The Brazilians and the Croats

This evening, minutes into the game, I went to the corner room and sat down to watch the opening game of the World Cup on our television. Here is the analysis of an ignorant individual with a fading memory of the South Africa World Cup:

***

The balcony windows were flung wide and when I muted the game in the second half, the in situ throng in Brazil, chirping of the referee's whistle, and the announcer's baritone phrases wavered in from the sidewalks, where restaurants or cafés were hosting livestreams or television screen viewing.

It was quiet apart from that; immersed behind the apartment buildings, the moon lit the single, scrolling-edged clouds against the night and the flare of Venus, the traffic was light, and after the match ended it was mostly taxis that ran past the apartment.

Evidently few of our neighbours, nor we, had 'skin' in the game. Brazil, of course, was the host country; one felt that in light of the turmoil, it might be a relief if the home team won the game. The players weren't familiar and I had no impression of their playing style. There were little bursts of excitement after the third Brazilian goal and the near-second Croatian goal, and I wasn't sure if they came from our Berlin environment or from the television. The pedestrians who were walking home (it appeared) from viewings of the game weren't wearing flags when I saw them and appeared generally cheerful rather than particularly jubilant or embittered.

***

Given the presumptive pressure on Brazil's team to win, it was unexpected that the first half was fairly mellow. Then I realized that it was the early stage of the World Cup and that the teams might be rationing their energies for later and vital games; later I realized that Brazil was likely the anticipated winner in any case. So the Brazilians ran around the field at a leisurely pace, let passes from teammates slip by rather negligently, and — though by the stage I started watching they were one goal behind to Croatia — together with the Croatian team established a relaxed and sportsmanlike manner.

*

The Brazilian cast was separable as an aggregation of personalities after a while.

Neymar, the Brazilian striker, was a scruffy version of a Dickension waif, I thought; an anxiety, slenderness and roaming air about him. Marcelo and David Silva, with billowing hairstyles and a similar lightness when it came to not realizing the chances that came their way; Dani Alves, invested, substantial and serious. Hulk, impressively built for the European notion of football, and with an attractive face. (Though I don't know if athletes like being appreciated for qualities apart from athletic qualities, so I am willing to withdraw that remark.) The goalkeeper, rather stolid in his silver garb.

As for the Croatian players, Stipe Pletikosa was fairly often in the spotlight since since his goal was threatened often enough, with a sheaf of hair slicked back à la Beckham. The Guardian's minute-by-minute report faulted him for letting a penalty kick fly past, since he had gotten both hands on it, I thought that he was perfectly fine. Luka Modrić rather exemplified the mellow and fair demeanour I saw in the game and was often in the thick of the action; similarly, Mateo Kovačić. I didn't like all of the teammates, but since a teammate who didn't appear at the World Cup was found guilty of a neofascistesque team chant, they flourish in contrast.

While the fouling was mild for the most part, however, the ethics ran a little amiss toward the end of the game. There were fortunately no gruelling effusions of gore, gradual rakings of bristling shoes along the legs of the Enemy, or any attacks that felt particularly brutish, despite the sprinkling of yellow cards and the 'diving.'

As if to amend this propriety, the diving and other theatricality (enthusiastic though venial fouls followed by gestures and expressions indicating pristine consciences, and grave discontent with the arbitrary findings of the referee, which were inevitably proven not-so-arbitrary after all in the replay films) was prolific. The diving assumed manifold faces: agonizing grimaces — far worse than any Christian martyrdom depicted in artwork, likely since these martyrs must express the tranquillity of divine uplift in lieu of purgatorial anguish —, egg-like gyrations on the lawn, and tenacious grasping of ankle-vicinities, zygomatic flesh, and whichever other limbs or areas felt pertinent at the time.

As for the goals, the Brazilians' penalty kick felt a little undeserved. The referee gave the Brazilians a penalty kick for what, if I interpret it rightly, was a Croatian player's hand tug of a Brazilian player's shoulder. In past World Cup games, I think, the wholesale enmeshing of a fist in a player's jersey, which is strategically more effective though I think less violent than other varieties of fouls, met with that kind of penalty. Likely the key detail was that it transpired near the Croatian goal.

***

Needless to say, I was impressed by the technical innovations and drawn in by the details of the field periphery, as well. The temporary white line which the referee drew when the players had to form their walls in front of their goals, the whorl that was visible in the grass from above, the newly designed ball though I have yet to find an informed assessment of its merits ('it actually flies in a straight line' was the solitary comment I read), all fine.

Also, to be a literal spoilsport, I was wondering why the Brazilian spectators apparently skewed so much toward the azure-eyed and fairhaired. (Which is, I think, an example of the proper definition of 'begging the question.' I.e. the hypothesis I had made going into the game was that if you watch from the front seats you are likely wealthy, and if you are wealthy in Brazil or another country you are [un]likely to be . . . .)

Besides I was wondering whether the throng of non-American advertisements on the signs around the field was merely in my head, or a sign that American firms have a scanty estimation of the beautiful game, or a hint that the American multinational is not as dominant internationally as it was thirty years ago.

*

Despite these weighty reflections(TM), and the generally unspectacular nature of the goalscoring (not a single bicycle kick amongst them), the game left me in a happy frame of mind.


P.S.: I hope that 'Croat' is a fitting term. I was thinking of writing 'Croatians' instead.