There are but two psychological states available to the transatlantic air traveler—torpor and terror—and the same might be said of spectators at the World Cup, that quadrennial showcase of scoreless soccer enlivened only by the clear-air turbulence of hooliganism. So why combine these activities? Why fly to France for a week's worth of "football," when the only touchdown on offer is an uneven landing in Paris?
Because something Wilbur Wright said of flight seems also to apply to soccer: "If you are looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds. But if you really wish to learn, you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial."
What do I hope to learn in the next six days? Nothing less than the secrets of Kanu and Cafu and Camus. Nwankwo Kanu—not so much a name as an unplayable Scrabble rack—had a hole in his aorta nineteen months ago but recovered to compete for Nigeria in the World Cup. The mononymous Cafu is a defender for Brazil, the world's most stylish and self-absorbed collection of athletes, a team aptly described by one Brazilian newspaper as a "cauldron of vanities." And Albert Camus was a French philosopher who once said, "All that I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football."
In these men you have the World Cup, to say nothing of the world itself. It is all there: elan, ego, and French pretentiousness. Morality, obligations, and a stout heart. As a sportswriter, I know little of morality and even less of obligations. So there is this, too: One week at the World Cup might—just might—make me a better human being.
Monday, June 29: Paris
Eleven P.M. on the Champs-Elysées and Yugoslav players are getting hammered. On television, that is, during a 2–1 second-round loss to the Netherlands, but is it really any wonder? "The Yugoslavian players are out until two or three every morning," U.S. coach Steve Sampson had said earlier in the World Cup. "The security officers [for the U.S. team] talk to the security officers for other teams. We have been informed that the Yugoslavian security officers are exhausted from staying up until two or three every morning watching Yugoslavian players."
"Excessive nightclubbing"—the offense for which South Africa reportedly dismissed a midfielder from its squad—is the game within the game at the World Cup. And so officially licensed World Cup condoms sell in Champs-Elysées souvenir shops, and Bulgarian superstar Hristo Stoichkov had nightclubbed so excessively that he couldn't get out of bed for one team meeting, and most English supporters would benefit from receiving Mickey Mantle's original liver. If the World Cup were an actual cup, it would be made of half a coconut and would come with an umbrella. At a sidewalk newsstand on the Champs-Elysées, I purchase a British newspaper, the Independent, and read the bold, above-the-fold headline: English fans will be able to drink all day. Tomorrow bars will remain open from 8:30 A.M. until 11 P.M. in St. Etienne, where England is to play Argentina at nine o'clock in the evening.
Drunken English fans, of course, rioted on match days in Marseilles and Lens. And given the history of England and Argentina—Maradona's notorious "hand of God" goal beat England in the '86 World Cup, four years after the Falklands War—the failure of French officials to ban alcohol in St. Etienne is seen as curious at best, particularly when most English fans in the town of two hundred thousand will be without match tickets. "There will be a high level of frustration which will [leave] people looking for drink to find some other outlet for their energies," Tom Pendry, a member of the British Parliament, warns in the Indepedent. "This is a cocktail for disaster."
Yet reading this last line at midnight in Harry's Bar, at large in the land of the World Cup, I have but one thought, and it is a Homer Simpsonian one at that: mmmmmm … cocktail.
Tuesday, June 30: St. Etienne
"May I take your picture?" photographer Al Tielemans asks an English gentleman whose head is shaved—save for a four-foot ponytail—and whose body is tattooed with the illustrated history of Britain. It is an hour before England-Argentina, a mile from Geoffroy Guichard Stadium, and the man is drinking from a frothing forty-ounce bottle of Kronenbourg. "No, you cannot fucking take my picture," our friend enunciates with remarkable clarity. "Piss off."
Off we piss, ducking into a bar so grimly utilitarian that it has only the words SNACK BAR stenciled on the windows. The peeling wallpaper inside is supposed to look like wood paneling. This may well be a first in interior decor: simulated simulated wood paneling. To liven up the place, Big Al Moonie of Biggleswade, England, has hung an English flag—his name and hometown sewn to the cross of St. George—over most of one wall. Another hundred or so English, including as many as three women, have crammed themselves into Snack Bar, packing it from front door to fetid toilet.
"Are you a journalist?" asks a skinny, pop-eyed, prominently Adam's-appled eighteen-year-old with a close-cropped head.
"Yes."
"Then you should leave," he says. "You shouldn't be here."
"Is that advice or a threat?"
"Decide that for yourself," he replies.
"What's the problem?"
"What's the problem?" he says. "After what the journalists have done to us this week?"
A 250-pound bloke with hair spiked like pineapple skin cannot help overhearing. "You'll be all right here," he assures us, shooing away Adam's apple. The man is Butch from Bristol, and he says he has followed England—literally followed the team—for ten years. He and friends Marco and Joe are commuting to this World Cup from the west coast of England. This is their fourth trip to France in three weeks. "We're just here for the football," he says. "They were asking six hundred quid for tickets outside the stadium. That's what, a thousand dollars? So we're watching it here."
The entire bar sings "God Save the Queen" before kickoff, and the rest of the evening unfolds in song. Argentina scores first on a penalty kick and—to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands"—the whole of Snack Bar belts out a chorus of: "If it wasn't for the English you'd be Krauts."
When Alan Shearer gets the equalizer for England, a man to my right turns and hugs me, his train-wreck smile reminding me of Austin Powers. "Keep St. George in my heart, keep me English," the crowd sings. "Keep St. George in my heart, I pray. Keep St. George in my heart, keep me English. Keep me English till my dying day." Which segues, oddly and immediately, into "No sur-render, no sur-render, no sur-render to the IRA!"
Moments later eighteen-year-old English phenomenon Michael Owen scores a spectacular go-ahead goal, the best of the World Cup, and the crowd goes Snack Barmy. Snack Bar is a mosh pit. I am knocked to the ground but recover to sing—to the tune of "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore"—"Michael Owen scores the goals, Al-le-loo-oo-ia!"
But just before half Argentina makes it 2–2, and English anger turns toward the retired Maradona. To Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus," everyone sings, "Mar-a-dona! Mar-a-dona! Isawanker! Isawanker! Isaway-ay-anker!"
So it goes, through David Beckham's being sent off for England in the forty-seventh minute for kicking an Argentinian player, through the entire scoreless second half, through thirty scoreless minutes of extra time. Before the grim vigil of the penalty kicks, a hundred English in Snack Bar sway as one, singing—to "Auld Lang Syne"—"We're proud of you, we're proud of you, we're proud of you, we're proud …"
But many in the crowd have turned their backs to the TV, unable to look, for penalties always go wrong for England, which lost on them to Germany in the semifinals of the '90 World Cup and to Germany again in the semis of the '96 European championships. As if prepared for the inevitable, three guys behind me sing—to the tune of "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain When She Comes"—"We'll be right nasty bastards if we lose!" They sound serious.
On the final penalty kick David Batty places the ball on the spot, measures off his steps, and bangs his shot off the goalkeeper's hands. England loses and Snack Bar goes batty. Several fans slump onto tables, but many more pour into the streets. Bottles are thrown, V signs are flashed, epic profanity rains on all unlucky pedestrians. Hundreds of police in riot gear rumble up the pavement of the narrow streets. Three men in handcuffs are shoveled into paddy wagons. Four paper-hatted teenagers stand inside a locked and unlit McDonald's, waiting until it is safe to leave.
We make for the car and head out of town after midnight, and from every precinct come three sounds: the barking of dogs, the breaking of glass, and the donkey bray of French police sirens going ee-yore ee-yore ee-yore.
Wednesday, July 1: Ozoir-Brazil
In the morning, over breakfast in a château in the vineyard village of Villie-Morgon, I meet a regal Argentine named Horacio Bernardo Scliar, who manages a factory in Buenos Aires. Attending the World Cup with his three adult sons, Fernando, Martin, and Esteban, Horacio is happy, but he cannot mask his concern for the Argentines. "That was not a good match stylistically," he frets. "Argentina did not play with flair." Playing with flair is of paramount importance to South America's teams, a fact that will hit home this afternoon when Al and I drive four hours north to Ozoir-La-Ferriere, which has officially changed its name for the duration of the World Cup to Ozoir-Brazil.
Ozoir-Brazil, the training headquarters of the Brazilian national team, is only seven miles from Disneyland Paris, which is appropriate as the Brazilians have attracted a Goofy, Dopey, Happy horde of hangers-on and hangers-out. Practices are open to the public—free tickets are required—and the stadium's four thousand capacity is filled every day. "You should come," the team's PR contact, a woman named Ana, had told me. "Everyone has fun. It is very relaxed."
So it is. From the stands the Brazil bus is cheered raucously as it rolls into the parking lot outside. Ten minutes later the players emerge from a tunnel to meet the Brazilian press corps, many of whose members extend balls and T-shirts to be autographed, hands to be clasped, cheeks to be kissed. Several carry disposable cameras and ask the players to pose. I am not making this up. The team's calisthenics get a standing ovation. I take a seat in the stands between a man wearing a hat decorated with the miniature heads of Brazilian national team members—they stick out from the crown of his cap like cherry tomatoes skewered on toothpicks—and a four-hundred-pound Brazilian man in a platinum blond wig who keeps standing up to samba. Did I mention that a band is playing throughout the practice? Of course it is.
Now picture the Chicago Bulls allowing this—inviting this—as they prepare for the NBA finals, or the Green Bay Packers practicing in such a way for the Super Bowl. You can't? Then you have just discovered, at 5:17 on a Wednesday afternoon, what makes the World Cup what it is—whatever it is.
As we bid adieu to Ozoir-Brazil, Ronaldo, the team's twenty-one-year-old superstar, is blithely chipping a ball into the goal from midfield and grinning that grin that looks like the grille of a badly used Mercedes.
Thursday, July 2: Lyons and Nice
Parked in downtown Lyons is a badly used Mercedes with German license plates. The owner has ripped off the hood ornament—which is the main reason most people buy a Benz in the first place—and replaced it with a miniature soccer ball. Having driven a thousand miles in three days in pursuit of football, Al and I somehow understand.
No World Cup games are scheduled today, so we drive to Nice, the town so nice they named it … Nice. The German team trains here, and though we don't see any players the trip is worth every four-dollar gallon of gas. For the sea is the color of antifreeze, and the sky is like stone-washed denim, and the only work people are doing is on their tans. Nobody cares about anything on the French Riviera. These people have more phrases for apathy than Eskimos have for snow. In addition to ennui and malaise and blasé, there are que sera sera and c'est la vie and—well, you get the picture. Nice is less than an hour's drive from the France-Italy border, and France plays Italy in a quarterfinal match tomorrow, but you would never know it to gaze at the thonged throngs on the beach.
Not that I do, mind you.
Friday, July 3: Menton, France, and Ventimiglia, Italy
In Menton, a seaside town one thousand meters from the Italian border, this afternoon's match is a civic obsession. On the beach, cones are set up, a ball is rolled out, and children gather to play … baseball. To be fair, one old guy at a produce stand has painted his handlebar mustache in the tricolors of France, and his buddy is reading the Nice Matin newspaper, whose front-page headline states bluntly, FRANCE-ITALIE—LE DERBY DES FAUS AMIS ("the match between phony friends"). So perhaps things will pick up.
We will watch the first half of Le Derby des Faux Amis in the Italian town of Ventimiglia, twenty minutes to the east of Menton. "My name is Tony," says a man who approaches in the Ventimiglia vegetable market, where flags reading FORZA ITALIA! are planted in piles of garlic. "You speak French? My English is not so good. I work on a cruise ship. We get watches in Switzerland, you understand? Breitling, Rolex, Tag Heuer …"
We don't want to buy a watch, we tell Tony. We want to watch the football match.
"Go into any bar," he says. "No, go to the Festival Café. On the beach. A grand panorama. Talk to Rudy. He's a friend of mine. You drink a caffè, drink a beer, drink a caffè, drink a beer—like that. Pretty soon, people go crazy."
"Grazie, Tony," I tell him.
Tony looks crestfallen: "You mean you no want to buy a watch?"
A TV has been set up outside the festival, with its grand panorama of sea, and at the 4:30 P.M. kickoff, a very serious Italian kid of sixteen yells, "Silenzio!" This omertà is honored for most of the desultory, scoreless first half, in which Italy adopts a dreary defensive posture. But so what: Italian sports television is a revelation, with its gratuitous supermodel studio hostesses and split-second commercials wedged into dead-ball sequences, so that a shot of a toothpaste tube will suddenly flash onto the screen in mid-match. And the match itself has its moments. When French midfielder Zinedine Zidane falls to the pitch clutching his crotch, the café crowd erupts into song, joyously hand-gesturing various suggestions at the screen.
At the halftime intermission, we hightail it back to Menton, whose streets are eerily silent. In an outdoor café at the Hotel les Arcades, forty people variously sit and stand around a television, smoking and sipping and shrugging through a scoreless second half and extra time.
Then the funniest thing happens. The match goes to penalty kicks. France wins 4–3. And suddenly, instantly, a thousand tiny Renaults are racing around the town square, their little horns parping. Menton sounds like a thousand Felix Ungers clearing their sinuses.
Flags flutter from the French doors of apartments. Firecrackers begin to pop. On the beachfront avenue, the Promenade du Soleil, cars race up and down all night, flying blue-white-and-red scarves and parping endlessly. Strangers embrace, old men beam, waiters are fractionally less rude. France is a nation transformed.
The French get happy every twenty years, whether they need to or not, just to exercise their smile muscles. Tonight is that night. For one evening they pretend to like even tourists. Tonight, we are all their faux amis.
Saturday, July 4: Menton to Paris
The seven-hour drive back to Paris affords ample time to absorb lessons from this trip. There were many novel experiences: I got to write the phrase "Bulgarian superstar" for the first time. I know where to buy a Swiss watch in Ventimiglia, Italy. I will never hear "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" in quite the same way.
I think I did discover the secrets of Kanu and Cafu and Camus—seeing stout hearts (England-Argentina) and Brazilian brilliance (in the person of Ronaldo) and learning something of morality and obligations (namely, that there is none of either at La Coupe du Monde).
Four years ago to this day, the United States was playing Brazil in the second round of the World Cup; in this Cup's thirty-two-team field the United States finished last. But if America has regressed in soccer I, as an American soccer fan, have come a long way. Quite literally, in fact. Al and I drove more than two thousand miles in the last six days, and our rented Renault Safrane now resembles a fuel-injected Dumpster. By climbing off the fence, mounting the machine of La Coupe du Monde, and experiencing its tricks by actual trial, I have become a more catholic sports fan. So perhaps the World Cup has made me a better human being after all. It has certainly made me a more smelly one.
We stop at a gas station near Auxerre. I buy a Coke to mark Independence Day, on which Americans celebrate shedding the shackles of a soccer-crazed nation, freeing us to form our own constitution, our own government, our own curious brand of football. Back in the car, as Holland-Argentina kicks off on the radio, I cannot help but think, if only for a moment: What ever were the Founding Fathers thinking?
(July 13, 1998)
聚合中文网 阅读好时光 www.juhezwn.com
小提示:漏章、缺章、错字过多试试导航栏右上角的源