Portugal faces Spain in the Round of 16 at the World Cup at 3 p.m. today. The historical and cultural irony of this matchup was pointed out by the People’s Professor, Dr. Greg Carr, recently on social media.
In response to a video circulating by Thierry Henry, one of France’s greatest footballers (has won the Premier League Golden Boot a record four times, three FA Cups and two Premier League titles), Dr Carr wrote:
“The jerseys have the names of both the settler colonies and the damned invader countries on them.
“The men wearing those jerseys are overrepresented by those who were invaded, trafficked, pulled by violences of separation and curated, generation after generation, as capital assets by Western nation-states suckling on far away and somehow regenerating motherlands in their wake.
“The “World Cup,” like the Olympics, puts this on display.
“Here’s to the “hoods,” extensions of points of origin worlds away from where they gather themselves to struggle against predator states who cheer them on, until they don’t.
“What is the French team but a machine fueled by African batteries?
“What is “Portugal” vs “Spain” but a metaphor for the first two major criminal enterprises battling each other with weapons pilfered from far-off lands? Or “Brazil” or the “US“ teams as strewn with bodies born from peoples held in everyday contempt except when on the pitch?
“The Beautiful Game is indeed that. Thanks for reminding us of the sources of so much of its beauty.”
Watch the clip below of Henry discussing what it was like growing up and playing in the suburbs of Paris.
