Econ_June_09

The Economist

June 9th 2018

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ELÉ was nine years old when he first

sawhis father cry. Itwas1950, the yearof

the

Maracanazo—

Brazil’s devastating loss

to Uruguay, at the Maracanã stadium in

Rio, which cost the team the World Cup.

The child promised his father that he

would avenge the defeat. When the two

countries next met in the tournament, in

the semi-final of 1970, Pelé was playing.

With the scores tied at 1-1, he chased a pass

deep into Uruguay’s half. The goalkeeper

rushed from his line. Their foot race was

also the climax of a story, or rather several:

the storyofthe game, ofPelé’s career, ofhis

country’s recovery from the

Maracanazo

With its mortifications and sense of

worldwide communion, the World Cup—

which begins on June 14th—is a kind of glo-

bal religion. It is a form of soft diplomacy

and a safe outlet for nationalism. Formany

fans, it is a potent quadrennial madeleine,

each tournament summoning memories

of previous ones, the lost friends with

whom they were watched, past selves.

Sometimes the football itself can be cagey

and boring. But, especially on its biggest

stage and canvas, sometimes football is art.

Individual moves can be balletic, a team’s

routines exquisitely choreographed.

Grand narratives unfold and crescendo,

tragedies and unlikely triumphs that fea-

ture heroes, villains and occasionally play-

erswho contrive to be both.

1. Darkness to light.

Redemption is one

of the fundamental themes of art and liter-

er they form a diptych as dramatic as

Scrooge’s enlightenment or Darth Vader’s

conversion. The first “was like stealing

froma thief”. As for the second: “It is possi-

ble that a more beautiful goal has been

scored…but I doubt it.”

2. Present at the creation.

Greatness in

sport, as in art, often comes from unseen,

grinding effort. But sometimes it arises

from sheer inspiration—awind awakening

a coal to brightness, as Percy Bysshe Shel-

ley put it, or the “flash in the brain” that Jo-

han Cruyff said he experienced at the

World Cup inGermany in1974.

Cruyffwas a master of flicks, feints, im-

pudent shots and passes that described

arcing lines of beauty. But it was his impro-

visation in a match against Sweden that

made him immortal. By his own account,

he had not practised what he did upon re-

ceiving the ball near the corner flag, a

Swedish defender in close attendance.

Cruyff appeared to be heading away from

the goal, until, in a quicksilver feat of dex-

terity and imagination, he tucked the ball

behind him, swivelled and set off in the

other direction. For an instant he seemed

to be running in both directions at once.

The “Cruyff turn” has since been at-

tempted by players everywhere. Seeing it

for the first timewas akin tohearing the im-

possible, unscripted

-flat sung by Maria

Callas at the end of “Aida” in Mexico City,

or watching Michael Jackson unveil his

moonwalk. When Cruyff died, one of the

best tributes came from JanOlsson, the de-

fender he bamboozled. “I loved every-

thing about thismoment,” Mr Olsson said.

“I amvery proud to have been there.”

3. Dust to dust.

In 2009 the artist Mark

Wallinger curated an exhibition on the

theme of boundaries and doubts. It con-

tained

trompe l’oeil

paintings, artificial

flowers and a fake Tardis, or perhaps a real

one. Mr Wallinger called the show “The

ature, from the Bible to the “Odyssey”,

from Raskolnikov’s rebirth in “Crime and

Punishment” to Rick’s late-breaking ideal-

ism in “Casablanca”. In such stories the

good and bad that vie in people are height-

ened and set in conflict. Rarely have a char-

acter’s base and noble traits collided as

they did at theWorld Cup of1986, inwhich

Diego Maradona ascended from infamy to

sublimity in a single game.

Not just any game. In 1982 Britain de-

featedArgentina in awar over the Falkland

Islands. Four years later, having emerged

from a military dictatorship, Argentina

faced England in a quarter-final in Mexico.

“We were defending our flag, the dead

kids, the survivors,” Maradona, the team’s

captain, said later. In the space of four min-

utes he scored the most scandalous goal in

history and the finest. First he surrepti-

tiously punched the ball into the net (the

“hand ofGod”, he called it afterwards). For

the second goal, he seemed to function on

a different plane to the hapless English-

men. He pirouetted away from two de-

fenders, ran half the length of the pitch,

rounded the keeper and guided the ball

home. Argentina won the game and, re-

demptively, the cup.

Before and afterwards, Maradona’s life

was chequered. He grewup in poverty; lat-

er he failed drug tests and ballooned. But,

as he said in a memoir, “Nobody any-

where is ever going to forget those two

goals I scored against the English.” Togeth-

The art of football

A beautiful game

TheWorldCup is a formofdiplomacyand a secular religion. But sometimes

football is also an art

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