Uruguay, a small nation with a deep-seated passion for soccer, is the inspiration for any underdog vying to win a World Cup.
soccer
Posted inEditor's Pick
Tomorrow Belongs to God
LaMia Flight 2933, carrying Brazil’s Chapecoense football club to the 2016 Copa Sudamericana in Colombia, crashed as it approached the airport. Only six passengers survived, including three players. This is their story, in their words. (Also available in Portuguese.)
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes, Sports
There’s No Overtime In This Game
Georgia Cloepfil is only in her mid-twenties, but she already contemplating the end of her soccer career.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Beat the Clock
“Halls of fame and records and medals and posters belong to fans. Athletes do not mythologize the body in this way. What they do is navigate decay.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Swan (Mascot) that Would Not Be Tamed
The story of a football team’s mascot, the man inside the costume, and the town that rallied around its local hero.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Herr Blatter, Have You Ever Taken a Bribe?’
In a recent piece for the Washington Post, Michael E. Miller profiled Andrew Jennings— a doggedly obsessed, “curmudgeonly” investigative reporter who helped expose the FIFA scandal that brought down Sepp Blatter. According to Miller’s piece, if Blatter’s downfall can be traced to a single moment it was when Jennings grabbed the microphone at a Zurich press conference after […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Football as a Barometer of Italian Society
“Football is a very simple barometer of a society,” says Paddy Agnew, an Irish Times correspondent and former RAI television commentator who has covered Italian soccer since the 1980s. “And if the red light is flashing in society, the red light is flashing in football. That’s what it is here, they’ve run out of petrol. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Tim Howard Doesn't Enjoy Soccer Games
“In goal, you’re taking in all the movement, all the runs,” Howard said. “You see everything. You’re yelling. You’re tense. You’re so wired-in. To tell you the truth, I don’t enjoy the game—I’ve never actually had fun within the course of those ninety minutes.” Because the object is always a shutout—a “clean sheet,” as the […]