Reykjavík Grapevine


Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.06.2018, Blaðsíða 27

Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.06.2018, Blaðsíða 27
Finally, A Fucking Game Iceland’s World Cup for an American Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photos: Art Bicnick, Mink Viking Studio There’s an unfair accusation in Europe that Americans don’t know anything about football. Actually, we freakin' love football. Not only did we invent football, but we’re the best in the world at it, thanks to the Brady brothers. C’mon, who doesn’t love throwing around a pigskin with their brochachos next to a Bud Lite? Nobody. It’s the American Dream. Wait—what? I just checked out the Icelandic football team. What the hell is wrong with all of you? That’s not football. Where’s the padding? The defensive line? The quarterback? I knew this country was backwards but I didn’t know it was full of idiots. IT’S CALLED SOCCER I’m obviously joking. I understand that outside of the freest country of all time, they call what is clearly soccer ‘football’. It makes no sense, though. The word ‘football’ clearly conjures up images of throw- ing an oval-shaped leather object with one’s hands, not kicking a ball around with your foot. God, do the Americans have to Normandy y’all again to save you from this Tom- (Brady)-foolery? Once again, I am joking. I have no idea where the word ‘soccer’ comes from and I understand that, like our Elec- toral College, it makes no sense. So go ridicule us on Twitter using your iPhone in your Nikes. We’ll just be over here with our AR-15s and meth. The plight of the winner Anyway, I was lucky enough to live in Reykjavík during the 2016 Euro Cup, so I got to experience that incredible swell of national pride first hand. That last minute Iceland-Austria goal, the jaw-dropping smiting of England—it was big. People ran in the streets and hugged strangers. I cried. It was unlike anything I had seen in America. People actually cared. The thing about America is that, like DJ Khaled and Donald Trump, all we do is win. We win everything, so much so that it becomes mean- ingless and no one gets emotionally involved. Unless you’re a one-in-a- trillion athlete like Michael Phelps, I would seriously claim that Ameri- can society got more shook by Kylie Jenner’s pregnancy than any international sports victory. We’re just used to being good at stuff. It’s cocky, but true. A big fucking deal Iceland though, doesn’t always win, so when a team makes an interna- tional tournament, it’s a big fucking deal. People get impassioned and everyone—hipsters, loners, goths and intellectu- als, alike—stop to watch. There is no American equiva- lent. For me, I love this whole “getting into sports” thing. It’s wonder- ful to have an emotional attachment and actu- ally care about the results and have it intrinsically mean something. Whether Iceland wins or not, this is a watershed moment. This is Icelanders showing their stuff to their world. This is acceptable nationalism, and I am here for it. That said, I am still American, so if Iceland loses, I will make like a true MAGA peep and sue the moth- erfucking pants off FIFA because clearly the game was rigged. Like our election. 27The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 10 — 2018 Football, The Beating Heart Of Brazil A Brazilian perspective on Iceland’s World Cup Words: Juliana Iluminata Wilczynski Photos: Mink Viking Studio When you mention football to someone here in Iceland, you will receive one of two reactions. The first is of the “HÚH! I love football, let’s go smite some non-viking ass! Skál!” variety. The second reaction is: “Football sucks.” I honestly completely under- stand both reactions, but being from Brazil, I have a different perspective. The first reaction comes from fans of the hypermasculine sport, and here in Iceland, it is mostly just one big excuse to drink a lot and get rowdy. The second reaction comes from those who’ve maybe never cared about sports, or have issues with the fact that while the men’s team is glorified, the women’s team is neglected and forgotten. And that’s not to mention the horrific pay gap. The beating heart of Brazil Whatever the reaction—I get it. However, where I come from, foot- ball is arguably one of the most influential facets of our national identity, and is ultimately the beat- ing heart of our country—all 200 million of us. Yes, like many of you reading this, I hate how masculinist the institution of football has become. I hate how it’s just another excuse to pile on the Tuborgs. I hate how FIFA continues to capitalise on m o d e r n - d a y slave labour and people of colour, and through its accumulation of wealth and capi- tal by disposses- sion. It’s no secret that FIFA has evicted some of the most vulnera- ble people in the world just to build a football stadium that will host maybe four or five games during the entire World Cup. Unlike Iceland, though, Brazil is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world. With that comes great socio-economic disparities between the wealthy and powerful and the most vulner- able and marginalised people in our country. Football is one of the few uniting forces in our nation. It brings people together from all walks of life, from the favelas to the penthouses of Ipanema. Most importantly, it has created a place of acceptance for the people of colour in our country, where they are admired and revered. Football has helped raise people out of the cycle of poverty. The purest democracy This week, Brazilian news giant Globo posted an article by Roberto Damatta, a famous Brazilian anthropologist, entitled “Foot- ball and Brazil.” In it, he makes an extremely important point: that the game of football is the place where Brazilians experi- ence democracy in its pure state, free of corruption, and is a place where all players are equal. It is the true sweet escape. W h e n football is mixed with capitalism, however, we can lose sight of the true value of the game. Brazil has a reputation for having some of the most corrupt politicians in the world, resulting in the abandonment, oppression, and neglect of many people in my country. Having come out of our decades-long military dictatorship, and everything else that happens daily in our country, the football arena is a sacred space where noth- ing else matters. It allows people to escape the brutal daily reality that many in Brazil face. It’s easy to lose hope in times like these, but foot- ball keeps us full of hope. It allows people to dream at night. Pelé, grapefruits, and hope Pelé, undeniably the best football player in the history of football, used to practice his juggling skills with grapefruits. His first football team was named “The Shoeless Ones,” because neither Pelé nor his teammates could afford shoes. Pelé had big dreams, but, most impor- tantly, he had hope for his people, and his nation. He wanted to make them proud. Thus, football keeps our nation dreaming, despite all of our problems and despair. I’m sorry, but it’s true: this is some- thing that most Icelanders will never grasp or understand. It’s more than just muscu- lar men running around, and it’s more than huddling around a TV set to shout at the top of your lungs every time someone misses or scores a goal. It’s way more than that to me. If you hate football— like I said, I get it. But you can’t deny how important it is to the people of Brazil, and how it helps to keep our dreams alive. Fifteen Minutes Of Horror An Icelander’s perspective on the World Cup Words: Valur Grettisson Icelanders are afraid of two things at some stage of their lives. First, it’s Grýla— the baby-eating mother of the Yule Lads, and owner of the Christmas Cat (some weird-ass combination of a giant cat and a wolf), which will also eat you if you don’t wear your finest clothes at Christmas. Þrándur Þórarinsson captured the true essence of Grýla in a horrific painting that went viral some years ago and still gives me nightmares. The other thing that we’re really afraid of is the “fifteen minutes of horror”— not to be mixed with the game “seven minutes in heaven,” where teenagers of the opposite sex go into a dark closet and do whatever it is teenagers do today. (Spoiler: they browse their phones until it’s over.) Snickering wizards When I was growing up, our national teams weren’t good at anything that involved balls. Although our handball teams were pretty decent, when it came to competing in smaller—dare I say, insignificant—tournaments, we were always fighting this weird curse. During the “fifteen minutes of horror,” everything just goes sideways in the worst way possible. It didn’t really matter how well the team was doing in the game—we always waited for these dreadful fifteen minutes to come. It was like our beloved team became possessed by some kind of a sport version of Linda Blair. This ghastly period would best be compared to a cheap ‘90s Disney movie, when everything goes wrong because of some snickering wizard and his crafty magic. But there was no trickery involved (I think!). We were just incompetent when it came to sport. The only way to survive these terrible intervals was if the team had scored enough goals to have a secure lead before it happened. Even then, the other team would often gain a landslide of goals during these cursed minutes, and often there was no coming back. So then... When I noticed that our football team was doing better than usual at Euro 2016, I still waited for the fifteen minutes of horror. After years of experience, I’d grown to expect any optimism to be crushed. I thought to myself—sure, they’re good, but can they survive these fifteen minutes? In the first game, it never came. A pleasant surprise. But was the curse broken? Did someone finally sacrifice a middle-aged football bully that refuses to act appropriately for his age (you know the type, it’s the guy that paints his beard in the flag's colours) to break the spell? I wasn’t really sure It wasn’t until we beat England that I dared believe we had broken the curse. Sport-Linda Blair had been exorcised (and the spirit, from the looks of it, flew straight into the souls of the English football team). My theory is simple. It was the team’s lion hearts—and perhaps having some incredibly talented players, and coaches and a solid game-plan—that vanquished the curse. Nothing can beat passion (except, perhaps, the other team’s incredibly talented players and coaches and solid game-plan). And the Icelandic team is always the winner, because they fight with their hearts. The Icelandic nation have already won. We got to the World Cup. We made sporting history in Iceland, and we have nothing more to prove. Now we’ll just watch our stressed-out opponents trying to control their nerves when they meet our team on the battlefield. They’re right to be nervous. We will smite those puny creatures. And just remember, if this goes really sideways for us, we still have fifteen minutes—but instead of horror, it’s our fifteen minutes of fame.
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