The Matters of Life, Death, and More: Writing on Soccer

by Aleksandar Hemon

Overview

As the world’s eyes turn to the World Cup every four years, Aleksandar Hemon's The Matters of Life, Death, and More reminds us of a sad fact: “an average life seldom contains more than twenty World Cups—our games are tragically numbered.”

We need to pay attention, to absorb the joy, the skill, the agony, the triumph, the beauty—everything that soccer is. And soccer is, of course, everything.

In these pages, Hemon revisits memories of his first World Cup (1974), for which his then homeland, Yugoslavia, qualified in dramatic fashion—only to quickly lose their way out of the tournament. He takes us through the World Cups of the eighties, nineties, up to South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014, which was a special one for Hemon, the first time in the country’s history that Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified.

Played out on the world stage—both in the World Cup and in soccer’s international professional leagues—soccer is a high-stakes enterprise full of extreme passion, extreme talent, extreme money, and often extreme politics. But Hemon is also quick to point out that a game of soccer requires only a reasonably flat surface, a sufficiently round object, and someone to show up, and he regales us with stories of the heated games of his youth in Sarajevo’s gravel courtyards, of the frozen pick-up games of his adulthood in Chicago, and now, of his daughter’s slightly less intense soccer practices, replete with cones and shin guards.

Hemon has been celebrated far and wide for his fiction and essays, but here he takes on what is truly his lifelong, animating passion: soccer. It’s more than a sport, it’s certainly not “exercise,” and it’s not even enough to say soccer is life (as Shankly pointed out). Soccer is, in fact, the beautiful game—and never more so than in these pages. Even if, despite all of America's best efforts, Hemon still occasionally insists on calling it “football.”

"The genius of Aleksandar Hemon’s prose is a well-established, universally acknowledged fact. But his ability to read a soccer match—to really, deeply understand it—will strike readers with the force of pure, ecstatic revelation. His essays on the game are the very definition of pleasure.” —Franklin Foer, author of How Soccer Explains the World

“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” —Bill Shankly, legendary Liverpool F.C. manager

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374713164
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	06/03/2014
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three books of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man, which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Love and Obstacles. He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship and a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation, and the 2020 Dos Passos Prize. He lives in Chicago.

Read an Excerpt

The Matters of Life, Death, and More

Writing on Soccer

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By Aleksandar Hemon

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Copyright © 2014 Aleksandar Hemon
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-374-71316-4

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CHAPTER 1

Mercy, Mercy Me

I watched my first World Cup in 1974. Yugoslavia, my then homeland, had qualified for it in a dramatic game against Spain, in which Josip Katalinski, a player from Zeljeznicar, the Sarajevo team I supported (and still support), scored the decisive goal, which I can replay in my head to this day. As many a ten-year-old, soccer-crazed patriot would, I passionately roorted for the national team. One of its games on the way to the inevitable elimination was against the great Polish team, featuring Deyna, Lato, Szarmach, etc. I distinctly remember the bright-green pitch, the white-and-red jerseys of the Polish team, the blue, red, and white of the Yugoslav team—even though I watched it on a black-and-white TV. I was insanely involved: I rolled on the floor and screamed with every missed chance, I beat my chest with every decision against us, while my frightened mother tried to calm me down, claiming it was just a game, and I damned her to hell for not understanding its importance.

Needless to say, Yugoslavia was losing because of a grave and systematic injustice. How else could we lose when we had my passion to drive us forward? When we were such great and decent people? It quickly became clear to me that it was all because of the referee, who made all of his decisions against Yugoslavia, because he for some reason obviously hated us. Even the Poles, it appeared, were appalled by the ref's blatant bias. At one point, the Polish player Gorgon (who looked like a Slavic god: wide-shouldered and strong, complete with blond locks) was taking his time with a free kick. I thought that even he was so disgusted with the evil ref that he was refusing to restart the game, out of sheer solidarity peculiar to the Slavs, well acquainted with injustices of this wicked world.

Shortly thereafter, naturally, I realized that the ref was disinterested, that Gorgon was willing to do anything to win the game for his team, that Yugoslavia was a lousy, loser country and was deservedly defeated by the team that nearly made it to the finals and beat Brazil, the reigning world champion, in the third-place game. But blessed are the childhood days when it is possible to see the world neatly divided between right and wrong, between the evil ref and the rest of us! How glorious it was to live with the conviction that we were always right! That's why I remember that day: it may have been the last time I was unquestionably on the right side, and how sweet was the comfort of righteousness.

A few years ago, playing in an acrimonious soccer game that I largely spent screaming at everyone else, I got into a fight with a young man named Clemente. He said something about my sister in a disrespectful manner and I kicked him in the head. I could feel the ridge of my foot catching his cheek. Of course, I was horribly sorry later, but there was a moment (and that moment was simultaneous with kicking Clemente) when I was at perfect peace, when there was a stable, solid center somewhere deep inside my fury, somewhere in the tranquil space of unmitigated self-righteousness. After a lifetime of insult and injury—or so I felt in that instant—here was an occasion to let all that accumulated anger go: he took my blow because of something that had begun, a long time ago, with an evil referee. It was after kicking Clemente in the head that I finally and fully understood what Albert Camus meant when he said: "Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to soccer." It was after I kicked Clemente—whose name could be translated as merciful —that I started my anger therapy.

Douce France

Throughout the 1982 World Cup in Spain, I was in love, which is to say that I suffered through a painful conflict of most intense interests. I was a Sarajevo high school senior and an unwilling virgin. My girlfriend—let her be known as Renata—had just graduated and was studying for a med-school entrance exam. Under the pretense of helping her prepare for it, I spent a lot of time at her home, which she shared with her father and schizophrenic brother. In her room, I read mock test questions to her, mainly biology-related, until, slowly, hotly, we moved from the theory of adolescent biology to its practical questions: Where does the heat in our heads come from? What should we do with these hormone-driven, tinder-box bodies? The biology textbook tossed aside we practically dared her father or brother to barge in and catch us locked in a feral clench, conducting biological research by petting each other very, very heavily. Sometimes the room was so infested with arousal that we had to open the windows and let it out to affect the innocent birds and bees of Sarajevo.

If you are reading this at all, you know that sex and soccer do not mix well. In the evenings, when her father and brother would go for long walks, we would be left alone—which allowed for all kinds of fantastic possibilities—but the World Cup games were on, so I had to find balance between my soccer obsession and our biology. I regret to say that because of the conflicting circumstances I missed some games; some of them I perceived with just a half of my brain, as the other half was suspended for the sake of our biological research. But for the semifinals, I mustered enough gumption and hormone control to forgo the heavy petting and risk indefinite deflowerment deferral: I demanded to watch the game in peace—no biological experiments, please. Renata put away her books and pencils and we lay on the living room sofa facing the TV. Her father and brother were away, France vs. West Germany was on, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy.

Though my team of contrarian choice in 1982 was Italy, I was rooting for France in that particular match. Although the French were laughably unimpressive in Argentina in 1978, I liked the 1982 team: after a slow start in Round 1 (losing to England, tying with Czechoslovakia, finally beating Kuwait) Les Bleues picked it up in Round 2 group stage. They beat Austria with Genghini's superb free-kick, while Northern Ireland was disposed of mercilessly: Platini danced past the entire Northern Ireland defense to pass the ball to the puny Giresse, who scored the first goal; Rocheteau raced with the ball all the way from the half line to beat Pat Jennings at the near post; the French midfield ran the Northern Irish ragged and both Giresse and Rocheteau scored again. It was an impressive performance, but they did it all with a certain, charming ease, which invoked for me the relaxed atmosphere of Parisian cafés, as yet unexperienced. When I recall Platini from 1982, I see a full head of uncombed Rimbaudian hair, indecently short shorts and a big smile—a copain having loads of fun.

I could easily imagine Platini or Tigana growing up on a Parisian street, kicking a deflated ball with other boys, rehearsing the magic they'd dazzle the world with much later. The ease and flair they exhibited while playing was different only in degree but not in kind from the soccer I played with my mates—among the French, much as among the Brazilians, the joy of playing bespoke the purity rooted in the street game. But no one could ever accuse Germans of enjoying playing. In fact, no one could ever imagine them even playing on the street—those men were always at work, and enjoyment would run counter to their work ethic. On the parking lots where I came up playing soccer, a "German" was a boy who brought you down on the concrete, someone who would run a lot because he could do shit with the ball. The victory in soccer, I'd grown up believing, should never be a consequence of hard work—rather, it should be a kind of epiphany, an act of supreme magic, unlearnable and inexplicable. That was why I had always hated German soccer: the mechanical discipline and the maddening, unmagical ability never to give up made the classical German soccer philosophy my main ideological enemy. I've changed my mind since, but in 1982, I saw the semifinals as a great battle in the philosophical war between work and magic, between the (stereotypical) Teutonic rationality and (equally stereotypical) Gallic passion. It was set up to be a great game.

And a great game it was, but I had trouble seeing it, for Renata, liberated from the shackles of biological theory, was all over me—despite her promise to let me watch—and I was, I confess, helplessly responsive. But I peeked over her shoulder as she was working on a collection of flaming hickeys; I listened closely to the exhilarated game commentators as she alternately whispered sweet nothings and licked my ear; I leapt out of concupiscent holds to see the goals (Littbarski, Platini from a penalty) repeatedly replayed; I sped to take us to the culmination at half time but couldn't made it before the second-half whistle. In the sixtieth minute, my erection was deflated when the brutal goalie with the Teutonic name Harald Schumacher mauled the gentle Patrick Battiston, sending him to the hospital without so much as a foul or a yellow card. It seemed that Schumacher's hard work was being rewarded by the Dutch referee, and the familiar sense of philosophical injustice overwhelmed me. When the regulation time ended in a 1–1 tie and the game went into overtime, I accepted the possibility of a breakup and turned exclusively to the French-German battle.

At this point, Renata and her body vanish in my memory. I suppose she worked too hard, and could not match the excitement and magic Platini and his copains provided. I am fully aware this is an awful thing to say, and hereby admit that any and every man who spurns a woman's love for a soccer game is an idiot and nothing but an idiot.

But what a game it was. In overtime, the French played beautifully in the first half, and scored two quick goals: a gorgeous volley by Trésor; Giresse's precise shot from the edge of the box. They looked set for the finals when Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, previously injured, came in as a superhuman sub and scored a goal with his first shot. Once again I knew that, sadly, hard work would pay off, the Germans would come back from behind, and rationality and discipline would overcome magic and passion. And so it did happen: Fischer tied the game with an overhead kick to Hrubesch's header; it went to penalties; Bossis missed his penalty in sudden death and the French buckled; Renata was pissed. I was philosophically fucked and biologically unfucked. I would not lose my virginity for another few months.

Those long months included a few weeks in Africa. My father worked in Kinshasa, Zaire, where we (my mother, sister, myself) went to visit him. My remorse at sacrificing those beautiful summer evenings in Renata's arms for soccer was alleviated by daily trips to the French Cultural Center, which I stumbled upon when roaming the city. There, the French World Cup games were replayed, most often the one against West Germany. In a dark, air-conditioned room, I relived the great match; I cried foul; I bemoaned all the wasted chances; I thought of Renata, her body and biology; I became part-time French. Nothing feeds patriotism like the sense of victimhood, so I rose to my feet to shout abuse at the Germans; with my fellow Frenchmen I recalled 1940 and any number of unintelligible injustices. I couldn't speak a word of French, but there was a mass of Frenchness in the smoky room and I merged right in. I don't remember any individual faces, but somehow, strangely, I imagine Giresse being there with us, hollering at the screen. It was from him (or whoever it really was) that I learned my first words of French: "Merde! Putain!"

It was because of this experience that I rooted for France in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. They certainly were among the favorites: the team that had beautifully coalesced around the genius of Platini had become the 1984 European Champion. Platini was on top of his game: the European Player of the Year for three years running; the World Player of the Year in '84 and '85. Hence, the French sailed through the group stage; they beat Italy, the reigning champions, handily, and reached the quarterfinals to play Brazil, the perennial favorite, which hadn't conceded a goal in the previous four games. This time around, there were (un)fortunately no girlfriends to distract me.

Pele famously said that the 1986 quarterfinals in Guadalajara between Brazil and France was the greatest game he had ever seen. It is certainly one of the greatest games I've ever seen. Sócrates, the lanky, chain-smoking genius, had one of the best matches of his career, orchestrating superbly the Brazilian midfield, visibly enjoying every minute of it. Giresse and Platini, mes copains, were ruling the French game. Passes flowed, the ball moved swiftly from box to box, shots bounced off posts, a goal was in the air at any given moment. Only two were scored, however, even after overtime: the score line was 1–1. It went to penalties again and the shadow of the disaster with West Germany loomed darkly over Les Bleus—and it got ever so darker when Platini punted the ball well over the bar. But all the other Frenchmen scored, while the Brazilians missed two kicks (Sócrates, Julio César.) The French were through to the semifinals, where they were to meet West Germany again.

The game was as built up in my head as can be—it was 1940 and 1982 all over again—and my dormant French patriotism stirred awake. Alas, in a typically clinical manner, the Huns disposed of the Gauls: the French goalie Bats fumbled Brehme's shot early on, whereupon the Germans defended with infuriatingly predictable discipline and scored another goal in injury time. The French had their chances too, but missed them all: Bossis (who'd missed his penalty in Spain) failed to score—twice —facing an open goal. It was the last WC game of a great generation of French players, Platini the greatest of them all. One shudders with unattained pleasure at the thought of the finals in which Argentina's Maradona, playing in Mexico like nobody else before or after him, would've faced Michel Platini, instead of a hardworking German called Wolfgang Rolff.

The French missed the next two World Cups, both times losing their crucial qualifying games: in qualifications for the 1990 WC they failed to beat the lowly Cyprus, and lost to Yugoslavia and Scotland; they did not reach the USA in 1994, because they shockingly lost at home to Israel and Bulgaria. But a whole new generation came of age, and much different from Platini's, and in 1998 they came back with revenge. Unlike the home-based players of the '82 and '86 teams, the French of 1998 consisted of players (Zidane, Henry, Deschamps, etc.) who competed in prime European clubs. After passing through the group stage half-asleep, they beat sturdy Paraguay with a golden goal; withstood the challenge of Italy to beat them on penalties; brushed aside feisty Croatia, and crushed Brazil in the Finals, thereby becoming only the seventh nation to win the World Cup.

A great deal was made of the diversity of the 1998 team reflecting a France that provided nightmares for the right-wing patriots and racists—French-born players united with those born in former colonies; white and black Frenchmen played as one. They never faltered under pressure, doubtless spurred on by the support of the entire soccer-mad country, which recognized an exciting future for the Republic and the national soccer team that stood for it.

They did become European Champions in 2000, in an amazing finals against Italy, but in the 2002 World Cup, they lost the opening game to Senegal, all of whose starters played in the French league. They embarrassingly never got out of the group stage, managing not to score a single goal. This was largely the same team that had impressed in 1998 and Euro 2000—the downfall was most ignominious, inexplicable, and undeserving of the great tradition. I was married then, progressing toward divorce; I watched every lousy game alone.

It's hard to predict what France might do in Germany in 2006. They qualified with no problems and there is no shortage of excellent, experienced players: Henry, Viera, Trezeguet, Makélélé etc. But all of them will have had a long, competitive season behind them, by virtue of playing for the best European clubs. The good news is that they cannot meet Germany before the semifinal. If they do, the match will be an occasion for remembering all the chances we—France and I—have missed together.

As it happened, France narrowly avoided humiliation in 2006 by reaching the finals, where they lost to Italy. Before the WC started I'd placed my bets on both Italy (10:1 odds) and France (14:1) to win it. Though I did all right, it's fair to say that Zidane's infamous head-butt cost me a substantial amount of money.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Matters of Life, Death, and More by Aleksandar Hemon. Copyright © 2014 Aleksandar Hemon. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Cover,
Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Mercy, Mercy Me,
Douce France,
Happy Days Are Here Again: South Africa 2010,
Euro 2012,
On Beckham,
Mahala in Paris,
Galácticos in Hell,
The Classic Barcelona,
José Mourinho: The Evil Genius,
The End of the SAF Era: Where Do They Go from Here?,
Glory Days Are Here Again,
If God Existed, He'd Be a Solid Midfielder,
Winter Game,
Notes on Street Football,
A Brief and Personal History of Bosnian Soccer,
A Note About the Author,
Also by Aleksandar Hemon,
The Book of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon,
Copyright,