World Cup Identities

Remember two weeks ago I reminded folks that there are at least three main dynamics behind the enthusiasm of Caribbean people for selected World Cup teams? In short - football and self-identity – or a combination of the two.

There is another reason why we may extend support to a team. But at the current rate, T&T and Jamaica have too much work to do to get anywhere close to World Cup qualification in the near future and the others have even more remote ambitions/capabilities.

But, back to reality. The more knowledgeable would have as their first choice the teams that display the greatest skills on the pitch. They know the players. They can name more than three of them on their team of choice, complete with personal and team stats.

These people can also further validate such support through intimate knowledge of the major leagues in Europe and faint but sometimes reasonable acquaintance with what happens in Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and Africa.

But most of the rest of us also have other, non-footballing, reasons to assign support - or a combination of fair knowledge of the sport and a sense that the tournament is much more than a game.

One criterion does not automatically preclude the next. I have a close friend, let’s just call him PR, who backs teams “with more people who look like us” while knowing full well that footballing skills are often lodged in far more monochromatic teams of another hue.

That is where the other question of domestic and international politics enters the field of play. For instance, had Russia been involved in the current tournament, there would have been chaotic scenes at our bars. NATO, US and EU geo-politics, (non-playing) left- and right-wing posturing would have been on open display.

(By the way, did anyone of you note nominally socialist Russia’s defiant defence of free market conditions regarding the price of oil recently?)

This is not to say that legit connoisseurs of the game would also not have sentimental attachments to one team or the other. Those who lived and worked and were schooled in the UK were there, openly or quietly, backing England in front of their Windrush branded screens.

The English commentators who could not contain their enthusiasm, my Trini/UK friend in Colorado, Sycophantic Manu Bro (PR), Shifty OG, and the guys assembled at a Kingston hotel last Saturday still drying tears.

There are also those who fancy a North American destiny and mourned the early departure of the US team … and to a lesser extent, Canada’s.

I also know others who hold to the myth of German “efficiency” and the dated reputation of their impregnable (footballing) defence.

In short, emotions are difficult to attend to at the height of football passion; especially since there is also the question of self-identity. Take today’s match, for instance.

How more conflicted can anyone, from among us be when France (with so many players who look like us and names we know, and the magical Mbappé) comes up against the identity-conflicted Morocco in a World Cup semi-final?

Yes, two weeks ago I called the names Mbappé, Tchouaméni, Dembélé, Koundé and Konaté when declaring second-choice preference for France to win the tournament.

But, like so many others, completely missed the metaphorical opportunities made available by a determined Morocco team that keeps Palestinian flags in its kits and whose Sofiane Boufal described its win over Spain as a win “for the Arab world.” Contrarily, his coach promptly retorted that his team flies the flag of African football high.

It’s a country as much captured by global institutional arrangements – part of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) grouping to capture its duality - African/Islamic – as we are as an incidental attachment to “Latin American and Caribbean” groupings within the UN and other systems.

Yet, in the African/Islamic sense, Morocco is not Senegal or Cameroon - who beat Brazil 1-0 on December 2 - without the current passions now associated with Morocco in T&T.

Interesting, isn’t it? Today’s World Cup semi-final between France and Morocco brings together two teams that tell the story of international affairs in ways we in the Caribbean understand very well.

Yes, it’s football. Yes, there are issues associated with how global administration of the sport is conducted. But football and identity have merged in a hitherto unlikely place. We’re used to that here.