SPORTS: Globalisation of Football Threatens Diversity of Styles

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 2002 (IPS) - The diversity of football playing styles worldwide is on the road to extinction as a result of the sport’s globalisation, manifest in the migration of players and coaches, and in the matches of the World Cup under way this month in South Korea and Japan.

The differences between the European and South American “schools” were once obvious, but began to disappear in the 1970s, according to Eduardo Gonçalves, better known as Tostao, centre- forward on the Brazilian national team that enthralled football fans around the globe and won the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.

The South Americans began to copy the physical training, “the pragmatism and the tactical discipline of the Europeans,” who in turn assimilated some of the South American agility and creativity, wrote Tostao in a commentary he wrote in South Korea for the Brazilian press.

As a result, “they’re all are the same,” one cannot point to differences in playing styles among the national teams competing for the world championship, he said.

The “denationalisation” of football, which has accelerated since the 1980s, only intensified the process towards sameness.

Of the 32 teams that qualified for the South Korea-Japan World Cup, 10 are coached by foreigners. Even the ever-proud England hired someone from outside the country, Sven Goran Eriksson, as technical director.

A total of 736 players are on those teams, 48 percent of whom normally play for football clubs outside their native country, and most in Western Europe.

And there are several who are naturalised citizens of the country they are representing at the international tournament, such as Emmanuel Olisadebe, of Nigeria, the sole black player among the white Poles on his team.

According to Brazilian writer and humorist Luis Fernando Veríssimo, footballers today are identified more by their “capillary communities” than by nationality.

His tongue-in-cheek reference is to the players who seek to differentiate themselves through hairstyle: long, in the case of many Argentine and Italian players, colourful, like many of the Japanese, or others whose heads are completely shaved or sport mohawks.

Another sign of the globalisation of football is that there were a relatively large number of headed goals in the first round of the World Cup, suggesting that the European style is gaining prevalence. The leading goal-maker, Germany’s Miroslav Klose, of Polish origin, made his five points with his head.

Several commentators attributed the unexpected elimination of Argentina – one of the top-seeded teams going into the World Cup – to the fact that they renounced the South American stealthy style that prizes individual prowess and feints and passing the ball foot-to-foot with great precision and quickness.

While the Argentines played “a la Europe”, keeping the ball in the air for headers against the adversaries’ goal, England, which in the past has been the leading addict of aerial play, is victorious now with its stars Beckham and Owen, who keep the ball close to the ground.

The trend towards European domination was already evident in the results going into the octa-finals of the 2002 World Cup.

Just two South American teams, Brazil and Paraguay, reached the second round of the tournament, while Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay were eliminated.

And now, with quarter-finals to begin Friday, Brazil is the only Latin American team in the running, as the United States ousted Mexico. There are still four European squads (England, Germany, Spain and Turkey), in addition to Senegal, and the surprise: South Korea, which defeated Italy 2-1 on Tuesday.

Unfortunately for the romantics who yearn for the beauty and “magic” of Brazilian football from 1958 to 1970, and of Argentina’s superstar Diego Maradona, all signs point to the triumph of the mechanical style in which physical strength prevails.

Even African football, which held promised of being a more carefree game, has replaced its ingenuity with the discipline imported along with the European coaches. Now the priority is on the athletic power of the players, and at times violence, as in the cases of South Africa and Cameroon at this year’s Cup.

Football is thus following the evolution of other sports – though more moderately – in favouring taller and more muscular players.

Twenty of the 32 teams in the World Cup record an average height of at least 1.80 metres, and there is relatively little difference between the tallest, the Germans, at an average 1.85 metres, and the shortest, the Mexicans, at 1.77. Height has become yet another factor of the sport’s homogeneity.

But football still admits some who more diminutive – for certain positions. Brazil, the country that is champion of disparity between rich and poor, has the team with greatest height differences: left wing Roberto Carlos and midfielder Juninho measure less than 1.68 metres tall.

The decline in diversity is not hurting football’s global popularity. But it is an entertainment industry in expansion, catering to the multitude of fans who want only to see their favourite team win, while those who have loved the “art” of football are left frustrated.

Football is also losing its role as a source of cultural identity. The stereotypes of German discipline, Argentine malice, Brazilian creativity, British or Nordic serenity, Spanish fury and Asian patience are substantiated on the pitch with less frequency, and these traits are no longer country-exclusive.