Soccer in Sun and Shadow

he felony of playing left-handed, which according to the Oxford English Dictionary means not only “of or pertaining to the left hand” but also “sinister or questionable.”

In the stadiums of Milan and Turin, banners insulted: “Neapolitans, welcome to Italy.” Or they evoked cruelty: “Vesuvius, we’re counting on you

A few months after he said this, Boca Juniors from Buenos Aires was defeated 2–0 by River Plate, their traditional rival. Two River fans were shot dead as they left the stadium. “We tied 2–2,” commented a young Boca fan interviewed on TV.

The president of the Argentine Rural Society, Celedonio Pereda, declared that thanks to soccer, “there will be no more of the defamation that certain well-known Argentines have spread through the Western media with the proceeds from their robberies and kidnappings.”

movie director Francisco Lombardi, who runs Peru’s Sporting Cristal.

In Brazil no one doubts the ball is a woman

There are actors unsurpassed in the art of wasting time. Wearing the mask of a recently crucified martyr, such a player rolls in agony, clutching his knee or his head, and then lies prone on the grass. Minutes pass. At a snail’s pace out comes the fat masseur, the holy hand, running with sweat, smelling of liniment, wearing a towel around his neck, and carrying a canteen in one hand and some infallible potion in the other. Hours go by, years go by, until the referee orders them to take that corpse off the field. And suddenly, whoosh, up jumps the player and the miracle of the resurrection occurs.

Half a century ago, it was a rare thing for a match to end scoreless: 0–0, two open mouths, two yawns. Now the eleven players spend the entire match hanging from the crossbar, trying to stop goals, and they have no time to score them.