Beckenbauer Super football boots, from Adidas
Before there was a Nike swoosh, there were two brands above all others: Adidas and Puma. Before that, going back to the 1920s, there were the Dassler Brothers, Adolf (“Adi”) and Rudolf (“Rudi”), in the town of Herzogenaurach in what is now northern Bavaria. The sports shoes produced by Dassler Brothers Shoes (known by a shortened version of the German as “Geda”) were much sought-after, and prior to the 1936 Olympics, Adi gave Jesse Owens a handmade pair of Geda track cleats, crafted using a new method that made the shoes both stronger and lighter. He urged Owens to use them at the Olympics, and Owens finally agreed.
We all know how that turned out.
Prior to WWII, the brothers both joined the Nazi party, because that’s what you did if you were a business man in those days. During the war, they made shoes for the Wehrmacht and Hitlerjugend until their factory was seized and revamped to make weapons, and after the war, they made shoes for the American Army. And then the brothers split the company — and the town – in two. Two stories are told about their split – either because their wives could not get along (a real problem when the two families shared a villa), or because of Rudi’s growing suspicions that his brother got him drafted into the army which included a stint as a prisoner of the Allies. Rudi’s new company was first called Ruda, but quickly shifted to become Puma, and Adi’s half of the company was renamed Adidas. Like the brothers and their town, athletes chose a side – sometimes because of quality, and other times for sponsorship money. Whatever side you chose, those were your people.
Which brings me to those Adidas Beckenbauer Supers. Those aren’t just any Beckenbauer Supers; those are mine.
Back in junior high and high school, I played a lot of soccer/football, but my town didn’t have organized soccer leagues like they did for baseball and basketball. No, I played with a bunch of my classmates from school, many of whom were the children of international graduate students at the local university. They had been playing football since they were young, and we Americans were just trying to keep up. I quickly became enamored with being a goalie, and approached my game with a Gandalf-like “None shall pass!” attitude.
In 1977, I took a trip to England, and among my most prized souvenirs are those Beckenbauer Supers. Der Kaiser, as the West German defender was known, was a legend at the time after leading his team to become the 1974 World Cup champions, and when I saw those boots in the window, I knew I had to have them. Once I got home, I felt invincible whenever I laced them up. My career peaked with a clean sheet in the championship match of my college’s intramural soccer league, and I put that down to these boots. As you can see, I still have them.
That’s also what made me into a huge fan of the World Cup – not just the games, but all the surrounding thrill of victory and the agony of defeat (to borrow a phrase) in all the fans. Because of quirks in calendars, I often spend at least part of the World Cup in the company of a bunch of professional friends at an international conference, which makes the time even better. (Once, a panel discussion that included an Argentinian and a Brazilian became quite fun as each managed to work football puns into their otherwise professional remarks, skewering their colleague and his obviously inferior team.)
But there is also the dark side of football. In the annals of sports corruption, ugly stories abound. Pick a sport, pick a league, and you’ll find it. Gambling, bribery, performance enhancing drugs, rulebreaking that goes unenforced, and all manner of sh*thousery abounds. But some organizations are more institutionally corrupt than others, and two names stand above the rest. One is the International Olympic Committee, where the bribery competition in deciding where the Games should be held is as closely fought as the races on the track. When compared with the IOC, however, FIFA, the governing body of football, says “Hold my beer.” In 2015, the US Department of Justice led an international investigation that nabbed nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives for racketeering and led to the departure of FIFA president Sepp Blatter. While folks knew he was up to his ears in corruption, the DOJ couldn’t pin any charges on him particularly, but when so many folks below him were caught, even FIFA knew he had to go.
Enter Gianni Infantino, who was seen as a football technocrat. In the decade since, Infantino has relentlessly focused on two things: money and how to spend it. Every day, he asks himself two questions: How can FIFA extract more money, and how can he spread it around to insure that he keeps his job? The second is simple – provide “develop the game” grants to smaller nations, earning their gratitude and also quietly making it clear that insufficient gratitude might end up turning the spigot off. But the more Infantino wondered about how to extract more money, the more his eyes turned to the United States. Like Willie Sutton, Infantino knew that if you want the money, you go where the money is. And who should be waiting to greet FIFA in 2018 but Donald Trump.
For ten years, FIFA has played the US. Flattering Trump with the FIFA Peace Prize was the ultimate carrot, even as FIFA wielded the stick to get exemptions from paying taxes, special treatment by every local host city, and very specific demands of broadcasters. (Chicago famously looked at FIFAs list of demands, and laughed in their faces, saying “We know a shakedown when we see it. No thanks.”) This included “renaming” iconic stadiums, so that no other entity would get any “free advertising” through the World Cup. So Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City became “Kansas City Stadium” for two months, to the bewilderment of some of the locals, and the same happened everywhere else. Every football fan around the world knows that Mexico City has the Azteca, and not “Mexico City Stadium.”. Here in KC, I heard more than one person say “I know where Arrowhead it, but where is this Kansas City Stadium people keep talking about?” It as amusing to me that when the matches got really exciting and tense, the broadcasters forgot themselves and used the names they knew belonged. “Arrowhead is going crazy right now!” Perhaps Infantino docked their pay for that.
After the mess with Trump appearing to call in a favor from Infantino that got a suspended US star back on the field to play in the round of 16 match against Belgium, two things happened. First, every neutral fan instantly started rooting for Belgium. Second, football pundits became to muse longingly for the good old days of Sepp Blatter.
But even the combination of Infantino and Trump has not been enough to dampen my spirit. Two of the four teams playing this weekend – England and Argentina – made their base camps in the metro Kansas City area. So did the Netherlands and Algeria. Visiting fans from all four nations had some similar reactions: they were warmly welcomed by the locals, and they were NOT expecting that. Similar stories are told elsewhere, which says to me that Trump’s anti-immigrant mentality can be overcome by the face-to-face connections of ordinary folks. Among my favorite stories . . .
Both KC and Argentina love their BBQ, but have very different styles, I don’t know how this came to be, but a local KC barbeque joint opened their pits to some visiting Argentinian BBQ pitmasters, and the result was . . . amazing.
Algeria made their base camp at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, just west of KC. A couple of KU students from Algeria heard about it, and immediately set about galvanizing the local community to welcome them. They connected with the local Algerian immigrant community in the southern KC metro area, and taught their friends and neighbors about Algerian food and culture. When the Algerians arrived, they were in tears at the welcome they received. How big was this welcome? A local sportswear shop in Lawrence said they were selling more Algerian jerseys than US jerseys.
I could go on and on. Local weather reporters added Celsius temperatures to their forecasts for the sake of the visitors. Kansas City loves their tailgates, but the Argentina fans take that a step further with banderazos – in essence, tailgate/street parties the night before their matches. Amazing, and the locals loved it. Locals in almost all the cities can say the same. Boston folks talk about the Scottish fans known worldwide as Tartan Army drinking the pubs dry (or at least forcing them to send out for reinforcement kegs from the brewery). Texans can talk about Norway’s Erling Haaland going crazy for cowboy hats and Texas cuisine. Stadium staffers are stunned when the Japanese fans pick up all the trash in their sections, as a way of thanking the hosts for their work.
My favorite match has been Curaçao v Ecuador, in which Curaçao goalie Eloy Room made 15 saves in regulation. (Yes, US keeper Tim Howard holds the full match record of 16, but that was done in a match that was tied and went an extra 30 minutes.) Room was incredible, including several occasions where he’d jump to block a shot, fall to the ground, then leap back to his feet to block another shot off that rebound. The commentators watching the match included several retired goalkeepers, and they too were amazed.
Today, it’s England v France in the 3rd place match, and tomorrow it’s Spain unbreakable defense against Argentina’s unstoppabbly creative offense. Both France and England are playing for a measure of redemption, which should make for a good match. In the final, put me down for an Argentina win. Lionel Messi is the leader in both goals and assists at the World Cup, which says a lot about both him and his team. Yes, he’s gotten older and lost some stamina, but he’s also gotten wiser and craftier. If the defense gives him too much room, he will find space to take the precisely targeted shot that no one but him could see, and the goalie is left to simply take the ball out of the back of the net. If the defense plays him close, he will find a way to make a precisely targeted pass to one of his teammates, who is ready and waiting in precisely the right place at the right time to put the ball in the net themselves. That’s the essential part of Messi’s game: his team trusts him and he trusts them. He doesn’t need to score the winning goal; he just wants the person scoring that goal to be wearing blue and white stripes.
This is an open thread, where all are encouraged to express their thoughts on any subject, even their football/soccer related opinions (as wrong as they might be if you think Spain will win). If you are a resident of one of the host cities, how did things play out where you are?