India did make it to the world cup, once. Kind of. Well, not really:
No, don’t rub your eyes in disbelief. India did make it to the 1950 World Cup finals. Well sort of. Four countries from Asia were invited to participate in the qualifiers. Burma, Philippines and Indonesia all withdrew, so India qualified automatically.India was placed in Group 3 with Sweden, Italy, and Paraguay. But their request to play barefoot was turned down by FIFA and they withdrew! [Link]
Sadly, this was back in the hey day of Indian Soccer, too. Until some South Asian team makes it to the world cup, we’ve always got Vikas Dhorasoo and his action figures, right?
Poor Desi folks…they are always getting the shaft even by FIFA, but then again, FIFA is the mob.
But their request to play barefoot was turned down by FIFA and they withdrew!
India withdrew from their only World Cup apperance because they didn’t want to wear shoes? You can’t make up something like that. This officially the best post of the year.
This was a tricky trivia question in almost all the quizzes that I participated in school.
It wasn’t indoor soccer, was it?
Another trivia: India was in the Davis Cup finals (Tennis) in 1974 (against South Africa) but later withdrew to protest against the aparthied policies of the South African government.
Nothing can beat barefoot mud-football during the monsoons.
i still don’t understand why vikhas from mauritius qualifies as desi but the trini team does not. not that T&T didn’t get eliminated today.
I’m waiting for a World Cup post without a mention of Vikash Dhorasoo. Please.
IMO, the World Cup is relevant enough to South Asia or ABDs or anyone else without any ‘brown’ involvement. Besides, India has had referees/assistants officiate (in the last edition), if we are desperately digging for ANY desi involvement. We’re not good at this whole football thing, at this point of time at least. End of story.
Maybe because none of the players in the Trini team are desi.
P.S. I don’t watch soccer but I am guessing based on past expericence with desis.
None of the T + T team are/were desi in this World Cup. In fact a fair proportion were British, just like the Reggae Boyz (Jamaica) in the past. Vikash Dhorasoo is ethnically entirely desi saurav. I hope that answers your question.
Nanda I kind of agree, this Vikash-obsession has gone on a bit, but hey it’s all tongue-in-cheek. You may get your wish as France are sure to crash out once again. Bunch of jokers. France are the new Holland – some of the world’s greatest players but a shoddy team.
Oh yeah (and I meant to make this joke ages ago but forgot) for another tenuous desi World Cup link, look no further than Nuno Maniche from Portugal. 100% not desi, but his name is pronounced the exact same way as a former SM ultrabrown pundit.
And now I take a look at ultrabrown. And now I see the man I was talking about has made the same joke. And now I feel silly. And now I’ve done three comments in a row which makes me look sillier.
Heh…I didn’t know there were British born players on the T&T team, but I did know that all of the players would be identifed as “Black” by an outsider (i.e. me). But I went to watch the Trinidad-England match in a Trini bar nearby and there were “desis” there, which is unsurprising given that something like 40% of the country is put in a desi race category. Would you rather consider a largely White country’s team with one diasporic desi who grew up in France as the desi connection to the World Cup or a country from the global South with strong desi cultural influences and a 40+% population of desis who are probably rooting for the team. Personal choice, as I see it.
Anyway, I’ve made my point a few times already, so i won’t drag this on any further.
Saurav, there are plenty of good reasons to root for T&T, but the second-hand desiness of the team seems a bit of a stretch. I mean, the fact that there are no desi athletes in a country that is 40% desi, is a strike against them in my opinion. Why not root for Brazil, on the grounds that it is the favorite amongst Indian fans?
The only reason I was rooting for T&T was becuase of their underdog tag. I would have loved to see Dhorasso score goals in every match..but at the same time wanted France to lose each and every match 🙂 Brazil and Argentina are my long time fav teams and I’ve been rooting for them since the ’86 World Cup. I’d like to see some Asian teams go deep in the tournament.
Diasporic solidarity? 🙂
So Indians support Brazil in India…fine. Same reason Mauritians support Man U – when they started taking an interest in football, Man U were on top. Now a whole generation of kids around the world are becoming Chelski fans. Glory supporting is universal…and universally looked down upon.
BUT
You guys are mostly American. So what’s with all this talk of who to support? How come you don’t just support America and be done with it?
If diasporic solidarity be the reason, then please hold a candle for England too 😉
South Korea? Semis last time. Not this time. But since then I’ve really developed a soft spot for them. Their fans are the best – so good natured and energetic. I’ve found South Koreans very friendly people on my travels and I wish them well as an Asian team.
Because, after today, there might not be an America to support. Me, I’m rooting for Ghana (although they’re unlikely to go much further even if they do beat America) … so I guess I’ll need another team too.
Support the nation with the biggest desi populace – that will make England your team because we have Steven ‘Genius’ Gerrard and millions of brown boys and girls who follow Liverpool, Manchester United and ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!!
(We won’t get past the Quarter Finals but hey you have to have someone to shout for!)
We have weird feelings about soccer…err football. and things our country isn’t that good at. and some of us also do about nationalism 🙂 since the world cup is not as high on our radar as elsewhere, what would be the fun of not overtinellectualizing? 🙂
but i think a fair number of people are supporting the u.s., including me to some extent.
bah.
bb, supporting brazil is not glory supporting. it’s not like indians just woke up to football. indians have been playing football since the 19th century! supporting brazil is supporting beauty. it was inculcated to us by our fathers, and our fathers’ fathers, and more than a few mothers too. the day brazil is no longer beautiful, it will lose third world support. and pigs shall sprout wings.
let me count the reasons. america is an arrogant power and not associated with beauty. the flag is ugly. that repulsive eagle is ugly. football here is getting better but has a long way to go. i like some of the individual players on the u.s. team (and not just the brown and black ones), but just because i have a u.s. passport doesn’t mean i should support the u.s.
and there’s no inherent reason you should support ingerlund, though i’m not mad at you for doing so…
I always thought the reason India never participates in the World Cup was due to the football season in the country. The top-notch players would rather play for their football clubs instead of representing their country on the international playing field….
Well, the US is out of the game now. Another reason to blame Bush and Cheney.
M. Nam
“that repulsive eagle is ugly.”
ugly? please leave the poor animals out of these football fracases.:)
I support beauty.
And underdogs.
Up GHANA!
How many dives can a team take in the last 15 minutes? Let me count the ways…or just ask the football team from Ghana 😉
but i did root for them besides.
Hail
MogamboGhana!Because we are born and raised and live in England, it is our home, it is a multiracial team, we support and follow the beautiful game with its beautiful teams in England through the Premiership every week, and we have flair players like Steven Gerard, Joe Cole and Wayne Rooney!
No, Ghana didn’t play beautifully today. I guess they must have watched the USA vs Italy game in practice and seen just how far dissimulation can carry a team. Los Americanos had it coming. Taste of their own medicine.
I stayed home to watch the game this morning. Very disappointing. Landon Donovan had a horrible set play near the end and in general the team played with a lack of energy. This really sucks. Maybe we will have to wait until Indian parents decide that the Spelling Bee and trying to be doctors was yesterday’s news and that they should force their children to play soccer in hopes of making the U.S. team. I know I will.
Yeah, I watched it too, but from the treadmill of my gym (hey, if I’m going to take almost 2 hours away from work, I might as well get my workout out of the way). It was not the most exciting or well played game in the cup. I’m hoping for better from Ghana v. Brazil 😉
aannnnnnnnd I’m BACK in the game! 😀
The foe of my colonizer is my team, or some such rule from ‘Harinder’ who would hang with the Germans for the WeltMeisterschaft; see link http://www.thelmagazine.com/4/12/fareisfare/fareisfare.cfm?ctype=1
The Germans actually field a fairly multicultural bunch with Slavs, and those of Ghanaian descent, and the Californian Bundestrainer, Klinsmann.
Did univision show any of the Croatia-Australia match? I undersatnd that Brazil is more fun to watch, but some of us want to know which teams are going to make it to the next round 🙂
post-script–i only saw the last 15 mintues of the brazil match, so maybe they showed it before that?
-s
things are so open, if france gets through i think Spain is vulnerable to them in later rounds. and england! can do well if they play to potential. in a multi-cultural world, i don’t think you’d be faulted for supporting England as a team of integrationist ala France 1998? Or France for that matter, with Dhorasoo. beyond argentina and brazil no teams are dynamos this year. its so hard to root for argentina though even if you try really hard
i’m ready to support the US now and in the next Cup, hopefully we’ll get better. although i think this loss may signal a regression of the national team. do we have players in the pipeline? granted we’ll make the next Cup almost assuredly given the region we play in can’t support a thrid contender to the US and Mexico, but….this Cup has not beengood for us. If we hadn’t lost to the Czechs 3-0, it wouldn’t have been such a terrible Cup, i don’t think Ghana outclassed us in any respect
So you don’t support the US at other team sports? Or is it just because the American football team suck? I’m sure you root for America in the Olympics – an event they are clearly the best in. Same flag, same arrogance (in fact far more). Perhaps I’m assuming wrongly and you don’t support America at the Olympics, but to me this just sounds like you want to support a team that has a chance of going somewhere. If everyone thought like that domestically, most of the smaller teams in any sport would be forgotten.
Red snapper, I wasn’t born and raised here and my team’s division 1! But I can’t see any reason I wouldn’t support England Sid. On that note, here’s what my hand looks like now! What’s more interesting is when all the British desis are die-hard England football fans but when it comes to cricket and their ‘home’ nation has a decent side, suddenly they want England to lose. Ho hum.
Baron Breaker, “patriotism” is one reason to support England. But there are also good reasons for not doing so.
One reason is that large nations like England dominate not just narratives about history but the narratives being written about the present. The Guardian (entertainingly written as it is) and the BBC (with it’s air of infallible authority- note the programs in numerous languages) are both tools for advancing the idea that England is “great.” They have full-spectrum coverage. Cultural products from England and America inundate the world: books, electronic media, “entertainment,” all kinds of things that insist that these particular cultures are unquestionably the world’s reference points.
And this is not to even get into the question of whether all the good things about England (of which there are many) outweigh the bad (the arrogance, the colonial misadventures, the wars of aggression, the bad teeth and joylessness and frankly horrible cuisine). Ghana might have a less than robust economy, but it’s been a while since they invaded a sovereign nation.
The World Cup is one of the few places where we have a chance (a rather small one, it turns out) to forget the narratives imposed on us by the larger countries and just say, hey, it’s eleven guys versus eleven on the pitch, and I’m going to cheer for those who, in so many ways, haven’t had their sides of the story presented. For me, it’s all about the perceived value of people outside the centers of power. Ecuador is valuable to me precisely because it is marginalised. I’m in solidarity with their players in ways I can’t be for the troop of millionaires representing Ingerland. It’s precisely the same reason (well, not precisely, but you get my drift) I cheer for Gandhi-ji against that bad man Mountbatten.
A guy at a bar in New York last week said, “Spain versus Tunisia. What is Tunisia?” I didn’t understand the question. Turns out the brother had never heard of Tunisia before. “What is that? A club? A country?”
So, regardless of Beckham doing that one thing that he so beautifully does, supporting the weak against the strong is the mutinous thing to do.
peace.
Mr Kobayashi,
With all due respect, I think your idea of the United States of Ingerlaanda is several decades out of date 😉
Culturally and socially, the UK is far closer to the US these days, especially London. Although there is a European twist to things too, to some extent (due to the rise in cheap holidays to places like Spain in recent years etc).
bong breaker, you’re my boy and all, but i need to set you straight on this one.
no, i don’t.
no, i don’t. you clearly haven’t understood my point. in any case, i don’t even watch the olympics at all — boring. i’m a football fan first and foremost. i’m with shankly on what he said about life and death.
you’re assuming extremely wrongly and on the basis of your assumption, you are insulting me.
i refer you to what kobayashi (who is like me a u.s. citizen) said just now. study it carefully. he speaks wise words. but here are mine:
i don’t support the united states in any international venture. not on principle: if the u.s. got involved in international ventures i approved of, i would gladly support them in them. i have no trouble with being a citizen of the u.s. and there are many qualities this society has that i enjoy very much. i don’t think there is anything inherently american about these qualities, but i am certainly happy to celebrate them wherever they do occur, including the u.s.
when the u.s. has a government i support, then i support what that government does. when it has a government i despise, as it does now, then i do not support what that government does. pretty straightforward, no?
the flag of the u.s. is not something i feel any “loyalty” or “patriotism” or “duty” towards. more broadly, i don’t recognize myself in the concept of nationality in the first place, so how could i feel nationalism?
nationality is a system of symbols and signs that contribute to organizing social life, including through institutions that have been under construction worldwide since the peace of westphalia established the modern concept of nation-state back in the 17th century. since then, in particular through the operation of imperial conquest, and also through the intellectual diffiusion of norms, nation-states have been the primary organizing method of global society. today, nation-states don’t really do a good job capturing the way the world works, especially for the hybrid and diasporic kind of people who inhabit SM, but of course we are also subject to these institutions and accustomed to these ways of thinking.
which brings us to the world cup. it is an international football tournament organized by what remains the most effective and globally understood way of organizing the world. it takes these things we have called states, which are part real and part of the imagination, and pits them against each other in an organized, refereed, and good-natured way. it is a celebration of humanity, because it is a “nationalistic” party for every country, held together and all at the same time. ask anyone you know who is in germany right now.
my relationship to each of those bundles of symbols and signs we call states in the world cup is not something to pre-judge. i maintain free will. the bundle called “united states” has certain meanings to me. some of those meanings are affectionate, some less so. the bundle called “france” has certain meanings to me, in part based on nostalgia (as i used to live there). the bundle called “ivory coast” has certain meanings to me, in part based on friendship (as i used to live there too and have lots of friends from there). but the bundle called “brazil” has meanings too, even though i’ve never set foot in the place. why should setting foot somewhere be a pre-requisite for supporting them in the world cup? i support brazil because they are the world’s custodians of a quality and beauty of play that we saw yesterday in their match against japan.
you think i only support winners? that’s bullshit, bb, and you should know me well enough after all these months on this board to know that it’s bullshit. i’d never accuse you of such a primitive way of thinking.
getting back to the u.s. team, as i mentioned earlier, there are some players on the team that i like, and i certainly agree with the overall project of making football more popular in this country. but that’s a long term venture; as the supremes said, you can’t hurry love. it’ll come, in particular as the ethnic mix in this country continues to morph. we are become more and more latin american, and football is growing as a result. as and when the u.s. team reflects that changing, brown america, i’ll be more likely to support it. but so long as the united states is the arrogant imperial power, human right violator, specialist in the double standard, slef-anointed closer-to-god, etc., it’s pretty damn unlikely that i’ll support any of “our” national teams. fuck that.
peace
and another thing:
and you won’t hear any such reason from me. you are free to support whoever you want for whatever reasons you want. it’s only a game — who you support is your esthetic and emotional choice and i wouldn’t presume to know anything about it. if you support england, well then, all i can hope for you is that england will reward your support. good luck, sincerely.
peace
Chip on the shoulder alert!
Joylessness? Huh? England is very jolly and we have lots of fun – the world that gives you Goodness Gracious Me, Fawlty Towers and The Office is noy joyless! 😉
Sid writes: >>when the u.s. has a government i support, then i support what that government does… so long as the united states is the arrogant imperial power, human right violator, specialist in the double standard, slef-anointed closer-to-god, etc
Could it be that the players of the US soccer team have the same views as you, but yet do their level best for the team/game? Considering that, don’t they deserve your support?
M. Nam
That chip has a proud history. I am not worthy to bear it, but by the same token, I’m not free to refrain from bearing it.
by that argument, all the players on all the teams deserve my support. in a way they do. my primary interest here is seeing great football.
“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious” – Oscar Wilde
Siddhartha,
Whoah, time out. This is exactly the sort of thing which certain Islamic extremist groups here in the UK openly say — fellow Brits on SM who have heard Anjem Choudhary being interviewed (along with fellow members of HuT/Al-Gharaaba/Al-Muhajiroun) will know exactly what I mean.
I’m not saying you necessarily have the same kind of mindset by any means, of course, but one does need to take great care in going down this path. Not having blind, unquestioning allegiance to one’s country of citizenship is one thing, but having no loyalty or feelings of duty towards it whatsoever is something quite different and, on occasion, a very dangerous stance to take indeed.
I can understand the patriotism etc being conditional if the nation is supposed to stand for (and have been founded on) certain high-minded ideals and the current government is regarded as straying from these ideals; however, refusing to have any allegiance towards the country whatsoever isn’t the right way to go, in my opinion anyway. You can regard yourself as a human being first and foremost and have loyalty towards the whole of humanity as your primary “allegiance”, and still be loyal, patriotic towards your country of citizenship (and your fellow citizens) on a secondary level. Unless you disagree with some/all of the fundamentals of the country full-stop, in which case you should reconsider whether continuing to live in said country is the appropriate course of action at all.
Correspondingly…..
…..this is only appropriate if these actions are fundamentally a part of what the United States is all about, which they are not. One needs to decouple the actions of the government from what the nation itself essentially stands for.
Also:
I agree completely with MoorNam on this point. One is making negative assumptions about the views of individual members of the soccer team, which may not be accurate. Let’s be careful of not veering into the concept of “collective guilt”/”group responsibility”. Sportsmen do not necessarily represent (or agree with) the political stances and military actions of their country.
However, supporting the righteous, regardless of whether they are weak or strong, is the correct thing to do. It’s not about being “mutinous” just for the sake of it.
Jai
Heh heh. Essactly. You have grasped the essential.
Of course, whether that “very dangerous stance” is to be avoided or embraced is something we probably disagree on.
In all seriousness, I agree. But, again, how “righteous” is defined might not be something we find easy agreement on.
Whoah, time out. This is exactly the sort of thing which certain Islamic extremist groups here in the UK openly say — fellow Brits on SM who have heard Anjem Choudhary being interviewed (along with fellow members of HuT/Al-Gharaaba/Al-Muhajiroun) will know exactly what I mean.
Thats guilt by association, a logical fallacy. I kind of like Sid’s view of the global citizen. When a rabble of Brits chant “Where’s your army?” in England-Agentina-matches, soccer becomes sanctioned nationalism. And thats pretty darn ugly.
jai,
don’t patronize me. also, don’t tar me by association.
well then. but you sure as hell made the association.
i didn’t say that. i’m a u.s. citizen and i do what is required by it: i obey u.s. laws, i pay my u.s. taxes to the u.s. government, and i do my civic duty and vote in u.s. elections. supporting the u.s. team in some game is not on the same level. it’s an esthetic choice.
citizenship is a transaction. the government of the country in questions extends to you certain rights and obligations; you in return do what its laws and constitution require of you. i do exactly what u.s. laws and constitution require of me: in that respect i am a perfect citizen, as are most other people.
that’s it, that’s all.
“patriotism” is an atavism, as well as an ideological concept that people deploy to demand that other people behave in ways that they dont feel threatened or challenged by.
i am a citizen, not a patriot.
peace