Don't Shoot
Number #28 in my series of posts on the connection between sports, mostly football, and politics.
• When teams from outside Europe employ the gamesmanship of the Europeans and beat them, is it not football? Brazil defeated Spain 4-2 in the semifinals of the women’s football tournament at the Paris Olympics 2024. Spain, it turns out, is a sore loser. Brazil dominated the match but also managed the game well, including time wasting and professional fouling. Here’s Jenni Hermoso, who captained Spain to the 2023 World Cup title: "We conceded four goals to a team that, for me, doesn't play football. But at the end of the day, what counts are the goals. They study us, they know how to 'hit' us, play behind our backs. For me, it's not football. I don't like that kind of football. Obviously, they gain minutes, they make you waste time and, for them, that was worth it. They're in the final and we're going for the bronze. I think it was our mistake. We didn't play our football. I liked our second half, but it was difficult with 4-2 to the opponent." Brazil will play the US women’s national team in the final.
• UEFA has banned Álvaro Morata and Rodri for one game after they chanted "Gibraltar is Spanish" during Spain’s celebrations after winning Euro 2024 last month. Britain disputes Spanish control over the territory. Spain also controls two territories off the coast of Spain that belong to Morocco. Palestinians must be wondering why Israeli players, whose national team plays in UEFA, have never been banned or suspended over their country’s land theft, apartheid, and terrorism against Palestinians.
• I’ve always wondered about the political leanings of Venezuela’s national team players. They don’t say much. Now comes the news that the father of Jhon Chanceller, a journeyman central defender who plays club football in Ecuador, has been arrested. Carlos Chancellor is a prominent opposition figure. Venezuela just had an election that the nominally leftist government claims it won. The opposition, favored by the United States, claims widespread fraud.
• Following his national team’s win in the Copa America, Argentina’s Enzo Fernández posted a video singing a racist and homophobic song about the black footballers in France’s men’s national team. Two weeks ago, one of his club teammates and current club captain, Reece James, who is black, said the video could cause a “problem” in the Chelsea dressing room. Another teammate, Wesley Fofana, who is French and black, criticized Fernández and called the chant “uninhibited racism.” Images of James and other black team members smiling and posing with Fernandez are doing the rounds on social media. Fernandez had made a halfhearted apology. Interestingly, none of the members of Argentina’s national team has spoken out against the racism, not even team captain Lionel Messi, who was injured and had already left for his home in Miami. In any case, Chelsea’s coach, Enzo Maresca, who is Italian (where most Argentinians claim they are from), has announced he wants to make Fernández one of the team captains. Make that make sense.
• Lionel Messi's house in Spain was vandalized by environmental activists. They smeared the walls with black and red paint, along with a message: "Help the planet. Eat the rich. Abolish the police." Messi hardly expresses political opinions, though he visits — at a price — regularly with the undemocratic leaders of the largest petrostates (Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea). He is also a tourism spokesperson for Saudi Arabia’s regime. And as we learned last month, despite his stature, he has not said a word about the racism and homophobia of his national teammates.
• Before his move to Chelsea FC for £35 million ($44 million) was announced this week, Samu Omorodion helped Spain reach the finals of the men’s football event at the Paris Olympics 2024. Spain will play France. To get here, Spain beat Morocco. After that game, Omorodion, who is black and of Senegalese descent, celebrated the win on social media. Moroccan fans took exception and filled his Instagram comments with “… racist comments, insults and monkey emojis.” Ironically, just days before, Moroccans had loudly and correctly registered their disapproval of Argentina’s racist players and fans during a group game. Morocco won that game, which included some bizarre application of VAR. Before his move to Chelsea, Omorodion played club football for Atletico Madrid, a club notorious for its fanbase's boldfaced racism.
• Red Bull owns five football clubs: RB Leipzig, New York Red Bulls, the Brazilian clubs Red Bull Bragantino and Red Bull Brasil, and FC Red Bull Salzburg. They have now added a third-division Japanese club, Omiya Ardija.
• The BBC asked 70-year-old Chilean manager Manuel Pellegrini what he made of the charges against Manchester City. Pellegrini coached City to the Premier League title, an EFL Cup, and their first Champions League semi-final: “I am sure the fans of Manchester City are really happy with the way the club works, the way they play, and the trophies they have won during all these years. Always, you have criticism about a lot of things.” I suspect his music tastes can explain his blase attitude to regulations: he listens mainly to The Beatles. Frank Sinatra. Boleros and Elvis Presley. He boasts that he stopped caring about new music after the 1980s. “The 90s was not so good.” The interviewer didn’t ask him what it was like growing into his twenties and thirties in the 1970s and 1980s when Chile was run by a murderous dictatorship that broke all the rules, and he was a student and footballer there. Update: A Chilean friend provided some answers: “Pellegrini has always tried to stay away from politics, but I know he was against Pinochet … Like many people, he too didn't like what was going on with Allende and many people (mostly young people) have criticized him because he has said that the country was in crisis and divided during Allende... Like it or not, [what he said] it's true. [Not being politically outspoken] It is a hard line to walk for someone in the public eye but without ‘political training’.”
• Zlatan Ibrahimovic, in an interview: “I'm not a believer; only I can judge myself. Where was God when my brother died of leukemia? You pray to him every day, and you thank him every day, but where was he in those moments? In my world, you are your god. That's what I believe in.”
• Fulham’s Alex Iwobi (Nigeria, 80 appearances) became the first Premier League player to release an EP earlier this summer. He records rap music under the name 17. On "Don't Shoot," Iwobi is joined by two other footballers: former England youth international Medy Elito (Don-EE) and Ajax striker Chuba Akpom Skoli (Skoli).
ESPN reports that the song references Moise Kean, Iwobi’s former Everton teammate, and Arsenal’s Declan Rice, who is already the subject of a song by a Nigerian rapper. “The accompanying animated video is an ode to their upbringing in Newham, East London. The central message of the song is to dissuade young people from taking up street violence.”