The magic of sports
May. 3rd, 2014 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zaelleI'm boycotting the World Cup this year. I've ranted about it before so you all know why. However, with the world's most awaited football tournament starting 40 days from now, the media explosion is picking up - ads, jerseys, your favorite football players everywhere and the music...
Football discussions/rants follow in which I go through all the reasons why I believed I could easily ignore 'Brazil 2014'.
Brazil 2014 is looking to be a very average world cup. It lacks the excitement of the previous World Cup because in that case, it was Africa's first world cup. In this case, Brazil is no stranger to football or hosting. The teams that have qualified are the expected ones. One may get excited for Bosnia-Herzegovina as this is the first time they have qualified for the World Cup (and personally, I have a soft spot for the Balkan states. I rooted for Croatia in '98).
I'm also not a fan of Brazilian football (I'm also not a fan of Italian football, so it's ironic that I will be writing about it) because when I first started watching it, their game was less about skill and more about acting. Many would argue that the sly games of tricking referees into awarding penalties and faking injuries are also an integral part of the sport, but I stand against. Few things get me more excited than a truly skilled team winning by playing clean. What stands against excellent teams such as Brazil and Italy using these tactics (and using them so much it's become a part of their national strategy) is that these are teams with the skill and expertise to win without...or at least one hopes. Performing, rather than playing, kills any excitement I have for them as a spectator.
I suppose it says something however that I have picked out the 2 most successful national teams in the world. Brazil has won the cup the most in World Cup history - 5 times and Italy is a close second, having won it 4 times. In fact, Italy won the cup in 2006 by continuously bullying and harassing France's best player (arguably one of the greats in football history) Zinadine Zidane. They ran by and insulted him, insulted his sister, his mother and kept this on throughout the whole game until at the end he lost it and headbutted his latest tormenter, thus getting sent off with a red card and killing the morale of the French team. I don't like the French, but I'm on their side on this one. I suppose it speaks to the respect that Zidane commanded through his many years as an honorable and excellent player that it was so easy to believe him. Maybe it's karma but since 2006, Italy has performed poorly, cumulating in a most embarrassing performance in 2012.
For honest teams, I guess the credit goes to Germany, who has won 3 cups. I suppose in this way, national football is kind of like Game of Thrones - the more you cheat, act and provide a show, the more results you get. It's kind of odd that such a game has captured me, but I was young when it did and I didn't understand this back then.
France 1998 - Ricky Martin's La Copa de la Vida
The best World Cup song in my opinion, is still Ricky Martin's 'La Copa de la Vida'. He released this song for the '98 World Cup in France. My first World Cup, the one that captured me.
And this song was impressive mostly for its energy - Man oh man did Ricky Martin deliver on the explosive energy and passion that is felt for the beautiful game. It gets you the same way football fever does, it makes you want to shout, run and go a little mad. This song is still considered by many as the best and most perfect World Cup song ever made. When people get nostalgic for a World Cup, this tends to be the song they look for, no matter which cup it actually was.
Japan/South Korea 2002 - Boom! - Anastasia
This tough act to follow was succeeded by Anastasia. I did like her sound as an artist. She was experimental and funky and her contribution to World Cup songs - Boom! for the co-hosted Korea/Japan cup in 2002. She tried her best to capture the rising energy and adrenaline of a match but fell a little short. It's not a song that many people remember as a World Cup song, but you do look for it occasionally just to remember what it sounded like. I think we all cut her some slack though, because it was fairly impossible to beat 'La Copa de la Vida'.
Germany 2006 - The Time of our Lives - Il Divo and Toni Braxton
For Germany's 2006 World Cup, the powers that be (FIFA) decided on a completely different approach. They selected Il Divo and Toni Braxton to create a contemporary classical/soulful contribution to capture I suppose the emotional and internal beauty of the game, rather than the expected adrenaline pumping mayhem. It was interesting that they decided to move in a completely different direction here and applaudable. It's not a bad song, it's just one that people tend to forget about. It's not even the first semi-classical attempt. For better or worse however, Ricky Martin re-defined world cup songs in 1998 and that energy became something fans expected, rather than the other options.
South Africa 2012 - Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)! - Shakira and (BONUS) Waving Flag - K'Naan
Finally we got another classic in 2012 with 'Waka Waka (This Time for Africa!)', delivered by the lovely Shakira. There was some controversy over FIFA's decision to select Shakira. Many felt that with Africa's first World Cup, an African singer (or at least a singer with African heritage) should have been selected to deliver the song. While I understood the sentiment, I didn't agree. I suppose I felt that the World Cup is an event that belongs to the world and previous artists were not selected based on region so why should the first African cup introduce a discriminatory role? Ricky Martin was neither French nor European when he sang for France. In fact, he hails from Puerto Rico, which isn't even a football nation. These conditions did not get in the way of him delivering an epic song. Besides, I was a Shakira fan and I trusted her to deliver a wonderful song.
And she did. 'Waka Waka' made you want to get up and dance. While 'La Copa de la Vida' encouraged you to go a little crazy, Waka Waka also got you excited and it featured a distinctly African sound. This was no mean feat. The African continent is diverse and each nation/tribe has unique tones and musical signatures. Shakira managed to tap into something that satisfied that identity and do justice to it. Once 'Waka Waka' was released, the outrage died down considerably. In my opinion, and possibly because I'm biased due to how much South Africa 2012 meant to me, 'Waka Waka' is my second most favorite World Cup song.
It's kind of cute too because Shakira is a football fan, and it was through writing and performing this song that she met her soulmate - Gerard Pique who plays central back defense for FC Barcelona. He's actually one of the best central back defenders in the world. Yes, I was a fan of him too, so when they hooked up, it was one of those celebrity couple squeals for me. I suppose they've become the Posh & Becks of the Spanish speaking football/entertainment world (well, unless you support Real Madrid - Barcelona's rivals - then Shakira's a traitor because she used to support them).
I also loved K'naan's 'Waving Flag' which was an unofficial song (he sang it for Coca Cola to cash in on World Cup season) but it also captured the energy and joy of the game. It kind of was a sellout moment for him, but it was a good one as it brought more publicity to the meaning of his original song. The original waving flag was about K'naan's childhood in Somalia and his hopes that despite all the fighting and violence, that his country could climb out of the rubble and start anew. He changed the lyrics for the world cup to have a much happier meaning of course, but for your reference (if you're interested), here is the original waving flag:
and the commercial one:
Before I move on from South Africa 2012, I want to express how important football has been to Africa. While we hear news of extreme hooliganism in Europe and South America (especially South America! Dear lord, football fever there scares me. This is the place where players get stabbed on the field and referees get beheaded by angry mobs), in Africa football has once been a source of peace. It was a famous African football player - Didier Drogba who used his influence as a beloved player to help end the civil wars in Cote d'Ivoire. It's kind of amazing, but the 2 parties agreed to meet and negotiate after he released a plea for them to do so. Et voila - peace. It goes both ways though, and it's not always a good thing. Sometimes football players return home and run for President, despite having absolutely no experience. They do cause more trouble at times. However, I choose to be more inspired by Drogba's example.
And this year...omg this year...grrr.
Brazil 2014 - We Are One (Ole Ola) - Pitbull ft Jennifer Lopez & Claudia Leitte
When I first heard that Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez were selected to collaborate and bring us 2014's World Cup song, I had high expectations. I was a little curious as to why in singers from the Spanish speaking world dominated the official world cup theme so much but otherwise I was satisfied. If for nothing else, Pitbull and J.Lo know how to get us to move (they've done so before on collaborations) so even though I knew I wasn't going to watch this year's cup, I was looking forward to the song.
Wow. This song is a let-down. I'm not the only one who thinks so. It's amazing how little energy there is in this song. It sounds like a very average Pitbull song (or shall I say it sounds like every other Pitbull song, and not even his better ones). I don't want to dance to this song, I don't even want to stand. I just sit here and wonder what went wrong or why Pitbull got lazy with the expectations of this song.
The comments on this song are hilarious. While all the previous songs I've talked about here have their fair share of positive comments, Ole Ola is generally blasted and man is it ever earned. Comments such as 'Pitbull knows nothing about football', 'Everything about this song is wrong!' and how every other song being made to cash in on the World Cup (that isn't official) is being lauded as 'well, it's better than Pitbull'. The only thing good about this song is the chorus and it even starts off on a good note. Then he starts rapping and the energy disappears.
The other thing Pitbull failed to do, despite the Ole Ola chorus was to create a sound that was accepted by Brazillians as Brazillian. Maybe it's because when he raps, the Ole Ola sound disappears totally. He retreats back into his own sound for it. This is on contrast to Shakira recreating an African sound. Il Divo's operatic version was appropriate to Germany and even La Copa de la Vida matched France's dance theme at the time. Admittedly, nothing about Boom! sounded Japanese or Korean.
It's possible that after I've killed this song in this review that you guys expected something a lot worse than what was made :P
Finally, the odd thing that has been noticed about the 2014 album - all the songs are in Spanish or by singers from the Spanish world. There's maybe 1 or 2 songs in Portuguese. It makes sense from the perspective of this being a South American world cup, but not in the context of Brazil being extremely proud of the fact that they are the one Portuguese speaking country in South America and they have the best national football team out of all of them (formerly). Compare this to 2012, where yes, the official song was sung by a Colombian, but she featured African artists in her song. The entire album for 2012 either had African artists or featured African artists. I suppose 2014 followed that theme with one token Portuguese singer or one Brazilian song. Oh well, can't win them all. Luckily for 2014, the official Anthem (don't get me started but the official anthems and official songs are 2 different things) is energetic enough to make up for Pitbull's failure.
Santana, Avicii, Wyclef Jean and Alexandre Pires gave us Dar um Jeito. Enjoy:
Despite all this - my moral objections, how average the tournament is, how the teams are generally the average qualifying ones, how misplaced the songs are...I'm surprised. When the ad came on TV yesterday, blaring Pitbull's atrocious world cup song and showing me teams that I don't care about, my heart was racing, my breathing shallowed and I just wanted to watch and be in football. I still have the fever, even with all my moral objections and preparation to ignore the World Cup this year. I'm still not watching the World Cup, but this is going to be more difficult than I thought.
Eep.
Football discussions/rants follow in which I go through all the reasons why I believed I could easily ignore 'Brazil 2014'.
Brazil 2014 is looking to be a very average world cup. It lacks the excitement of the previous World Cup because in that case, it was Africa's first world cup. In this case, Brazil is no stranger to football or hosting. The teams that have qualified are the expected ones. One may get excited for Bosnia-Herzegovina as this is the first time they have qualified for the World Cup (and personally, I have a soft spot for the Balkan states. I rooted for Croatia in '98).
I'm also not a fan of Brazilian football (I'm also not a fan of Italian football, so it's ironic that I will be writing about it) because when I first started watching it, their game was less about skill and more about acting. Many would argue that the sly games of tricking referees into awarding penalties and faking injuries are also an integral part of the sport, but I stand against. Few things get me more excited than a truly skilled team winning by playing clean. What stands against excellent teams such as Brazil and Italy using these tactics (and using them so much it's become a part of their national strategy) is that these are teams with the skill and expertise to win without...or at least one hopes. Performing, rather than playing, kills any excitement I have for them as a spectator.
I suppose it says something however that I have picked out the 2 most successful national teams in the world. Brazil has won the cup the most in World Cup history - 5 times and Italy is a close second, having won it 4 times. In fact, Italy won the cup in 2006 by continuously bullying and harassing France's best player (arguably one of the greats in football history) Zinadine Zidane. They ran by and insulted him, insulted his sister, his mother and kept this on throughout the whole game until at the end he lost it and headbutted his latest tormenter, thus getting sent off with a red card and killing the morale of the French team. I don't like the French, but I'm on their side on this one. I suppose it speaks to the respect that Zidane commanded through his many years as an honorable and excellent player that it was so easy to believe him. Maybe it's karma but since 2006, Italy has performed poorly, cumulating in a most embarrassing performance in 2012.
For honest teams, I guess the credit goes to Germany, who has won 3 cups. I suppose in this way, national football is kind of like Game of Thrones - the more you cheat, act and provide a show, the more results you get. It's kind of odd that such a game has captured me, but I was young when it did and I didn't understand this back then.
France 1998 - Ricky Martin's La Copa de la Vida
The best World Cup song in my opinion, is still Ricky Martin's 'La Copa de la Vida'. He released this song for the '98 World Cup in France. My first World Cup, the one that captured me.
And this song was impressive mostly for its energy - Man oh man did Ricky Martin deliver on the explosive energy and passion that is felt for the beautiful game. It gets you the same way football fever does, it makes you want to shout, run and go a little mad. This song is still considered by many as the best and most perfect World Cup song ever made. When people get nostalgic for a World Cup, this tends to be the song they look for, no matter which cup it actually was.
Japan/South Korea 2002 - Boom! - Anastasia
This tough act to follow was succeeded by Anastasia. I did like her sound as an artist. She was experimental and funky and her contribution to World Cup songs - Boom! for the co-hosted Korea/Japan cup in 2002. She tried her best to capture the rising energy and adrenaline of a match but fell a little short. It's not a song that many people remember as a World Cup song, but you do look for it occasionally just to remember what it sounded like. I think we all cut her some slack though, because it was fairly impossible to beat 'La Copa de la Vida'.
Germany 2006 - The Time of our Lives - Il Divo and Toni Braxton
For Germany's 2006 World Cup, the powers that be (FIFA) decided on a completely different approach. They selected Il Divo and Toni Braxton to create a contemporary classical/soulful contribution to capture I suppose the emotional and internal beauty of the game, rather than the expected adrenaline pumping mayhem. It was interesting that they decided to move in a completely different direction here and applaudable. It's not a bad song, it's just one that people tend to forget about. It's not even the first semi-classical attempt. For better or worse however, Ricky Martin re-defined world cup songs in 1998 and that energy became something fans expected, rather than the other options.
South Africa 2012 - Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)! - Shakira and (BONUS) Waving Flag - K'Naan
Finally we got another classic in 2012 with 'Waka Waka (This Time for Africa!)', delivered by the lovely Shakira. There was some controversy over FIFA's decision to select Shakira. Many felt that with Africa's first World Cup, an African singer (or at least a singer with African heritage) should have been selected to deliver the song. While I understood the sentiment, I didn't agree. I suppose I felt that the World Cup is an event that belongs to the world and previous artists were not selected based on region so why should the first African cup introduce a discriminatory role? Ricky Martin was neither French nor European when he sang for France. In fact, he hails from Puerto Rico, which isn't even a football nation. These conditions did not get in the way of him delivering an epic song. Besides, I was a Shakira fan and I trusted her to deliver a wonderful song.
And she did. 'Waka Waka' made you want to get up and dance. While 'La Copa de la Vida' encouraged you to go a little crazy, Waka Waka also got you excited and it featured a distinctly African sound. This was no mean feat. The African continent is diverse and each nation/tribe has unique tones and musical signatures. Shakira managed to tap into something that satisfied that identity and do justice to it. Once 'Waka Waka' was released, the outrage died down considerably. In my opinion, and possibly because I'm biased due to how much South Africa 2012 meant to me, 'Waka Waka' is my second most favorite World Cup song.
It's kind of cute too because Shakira is a football fan, and it was through writing and performing this song that she met her soulmate - Gerard Pique who plays central back defense for FC Barcelona. He's actually one of the best central back defenders in the world. Yes, I was a fan of him too, so when they hooked up, it was one of those celebrity couple squeals for me. I suppose they've become the Posh & Becks of the Spanish speaking football/entertainment world (well, unless you support Real Madrid - Barcelona's rivals - then Shakira's a traitor because she used to support them).
I also loved K'naan's 'Waving Flag' which was an unofficial song (he sang it for Coca Cola to cash in on World Cup season) but it also captured the energy and joy of the game. It kind of was a sellout moment for him, but it was a good one as it brought more publicity to the meaning of his original song. The original waving flag was about K'naan's childhood in Somalia and his hopes that despite all the fighting and violence, that his country could climb out of the rubble and start anew. He changed the lyrics for the world cup to have a much happier meaning of course, but for your reference (if you're interested), here is the original waving flag:
and the commercial one:
Before I move on from South Africa 2012, I want to express how important football has been to Africa. While we hear news of extreme hooliganism in Europe and South America (especially South America! Dear lord, football fever there scares me. This is the place where players get stabbed on the field and referees get beheaded by angry mobs), in Africa football has once been a source of peace. It was a famous African football player - Didier Drogba who used his influence as a beloved player to help end the civil wars in Cote d'Ivoire. It's kind of amazing, but the 2 parties agreed to meet and negotiate after he released a plea for them to do so. Et voila - peace. It goes both ways though, and it's not always a good thing. Sometimes football players return home and run for President, despite having absolutely no experience. They do cause more trouble at times. However, I choose to be more inspired by Drogba's example.
And this year...omg this year...grrr.
Brazil 2014 - We Are One (Ole Ola) - Pitbull ft Jennifer Lopez & Claudia Leitte
When I first heard that Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez were selected to collaborate and bring us 2014's World Cup song, I had high expectations. I was a little curious as to why in singers from the Spanish speaking world dominated the official world cup theme so much but otherwise I was satisfied. If for nothing else, Pitbull and J.Lo know how to get us to move (they've done so before on collaborations) so even though I knew I wasn't going to watch this year's cup, I was looking forward to the song.
Wow. This song is a let-down. I'm not the only one who thinks so. It's amazing how little energy there is in this song. It sounds like a very average Pitbull song (or shall I say it sounds like every other Pitbull song, and not even his better ones). I don't want to dance to this song, I don't even want to stand. I just sit here and wonder what went wrong or why Pitbull got lazy with the expectations of this song.
The comments on this song are hilarious. While all the previous songs I've talked about here have their fair share of positive comments, Ole Ola is generally blasted and man is it ever earned. Comments such as 'Pitbull knows nothing about football', 'Everything about this song is wrong!' and how every other song being made to cash in on the World Cup (that isn't official) is being lauded as 'well, it's better than Pitbull'. The only thing good about this song is the chorus and it even starts off on a good note. Then he starts rapping and the energy disappears.
The other thing Pitbull failed to do, despite the Ole Ola chorus was to create a sound that was accepted by Brazillians as Brazillian. Maybe it's because when he raps, the Ole Ola sound disappears totally. He retreats back into his own sound for it. This is on contrast to Shakira recreating an African sound. Il Divo's operatic version was appropriate to Germany and even La Copa de la Vida matched France's dance theme at the time. Admittedly, nothing about Boom! sounded Japanese or Korean.
It's possible that after I've killed this song in this review that you guys expected something a lot worse than what was made :P
Finally, the odd thing that has been noticed about the 2014 album - all the songs are in Spanish or by singers from the Spanish world. There's maybe 1 or 2 songs in Portuguese. It makes sense from the perspective of this being a South American world cup, but not in the context of Brazil being extremely proud of the fact that they are the one Portuguese speaking country in South America and they have the best national football team out of all of them (formerly). Compare this to 2012, where yes, the official song was sung by a Colombian, but she featured African artists in her song. The entire album for 2012 either had African artists or featured African artists. I suppose 2014 followed that theme with one token Portuguese singer or one Brazilian song. Oh well, can't win them all. Luckily for 2014, the official Anthem (don't get me started but the official anthems and official songs are 2 different things) is energetic enough to make up for Pitbull's failure.
Santana, Avicii, Wyclef Jean and Alexandre Pires gave us Dar um Jeito. Enjoy:
Despite all this - my moral objections, how average the tournament is, how the teams are generally the average qualifying ones, how misplaced the songs are...I'm surprised. When the ad came on TV yesterday, blaring Pitbull's atrocious world cup song and showing me teams that I don't care about, my heart was racing, my breathing shallowed and I just wanted to watch and be in football. I still have the fever, even with all my moral objections and preparation to ignore the World Cup this year. I'm still not watching the World Cup, but this is going to be more difficult than I thought.
Eep.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-04 11:13 pm (UTC)Ya know, I'm pretty sure you actually haven't ranted on your blog about it, and barely in person. I think most of the ranting has happened in your head. Personally, I'd love to read a post about your reasons.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-05 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-06 06:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-08 05:06 am (UTC)