Soccer

How Soccer explains the world!

The big debate now is which sport that represents our presidential candidates, lots of sports fans raise the question of which president candidates is the real man when it comes to sports. The conservatives would like to portray Senator Kerry shifting position and flip flop to surfing and girly sports, in the other hand they portray President Bush’s stubbornness and steadfast position to top gun mission accomplished kind of a guy. But to really understand the contrast positions between the simplistic President Bush (myopic unilateral and go it alone) and the complicated contradictory one of Senator Kerry (shifting multilateral internationalist), you need to look elsewhere; you need to look at the contrast of the football and soccer game. President Bush’s position represents the game of football; that is always about exceptionalism, being different and being special, and the one that sets us apart form the rest of the world. President Bush is not moved and was utterly surprised when the rest of the world don’t agree with him. With his sense of entitlement he believes that the rest of the world should follow his lead; he is the world quarterback, and once he calls the play you had better run his direction or you are out of the play (contracts). For him, winning is all about physical elimination of the enemy (opponents) and acquiring their territories on the field all the way to the end zone (Kabul, Baghdad). Kerry’s position on the other hand represents the game of soccer, it is inclusive, eloquent complex and multi-nationals, in soccer it is not so much about occupation of territories; soccer is about shifting position, maneuvering and running a series of attacks and retreats, wining without physical elimination. Football is about staying the course, in your face overly specialized; when you are on the offense there is no retreat. Soccer however is about retreat from defense to offense with such fluidity, in soccer you need to understand not just your skills and capabilities but at the same time avoids the opponent’s strengths. Football has been always the American way of inviting people from allover world to the American way; in the other hand soccer invites people from all over the world to be a soccer fan, a citizen of the world; so to get us out of the quagmire of Iraq we need to elect a president who plays soccer not football; and speaking French won’t heart either.

Ahmed Tharwat 10/28/04

Producer/Host of the Arab American TV Show Belahdan
Minnetonka, MN