FIFA World Cup 2014 at Various Venues, Brazil
Cast includes: Arjen Robben, Louis van Gaal, Tim Krul, Mario Balotelli, Daniel Sturridge, Wayne Rooney, Neymar Junior.
The World Cup has an entirely male cast of hundreds but draws in audiences of all ages and genders, not just live at a variety of stadiums across the nation but through televised broadcasts watched around the world. It is a web of narratives told principally but, not exclusively, through live spectacles. Each event is, like music, totally abstracted. It exists alongside the real world but is also separate to that world. In the build up, there are lots of different elements at play: political discussions about the impact on the host nation, a series of friendlies acting as kind of prologues that may or may not be indicative of a team’s form and, most tantalisingly, predictions/speculations as to what is going to happen in the month ahead.
The narrative for England was a drab tale of disappointment: a bit like a Mike Leigh film without the muted optimism at the end. There was relief early on at not losing too heavily or playing too badly against Italy but after defeat to Uruguay, things were over for England before they’d even begun. Dramaturgically, it was pretty weak. You had the underdeveloped betrayal by those closest to you narrative of Mario Ballotelli (former Manchester City) and Luis Suarez (then Liverpool) scoring against England and the minor generational conflict between strikers Wayne Rooney (babyfaced, old school, Paul Gascoigne without a sense of humour) and Daniel Sturridge (officially the “only hipster footballer” according to Vice). The three match canvas just wasn’t large enough for this narrative to really be played out though. Everything about them was drab in comparison to what was happening elsewhere.
Arjen Robben
With England out of the picture though, it became much easier to concentrate on the far meatier narratives of Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Colombia. Louis Van Gaal, who plays the Dutch coach “Louis Van Gaal” looks every bit the General, with his hair cut suggestive on an ageing exUS Marine who refuses to adapt to the civilian world. On the pitch, Arjen Robben has the kind of stage presence that most can only dream of: striking fear into the hearts of opponents, his teammates, even the referee, who seems to defer to him at times before making decisions. What makes him so mesmerising to watch is his total lack of interest in the audience. He alternates between a warrior and a toddler, depending on whether or not the rules of the game are going his way. There’s something extraordinary, even admirable, about someone who cares so little about being liked.
Not caring about being liked was a feature of the Dutch team. During their quarter final against Costa Rica, Van Gaal brought on the brilliantly named Tim Krul for the penalty shoot-out. In homage to the great German goalkeeper, Jens Lehmann, Krul told each Costa Rican player that he knew where they were going to put the ball. It was an enormously tense moment and one in which the Netherlands showed a willingness to do whatever it took to ahead. Costa Rica, who had done so well up to that point, fell apart confronted with such force of will.
Each team performs their nation. They are an abstract representation of a construct. Watching games in any particular country is going to be enormously different. For example, in England, we have a particular view of the Dutch as liberal, relaxed, friendly, and so on. and this is confounded by the behaviour of the national team in the last World Cup. It’s almost as if nations don’t fit conveniently into off-the-shelf stereotypes.
During Germany’s annihilation of Brazil in the first semifinal last Tuesday, there came a moment when the gap between the two became so evident that it was embarrassing for both sides. It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly this moment was but it was probably immediately after Germany’s fourth goal is six minutes in the first half. It was unlike anything anyone had seen before. These kinds of mismatches were conceivable in the group stages but not in a semifinal. There was no way that Brazil could get back into the game. It was now a question of “damage limitation” to use a militaristic footballing cliché. Except that the Brazilian defence was so inept that they really had no way of limiting that damage and both sides realised this. The Brazilian fans were at various stages of grief for their status as a footballing nation: shock, disbelief, and anger.
The German team decided against the spectacular. They decided not to show off. They didn’t want to humiliate the Brazilians unnecessarily or to glory in how poor they were. They just kept going, scored a couple more goals. It was, in many ways, the perfect defeat, a flawless demonstration of superiority. The Brazilian fans recognised this. While some left the stadium, others rioted in the streets; many of those who remained started to cheer for Germany. Interviewed afterwards, former Brazilian international Juninho explained that Germany were playing “the way we like to play” and that “in Brazil, we like good football”.
Much as the pragmatism and determination of the Netherlands was fascinating in its Jacobean conniving, it was ultimately Brazil’s much more classical tragic narrative that was the best story. The nation provided the set, the audiences and the biggest shock. Like Homer’s Greeks, they were lost without their talismanic striker Neymar. The fans wore masks and carried banners that echoed political statements of solidarity: “We are all Neymar”. The hope was that Neymar’s symbolic presence might act like El Cid’s dead body propped up on his horse, spurring his team on to victory. The Germans were the perfect antagonists to dispel this mystical optimism though and in the turning of the Brazilian fans against their own players, the story achieves a reversal of which Aristotle would have thoroughly approved.
