"world cup" blog posts

Was there a World Cup without Italy?Buffon reacts after crashing out of World Cup qualifying.

Was there a World Cup without Italy?

The 2018 World Cup came to an end on Sunday having seen many surprises: the elimination of top teams, such as Germany, Spain and Argentina, in the early stages as well as England reaching the semi-finals, and Croatia their first final, losing to France, who won their second title after twenty years.

Posted on: 19 July 2018

Filming the Footy

Filming the Footy

If you’re reading this, I guess that, for you, watching big football moments like the Euro Championship or the World Cup, is a cinematic experience. A story told on a screen. At just over an hour and a half the narrative arc of a game plays out across much the same timescale as an average feature film. And although the constraints are very different, cameras are cameras and their vocabulary is structured by their capabilities: to come in close, to sweep across space, to focus on everything in their field or to blur out all but the centre of interest. What is a football game, considered as a film?

Posted on: 29 June 2018

France and football since 1998France 1998 World Cup

France and football since 1998

France’s World Cup victory in 1998 was seen not only as a sporting triumph, but as a political, social and cultural one as well. In one of the lectures I give on the French Fifth Republic, as part of our first-year Introduction to French Studies module, I always include some discussion of France’s World Cup win. It’s always at this point in the lecture when I start to feel old, realising that our students are either too young to remember the World Cup of 1998, or weren’t even born!

Posted on: 18 June 2018

Germany and the language of footballFrank Beckenbauer (AP)

Germany and the language of football

Veronika Koeper-Saul discusses the linguistic idiosyncrasies that have arisen from perspectives of the beautiful game in Germany: from 1954 World Cup winning manager Sepp Herberger's blunt motivational words, to former Bayern Munich manager Giovanni Trappatoni's infamous press conference rant.

Posted on: 14 June 2018