I don’t think two weeks is enough.

Ultimately, there are moments when your body says “enough” and I say this from personal experience. I look back to December last year when I suffered an ankle injury in a Champions League game at Wolfsburg, which ruled me out for three months.

In hindsight, I’m not surprised at all as I remember the way I felt in that period, just trying to get through games. With Sweden I’d got to the final of the Olympics the previous August but hadn’t had enough time to recover and then we had the challenge of the inaugural group stage of the Champions League, which meant more travel and more tough games.

I was tired and moody and just thinking, “When’s the break coming?”. I really feel my injury came as a result of that. I jumped and landed badly and damaged ligaments as well as sustaining bone bruising and a small fracture. It felt to me that my brain was simply too tired.

A year on, sadly, it’s my partner Pernille’s turn to be injured. Thankfully it wasn’t an ACL in her case but she had an operation on her hamstring last month and in the first few weeks afterwards needed help with everything, including putting on her socks and shoes. This is the personal cost that players face and it’s sad to see a loved one like that – yet another reason, therefore, why I feel so passionate about protecting my fellow players.

[eccentrickleptomaniac]

Can I get any Mexico headcanons perchance?

(Mexico representation in this America-focused fandom go brrrrrr)

i am always willing to contribute to the end of eurocentrism in this fandom 🫡 (still sad that nobody talks about african countries)

mexico is probably a middle ground in north america, personality-wise atleast. she doesn't have the outgoing and almost robotic nature of america, and she doesn't have the incredibly timid nature of canada. by all means, she's just a middle ground inbetween the 3. the grounder that makes sure neither of the other two get out of hand. does it work? perhaps.

on her own she's a very cheerful person, almost never letting others get her down. her happiness often radiates onto others, its infectious. is there some dark secret she's hiding behind it? no! not really, she accepts her problems and tries to fix them, but she's still an optimist at heart. tries her best despite all her issues

i can't say i know much about mexican international relations, but from what i can tell i can say she's pretty good friends with austria? while mexico did have some issues previously with his mother (cough the execution of maximilian i) generally the two hang out a lot and enjoy good times together, including flying! mexico does care for austria despite everything, and like all her friends she cares a lot about him.

she loves to swim. she fucking loves to swim its one of her favorite activities aside from flying. she finds it really fun and she loves the ocean in general! she also likes football (soccer) a lot, moreso watching than playing though.

her "govt assigned" username is mysteriousXylograph.

hope this suffices! <3

[dom-arktos]

Were Mbappé's comments on Latin American football kind of oblivious, ill-worded (yes even in French), and completely unnecessary? Yes.

Did he essentially misattributed the reasons to why FCs in LatAm don't tend to be as "good" as European FCs and why LatAm players tend to fly overseas to a supposedly natural superior quality of European teams, instead of to the socioeconomic and soft power imbalances between the Global North and South with root in the perpetuation of neocolonialism and its racist eurocentric policies, that eventually lead to preventing players from staying and training in their homelands both for status and economic reasons? The he also forgot to mention that this is a self-feeding system that only further increases inequality between richer and poorer regions? Absolutely.

Does Mbappé hold a degree in sociology and/or should have explained this in great detail instead of saying what he said? 1) Probably not. But I don't hold one either so I guess that's no excuse. 2) It's a sports interview you can't expect anything if you don't want to be utterly disappointed.

Do I even like Mbappé? No, not really. I often find him quite obnoxious actually.

Does any of this justify plain and blatant racism against him? What the fuck obviously no people what's wrong with y'all 💀💀💀.

[grilledkatniss]

(It’s time for some questions….)Do you like spicy food? Describe your country in five words or less (not using its name). given the opportunity would you climb a tree today?

I enjoy spicy food, but not when the spice eclipses the taste of the rest of whatever it is I'm eating, and if I'm low key trying not to cry, then I'm not enjoying it at all. If it's too spicy it numbs my mouth, again, not enjoying it. If the "taste" is "spicy" then I will probably not enjoy it. Spicy tomato, yes. Hot sauce made of like chili peppers and bell peppers and different sort of peppers.. and tomato? Probably, yes. When the source of spice is unidentifiable and it's just like a processed homogeneous powder based red/orange shart looking thingy, then no, not even with tomato in it.

----

Oh boy, let's see. We're gonna have to pretend sentences with no punctuation are one single word.

1.Mate.

2.Football.

3.Never-ending economic crisis and a monthly inflation rate of over 12% (it's actually closer to 20).

4.Often doesn't identify as a Latino country even though it is indisputably located in Latin America/Italian accented Spanish/sometimes called the Paris of LATAM because of it eurocentric architecture.

5.Gets branded as a racist country because of the lack of black (African/easily identifiable percentage of African descendance) representation, when in fact our racism is aimed instead towards brown skin colored people (mostly easily identifiable stereotypical Latin American/South Asian).

(not much to be proud of about this country other than Messi..did I give it away? We have 3world cups and chant olÉ olé olé olé in all stadium shows.)

----

Mmmaybe not today, it just started to rain.

[normal-thoughts-official]

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from NORTH FUCKING AFRICA

if you people make Nicky Italian raised in Italy and Booker French raised in France in every single fucking AU that crosses ur path, then why the FUCK dont you also make joe north african raised in north africa and instead go for him being Vaguely Muslim™ or else the child of immigrants but born and raised in the First World Country Of The Day. Like I know why but can you think for five seconds about your biases before you do this

Joe is from the Maghreb. That's Morocco, Tunisia, Argelia, Mauritania, and Libya. Take your pick from one of these instead of making him from the fucking Netherlands or whatever the fuck for absolutely no reason

a few tips!

north africa is not the middle east any more than italy is mexico. just because both areas have a muslim majority doesn't mean they're interchangeable

if you're making him from jerusalem because of the crusades thing... that means you're making your modern au joe palestinian. you do realize that, yes? you do realize that you're having him be born in one of the most dangerous places in the world to be Arab and Muslim, in the heart of one of the most brutal conflicts and areas of colonization in the modern world, yes? you do realize that you can't just gloss over that?

people writing canonverse: please please PLEASE stop having joe be super involved with european culture shit (eurovision, the eurocup, rooting for random european teams in football), ESPECIALLY if you're going to make him have a weird attachment to the people that HE SAW COLONIZE HIS OWN PEOPLE

France and Spain in particular are directly responsible for the destruction of a great deal of Joe's culture. Like they literally tried to destroy the native Maghrebian cultures. And Joe was there to see it. He SAW them killing and enslaving his people and making his native practices forbidden and trying to eradicate his culture, and changing it forever and taking another part of his past from him. Joe would not fucking sing the marselleise with his whole chest for no reason, are you kidding me

and before you justify this by telling me that well, he doesn't gave a particular attachment to any of these countries because they didn't exist by the time he was born: Italy didn't exist when Nicky was born either, and none of you people ever hesitate to make him super attached to Italy and Italian culture in general. and like morocco was out there commemorating their victories with "dima maghreb" so i think its safe to say that there is still a sense of union between the maghrebian countries anyway. there's no reason joe cant have an attachment to the particular country that now includes the specific territory he was born in, or even all of them

there is no reason other than eurocentrism for you people to assume they have spent the majority of their lives in the first world. at the beginning of the story they meet in morocco. they go then for a job in south sudan. they are very familiar with afghanistan. the only reason they went to london was to follow copley because he blew their cover. also they are constantly traveling anyway, so there's no reason they wouldn't go between all continents and favor Europe for no reason, especially considering that a good chunk of the major current conflicts take place in the third world thanks to colonialism

check your eurocentrism

stop erasing joe's origins

thanks

[postapocalypticromance]

Seeing a take that's incredibly baffling, yet incredibly interesting in how baffling it is.

I managed to see someone merge the essence of the extremely questionable traits of athletes based on race pseudoscience, football/soccer eurocentrism, and American sporting aspiration/endeavour.

Genuinely impressive how such a mangled opinion can come out of a person

[whitehartlane]

every single spurs fan needs to watch ‘let’s talk’ with ange (part one, part two, part three).

more than a manager, he’s a proper human being who’s gone through a multitude of struggles and come out the other end a deeply empathetic and hardworking man. he speaks in such a vulnerable and open manner about his father, how he’d work all week as an immigrant in australia and would only ever get up from the half hour he had to himself on the couch after work to take him to training, and how ange wanted his attention and validation desperately. how football was their connection, the thing that his father could give him to feel a sense of belonging as a child of immigrants in a time where nobody in australia knew much about other cultures. how he regrets that his father died before he could see his proper success, how he sees him in the mirror every day, how when he takes his mates round hotspur way and the lane it feels like he’s showing his dad round. how everything he does is for his father and how he almost lost that spark when he passed. the fact that his football teams are moulded in the shape of what his father would love to watch in a team.

and then you have him talking about what it was like to be a child of immigrants in australia with the funny surname. how he never felt like he was australian enough despite having an illustrious career there and winning the nation an asian cup. how he felt like he didn’t get the recognition he deserved because of his background. and how that, as we know, has made him an absolute champion of defending players from non footballing nation backgrounds—he lifts up players like sonny who don’t get the recognition they should because of their nationality and he looks for talent in places that other more eurocentric managers wouldn’t think to look (the multitude of japanese players at celtic for example).

he humanises the footballer. he doesn’t manage footballers, he manages people. something he’s constantly said and that he says again in this interview is that at this level, the margins aren’t that big in terms of quality. but it’s the person you have to reach, the human connection you have to build. in this world of fast paced, results based football it’s almost revolutionary to hear a manager emphasise the human part first.

ange bleeds football. he’s been managing longer than the average football fan on this site has been alive. proper gaffer, the people’s manager. at ange’s first press conference at spurs he said his father would be pretty straightforward about the whole thing and say “don’t stuff it up.” i hope that by the end, far into the future, we can all look at ourselves and say without a shred of doubt that ange’s father would’ve loved watching us. 🤍

[mchiti]

Saw someone say that who would enjoy watching AFCON because it’s boring and nobody cares. And I was like really? Because for me Euros in boring and matched in Africa hit different like they are MUCH more entertaining. I don’t know if it’s the different style of play but…

anon AFCON IS HILARIOUSSSSSSSS IT’s MY WHOLE LIFE. I don’t give a single shit about people trying to put it on a “quality level” discourse because clearly african football is growing and it will get a while but I’m pretty confident people wouldn’t watch it anyway so don’t even bother with football criticism. And it’s not half as bad as they think. Not even remotely. When do europeans ever got interested in anything African??? Like honestly. Music, movies…they hardly know a bunch of african players. People get triggered by anything not eurocentric. But boring REALLY ain’t it

Like afcon 2019 when this fella was responsible to bring to Egypt all of Burundi nt SHOES AND HE TWEETED THIS

AND THEN HE WAS HELD BY SECURITY FOR HOURS BECAUSE THEY REALLY THOUGHT THAT WAS *SOMETHING* ELSE AND NOT LIKE, BURUNDI’S SHOES. AND ALL OF US WERE FOLLOWING THIS STORY BC 😭😭😭😭😭 burundi had to play the next day or something and they didn’t know if they were going to be able to 😭😭😭 BUT IT WAS ALL SOLVED ALHAMDULILLAH

Like, sure. Would europeans find this laughable? I don’t care. This is fun. This is beauty. This is a continent that never gives up 🤲🏼 And it’s growing, and it makes the best out of any difficult situation. EVERY TIME. Bringing amazing football anyway! And now that we have more spotlight may Afcon become hugely watched next year Inchallah Ya rbi 🤲🏼

sorry for going insane over this ask anon 💘💘

[mrs-fairchild]

You know, I love Messi as much as the next girl. He’s certainly one of - if not THE MOST brilliant players of our time.

However, I think it’s a disservice to football in general, and especially insulting to South American football, to try to bring down Pelé in order to claim Messi is the GOAT by saying that Messi is better because “Pelé never played in Europe”.

Of course nowadays european clubs attract the best players from around the world, but this wasn’t always the case. Back then, South American players played mostly in South America - and that in turn meant that some of the worlds best players played right here and not in Europe. 

Messi himself, had him been born a few decades earlier, would probably, like his idol, Maradona, have played in South America.

Saying that Pelé “had it easy” because he didn’t play in Europe is not only elitist and eurocentric, but it’s downright stupid. If you want to know how Pelé would fare against European players, just look at his 3 world cup titles.

[marswatchesball]

MLS is changing its playoff format and I have some thoughts.

Previously, the top seven teams from each conference at the end of the regular season would qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs, with the #1 teams from each getting a bye to the conference semifinals. And of course, all of the cup ties were played as single games at the higher seed's home venue. Personally, I don't like single-game ties in knockout style tournaments (except for the final of course), nor do I like how many teams qualify in the first place (14 out of the 28, 50% of MLS clubs at the time), but it at least made some sense.

Now the playoff is expanding from seven to nine teams from each conference, though with the 8th and 9th playing a "play-in" style game to become the 8th seed in an 8-team conference bracket. So effectively, it's an 8-team format with a play-in round. And while the single-match ties remain for the conference semifinals, conference finals, and MLS Cup final, the first-round ties (or the conference quarterfinals if you prefer) will be three-match series, with the higher seed hosting the first and if-necessary third match, with the first team to win 2 moving on. There are no longer any first round byes for the top teams.

There are some things about this new format that I think is an improvement over last year's. The three-match series are a step in the right direction, though call me a Eurocentric with how I would prefer two-match ties decided by aggregate scores. It should be noted that in these three-match series, there would be no draws or extra time. If a match is tied after full time, it goes straight to a penalty shootout. I think I'd be fine with that, if the if-necessary third match did have extra time, just so we can get a little more of an opportunity to decide the better team that isn't a penalty shootout in close matchups.

There are several things I don't like though. For one, this format makes my issue about too many teams qualifying even worse. MLS added one new team this season (St. Louis CITY [not City]), but added 4 more playoff spots, though effectively just two more because of the play-in round. Now 18 out of 29 clubs, 62% of the league, will make the playoffs. Each team plays a 34 match regular season. That's way too many games just to eliminate less than half the field. (The NBA has a similar problem with having a long regular season that doesn't end up eliminating very many teams). I think after 34 matches, comprised of two matches against every team in the same conference and one against every team in the opposite conference, is a pretty good decider of which teams are Cup contenders, and which aren't. As was especially the case last year, neither conference really had more than four or five true contenders.

It won't happen because money reasons and America's love of big playoffs to decide their champions, but I would much prefer a smaller, more exclusive playoff format. Something simple like having only the top 4 from each conference qualify, and every cup tie besides the final being a two-match series decided by aggregate score. Even if you wanted to have a few more teams, you could do a 6-team format similar to how the MLB postseason works.

Having said all this, I am still intrigued to see how this format will work out. The three-match series will be especially interesting. You could argue that, since MLS is the rare kind of football league where the distribution of money and talent among the clubs is far more equitable than most, having a wider playoff field makes sense because many teams are more likely to be similarly matched. I'd agree with that too. But it still inadvertently makes the ludicrously robust regular season feel less important. It's why I rarely watch NBA regular season games, because no single game ever feels like it matters very much since you could conceivably make it into the playoffs as the 10th best team in your 15-team conference. This kind of imbalance when comparing playoff size to regular season schedule makes "making the playoffs" seem less and less like an accomplishment in and of itself.

But then again, even with the huge format last season, the MLS Cup final still featured the #1 seeds from each conference. So maybe all of this doesn't even matter. The best teams will win regardless of how many more teams there are below them, except on the rare occasion they don't. And I suppose having a wider playoff field just makes those rare occasions more likely to take place, and who doesn't love a good upset victory?

[chillybuilt]

I agree with Mbappe’s comment if he’s referring to South America’s clubs. Because yes, there’s a reason talented young players get scouted to play in Europe and it’s because South American leagues just aren’t really invested in (unfortunately).

But not if he’s talking about gameplay, or style of play. Because if he’s talking about watching national teams play, then my god he’s so wrong. South American teams are miles above what most European teams do when it comes to playing the game itself

yeah I mean obviously like it's unclear what he means when he says their football isn't advanced like.... he'd have to be the dumbest person alive to think South American style of football isn't as advanced like the talent is there

but yeah if he means football infrastructure isn't as advanced I'd say I agree with him like, and no hate to him this isn't his eurocentrism this is the world's eurocentrism, like your talented players should want and be able to play in national and regional clubs

like everyone knows the Europeans are scouting all of the global south to bring boys back to their football clubs but somehow you don't realize that has something to do with the incredible football infrastructure and resources Europe is offering (infrastructure and resources they have due to their history of colonization)

[gigi-apologist]

i love being latina, and above all, i love being brazilian. even if i’m a big introvert who doesn’t fit at all the “typical brazilian” party ready energetic stereotype or the ethnic stereotype stupid usamericans have of latinos even though it’s a culture and not a race. even if brazil has a lot of problems. even if i still yearn to visit many other countries.

perhaps it’s weird to post about it on this blog, but i wouldn’t be doing it if, once upon a time, i hadn’t heavily disliked being brazilian, too. mongrel syndrome encouraged by my dad to the point of pettiness and vicious spite, to the point my geography teacher whose intelligence i had always respected (making any sense of intellectual superiority along the lines of “not like the other [ignorant] girls” impossible for my logical reasoning) naming it as what it truly was (the first time i ever heard the term) was shocking to me.

but yeah, nowadays i do love being brazilian. i love the colors and the birds and the sheer diversity of both fauna & flora that you can’t find anywhere else. (except in countries like australia that are, again, very much not europe.) i love its ridiculous size and its many cultures and its complicated language and accents and its jarring yellow & green & blue flag, so, so different from red & white & blue and so very original, for the same reasons i once disliked it. here we may not have ancient ghotic churches, but we do have churches made of gold and amethyst. we have free healthcare and, wonder of wonders, we have fully free public universities without need for student loans, something i didn’t know was even rare till i talked with friends from different countries. we have capybaras, and this is such a good example, isn’t it? of something seen as so common here but endearing or fascinating to foreigners. i might not enjoy football, or carnival, or god forbid, fucking bbb, but growing up is realizing that it doesn’t matter. every culture has things i don’t like, every people has its bad stereotypes, and every country has issues. i want none of that colonialist eurocentric mindset that is so deeply & subtly rooted in even the littlest things here. brazil is my beloved home, after all, and it’s true what they say—no place is like home. i went to argentina, i loved it, and i still missed brazil.

(shoutout to my town, too, and how i also thought bigger, more populated towns were so much better. they aren’t, really, if you realize that taking fifteen minutes from home to work is considered a privilege, and not a lot of time at all, and that pollution and crime rates tend to walk hand in hand with a rising population.

and it’s also very true, i think, that we grow used to everything good & pretty in our lives till eventually it becomes boring & mundane. i should learn how to appreciate the world around me, including my hometown, with the wonder of the little girl i once was. perhaps martminas was “europe,” after all.)

eu te amo, meu brasil, eu te amo.