portugal/france
Jul. 5th, 2006 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321I am not sure whom to be for in this match. I think I will wait and see how they play.
Why I would be for Portugal:
• Because they are one of the teams I have been supporting (along with Australia, Germany, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mexico and Brazil), and they are the only of 'my' teams to make it through to this stage
• I am obsessed with Cristiano Ronaldo's beauty.
• Because their kit is wine-red and looks cool.
• Because they have never won the World Cup and not made it to the semi-finals for 40 years. Both France and Italy are former champions.
• Because they entranced me at Euro 2004 and were cheated out of the Cup by Greece.
Why I would be for France:
• Because they played like angels against Brazil. And even though I desperately wanted Brazil to go through to play Portugal, I finally had to succumb to the superior powers of the demi-gods Zidane, Henry and Ribéry.
• Because they are grand-dads who are staging a come-back, and if Zidane is a grand-dad at age 34, then I am a revived mummy. So it is good to see the not-even-so-middle-aged mature gents stick it to the bumfluff-moustache fly-off-the-handle young jocks.
• Because their World Cup win in 1998 was so moving.
• Because I am obsessed with Cristiano Ronaldo's beauty. And no matter what happens, I get to see Cristiano a second time, and in a way it would be fun to have him play Germany for third place on Saturday.
• Because I am obsessed with Cristiano Ronaldo weeping. And if he loses against France, he will weep. And I will tape it.
Why I will decide as I watch:
• Because my over-riding desire right now is to beat Italy, I will watch them tonight and decide who is more likely to achieve this on Sunday. And if France plays as they did against Brazil, that will be France. At the moment, I can't see Portugal doing it. They are simply not good enough. But if the French suddenly fall down with Alzheimer's and exhaustion from their Brazil extravaganza, that will be a problem, too. Because the Italians are very strong!
But I bear a grudge.
I suppose I should bear the grudge against Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo who awarded the 89th-minute penalty against Australia after Fabio Grossi's spectacular am dram dive and not against the Italians. After all, they tried their diving tricks yesterday but it didn't get them anywhere because wonderful Mexian ref Benito Archundia would have none of it and just let them tumble like Olympic athletes on the floormat.
Tonight's referee is the Uruguayan Jorge Larrionda.
A note on homophobia, patriarchy and the England game:
It distresses and upsets me to see the hate-fest unleashed against my pretty baby in the country wherein I reside. I detect xenophobia in the pundits' and punters' tirades, as well as homophobia (they like to call him 'ladyboy'). I might even have enough brainspace left to offer an analysis of masculine identity formation, patriarchy and football. Hoho. Because the Men Who Love Men are unfortunately also the Men Who Hate Men. And they hate them for interesting reasons that are often almost the same as the reasons they love them. Especially the attitude to masculine beauty is an ambivalent one because bound up with the anxious desire to fend off any suspicion of the Men's homosocial lust tipping over into actual homosexual lust. So they project the homosexual lust that they are terrified of being suspected of onto the beautiful ephebes themselves. Hence the weird epithet 'ladyboy' which could be read both ways: a ladyboy is someone who is popular with the ladies, and a ladyboy is someone who is actually himself a bit of a lady.
It's the latter interpretation that, I think, prevails right now; he is too beautiful to be a Real Man so he must be a bit of a Non-Man. And a Non-Man is always a pin-up pouf.
Unless he is David Beckham. In which case he floats, like Brad Pitt, above these skirmishes in the foot hills.
I have also been thinking about homophobia within football, and I think it is quite rife. I don't know of any footballers who are gay and 'out' (Flist, anybody?). The overwhelming type-casting for footballers is heterosexual, and a gaggle of wags guarantees this. The more they paw each other on the pitch, the more the image of thei inherent heterosexuality must be upheld. If, forfend, one of them would actually be a 'real' homosexual (as opposed to a feverishly imagined 'ladyboy' or a homosocial post-goal groper), this would topple the entire edifice of permissible groping. And that would throw them all into such dithers of anxiety it would Not Be Good.
They are so frail, are men. Where would they be without patriarchy? All dead. They'd have stove each others' heads in before reaching the age of reason. Which, for men, seems to be around 32 at the earliest. Which is why referees need to be older than the players, and why coaches need to be grey-templed. They are the patriarchs. They are the lead-wolves who keep the pack in check.
Pics of referees
Jorge Larrionda, Uruguay: France/Portugal
Benito Archundia, Mexico: Germany/Italy
Luis Medina Cantalejo, Spain: Australia/Italy
Valentin Ivanov, Russia, he of the legendary 20 cards in Netherlands/Portugal:
Graham Poll, England, he of the legendary third yellow card in Australia/Croatia:
And here my favourite referee of all time, Pierluigi Collina, Italy, who has, alas, retired now but oh, how he could terrify a pack of 22 men into submission simply by looking at them:
Why I would be for Portugal:
• Because they are one of the teams I have been supporting (along with Australia, Germany, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mexico and Brazil), and they are the only of 'my' teams to make it through to this stage
• I am obsessed with Cristiano Ronaldo's beauty.
• Because their kit is wine-red and looks cool.
• Because they have never won the World Cup and not made it to the semi-finals for 40 years. Both France and Italy are former champions.
• Because they entranced me at Euro 2004 and were cheated out of the Cup by Greece.
Why I would be for France:
• Because they played like angels against Brazil. And even though I desperately wanted Brazil to go through to play Portugal, I finally had to succumb to the superior powers of the demi-gods Zidane, Henry and Ribéry.
• Because they are grand-dads who are staging a come-back, and if Zidane is a grand-dad at age 34, then I am a revived mummy. So it is good to see the not-even-so-middle-aged mature gents stick it to the bumfluff-moustache fly-off-the-handle young jocks.
• Because their World Cup win in 1998 was so moving.
• Because I am obsessed with Cristiano Ronaldo's beauty. And no matter what happens, I get to see Cristiano a second time, and in a way it would be fun to have him play Germany for third place on Saturday.
• Because I am obsessed with Cristiano Ronaldo weeping. And if he loses against France, he will weep. And I will tape it.
Why I will decide as I watch:
• Because my over-riding desire right now is to beat Italy, I will watch them tonight and decide who is more likely to achieve this on Sunday. And if France plays as they did against Brazil, that will be France. At the moment, I can't see Portugal doing it. They are simply not good enough. But if the French suddenly fall down with Alzheimer's and exhaustion from their Brazil extravaganza, that will be a problem, too. Because the Italians are very strong!
But I bear a grudge.
I suppose I should bear the grudge against Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo who awarded the 89th-minute penalty against Australia after Fabio Grossi's spectacular am dram dive and not against the Italians. After all, they tried their diving tricks yesterday but it didn't get them anywhere because wonderful Mexian ref Benito Archundia would have none of it and just let them tumble like Olympic athletes on the floormat.
Tonight's referee is the Uruguayan Jorge Larrionda.
A note on homophobia, patriarchy and the England game:
It distresses and upsets me to see the hate-fest unleashed against my pretty baby in the country wherein I reside. I detect xenophobia in the pundits' and punters' tirades, as well as homophobia (they like to call him 'ladyboy'). I might even have enough brainspace left to offer an analysis of masculine identity formation, patriarchy and football. Hoho. Because the Men Who Love Men are unfortunately also the Men Who Hate Men. And they hate them for interesting reasons that are often almost the same as the reasons they love them. Especially the attitude to masculine beauty is an ambivalent one because bound up with the anxious desire to fend off any suspicion of the Men's homosocial lust tipping over into actual homosexual lust. So they project the homosexual lust that they are terrified of being suspected of onto the beautiful ephebes themselves. Hence the weird epithet 'ladyboy' which could be read both ways: a ladyboy is someone who is popular with the ladies, and a ladyboy is someone who is actually himself a bit of a lady.
It's the latter interpretation that, I think, prevails right now; he is too beautiful to be a Real Man so he must be a bit of a Non-Man. And a Non-Man is always a pin-up pouf.
Unless he is David Beckham. In which case he floats, like Brad Pitt, above these skirmishes in the foot hills.
I have also been thinking about homophobia within football, and I think it is quite rife. I don't know of any footballers who are gay and 'out' (Flist, anybody?). The overwhelming type-casting for footballers is heterosexual, and a gaggle of wags guarantees this. The more they paw each other on the pitch, the more the image of thei inherent heterosexuality must be upheld. If, forfend, one of them would actually be a 'real' homosexual (as opposed to a feverishly imagined 'ladyboy' or a homosocial post-goal groper), this would topple the entire edifice of permissible groping. And that would throw them all into such dithers of anxiety it would Not Be Good.
They are so frail, are men. Where would they be without patriarchy? All dead. They'd have stove each others' heads in before reaching the age of reason. Which, for men, seems to be around 32 at the earliest. Which is why referees need to be older than the players, and why coaches need to be grey-templed. They are the patriarchs. They are the lead-wolves who keep the pack in check.
Pics of referees
Jorge Larrionda, Uruguay: France/Portugal
Benito Archundia, Mexico: Germany/Italy
Luis Medina Cantalejo, Spain: Australia/Italy
Valentin Ivanov, Russia, he of the legendary 20 cards in Netherlands/Portugal:
Graham Poll, England, he of the legendary third yellow card in Australia/Croatia:
And here my favourite referee of all time, Pierluigi Collina, Italy, who has, alas, retired now but oh, how he could terrify a pack of 22 men into submission simply by looking at them: