The world will probably best remember World Cup 2010 as the dawn of the Age of the Vuvuzela, but a few other things also happened, most of them soccer-related.
This World Cup feels more diverse than in years past, and many of the tournament’s new stars are playing under the flags of countries like Germany thanks to improved immigration laws. It’s a welcome change, to see teams of insanely talented (and good-looking) young men that don’t appear to have been grown in Rocky IV-era science labs.
The less diversity-friendly narrative and legacy of this World Cup took place in the officiating. In a tournament with 64 matches, the first World Cup held in Africa, the calls that stood out, the calls that may finally lead FIFA to change its rules and adopt new review processes, were matches that went against the giants of the first world.
Every sport has its infuriating moments, times when it seems physically impossible for the officials to have missed the offense. But Alexi Lalas and Jim McManaman didn’t spend hours discussing the merits of calls of the South Korea-Greece match, but the disallowed US goal in its Slovenia game was egregious enough to warrant an expedited review of that match’s referee and technology-enhanced dissection. The outcry over England’s non-goal in its humiliating loss to Germany was almost enough to make one forget that the final score was 4-1.
This isn’t to say there weren’t mistakes in games played by nations less culturally dominant, but you’d be forgiven for forgetting that Mexico lost to Argentina thanks to a blown off-side call just after Germany pulverized England. There were plenty. They just came mostly during the early rounds, and they weren’t discussed on American, English-language World Cup coverage.
Saturday’s third place match escaped any of the intercontinental tension of the Uruguay-Ghana (and the earlier USA-Ghana) match, possibly because, for all the diversity on both teams, the captains of Germany and Uruguay looked like they could be cousins (they’ve also both won before). Perhaps it is so easy to applaud the varied ethnic makeup of this year’s World Cup elite because it makes it easier to cheer for the countries we know best.
The final match between Spain and the Netherlands could not live up to the excitement of Saturday, even with two teams killing themselves to win their first title. Aside from a few gruesome moments, it just wasn’t terribly suspenseful to watch the European champions play South Africa’s former colonial overlords. Maybe Paul the Octopus picked Spain because it just didn’t feel right. The game’s lone goal came from Spain’s Andres Iniesta after nearly 120 minutes of fierce but personality-free play. After so many heart-stopping finishes, the final score or 1-0 felt like anticlimax.
It was also depressing, but unsurprising, that it took until the last day of the tournament for the American television announcers to bring up the history that the Netherlands and South Africa share. Early rounds of the tournament coverage featured plenty of color pieces on the history of apartheid but managed to omit information that would have placed the policy, and the legacy of institutionalized racism in South Africa, into more context. To hear ESPN tell it, racism is simply a sad chapter in the history books.
The ebb and flow of fan support as teams were eliminated mixed with the commentary of the announcers to make villains of convenient targets. Flopping and diving is always an issue, but Ghana’s suspicious falls in its Round of 16 match against the US inspired vitriol normally reserved for Zidane-style headbutts. Algeria was also demonized for playing without honor for trying harder to stop the US from scoring than trying to score. 32 teams from all over the world came together, and the media narrative still managed to make cheaters and liars out of African teams.
The USA’s fans were hardly the only ones to create villains. The tens of thousands of boos directed at Uruguay’s Luis Suarez during the third-place game came from disgruntled supporters of Ghana, the last African team to exit the tournament. It may have been disappointing to hear people take out their frustrations in less than sporting fashion, but it was also a heartening glimpse at what the other stories of this World Cup are.
For the fans in the stadium on that Saturday, it wasn’t about colonialism or escaping shame at the hands of the press. It was as simple as revenge, honor, and the joy of simple, all-out, bloodthirsty competition on the field. Like the end of Rocky IV. But now with bonus vuvuzelas.