Beyond the Wall: Football and the Struggle for a Free Palestine
July 25, 2014
As the World Cup 2014 knockout rounds progressed, the bombs began to fall in Gaza. The latest Israeli campaign against the Palestinians has, as of this writing, devastated homes, schools, hospitals, and has killed over 800 Palestinians – including four boys playing soccer on the beach. Football holds a special significance for the Palestinian people.…
One Way of Saying No: Red Presnia’s Spartak Moscow
July 15, 2014In 2018, the World Cup’s next stop is in Russia, a country with a great radical tradition, but one with layers of contradictions – many of them embodied by the Spartak Moscow football club. As historian Robert Edelman writes: “Spartak Moscow emerged from the rough proletarian Presnia district of Moscow and spent much of its…
Socialism Conquers the World!
July 14, 2014Left-Wing Football: Cesar Luis Menotti
July 13, 2014Despite World Cup Finalist Argentina’s conflicted political history, Argentinian football has always contained strong threads of political radicalism. While other footballers, such as Johan Cruyff, boycotted the 1978 World Cup in Argentina due to the dictatorship, others, like Argentina coach Cesar Luis Menotti, played the games as a point of resistance. Argentina won the Cup…
FC Bayern Munich and Jewish Resistance to the Third Reich
July 13, 2014The core of World Cup Finalist Germany’s superb national team is anchored in the Bundesliga’s champion club, Bayern Munich. This club, which had strong roots in Munich’s Jewish community in the early 20th century, has a rich yet obscure history of resistance to Hitler and the Nazi regime. In the 1930s, Bayern’s Jewish president, Kurt…
Beyond Winning or Losing: Brazil’s Socrates
July 12, 2014My greatest wish for the Brazilian team in this unavoidably painful third-place game is that: win or lose, they can focus less on the pressure to win and remember those aspects of soccer – the joy, the teamwork, the fun, the way it brings people together – that make this sport beautiful and subversive; that…
The Albicelestes and the Abuelas del Plaza de Mayo
July 12, 2014World Cup Finalist Argentina has a great radical football tradition, despite its conflicted political history. At the 2010 World Cup, the Argentinian national football team declared its support for the Mothers/Grandmothers of the Disappeared (Madres/Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo), an organization of women whose tireless demands for information regarding the 30,000 Argentinians “disappeared” during the…
Soccer Against the State: Egypt’s Ultras and the Arab Spring
July 11, 2014On this last ‘rest day’ of the World Cup, we pay tribute to another group of revolutionary hooligans: Cairo’s now-legendary Ultras Al-Ahlawy and the White Knights of Zamalek FC. Traditionally bitter rivals, these organized fan groups came together in solidarity at Tahrir Square and were instrumental to the Egyptian Revolution. The ultras embodied resistance to…
Hooligans Making History: Gezi Park’s Istanbul United
July 11, 2014When protests erupted in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in 2013, the fight for social justice united many sectors of the Turkish people – including, importantly, the notorious “ultras” of Istanbul’s three rival football clubs Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe, and Galatasaray. Usually feared for their violence towards each other, the ultras came together for the first time in history…