Tag: football

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Sports

Cricket All-Stars, NFL show globalization of sports

At JFK this week I passed a billboard for a financial firm that depicted a ball shaped like an American football but flatter at each end, like a rugby ball, with the pattern of a soccer ball.

The mythical mass served as metaphor for globalization, which two items in the news this week suggest is accelerating when it comes to sports.

First is a cricket match slated for Saturday at Citi Field in New York, the first of three exhibitions to be played in the U.S. this month by teams of retired all-stars. The other is an announcement by the NFL that it will play at least three games in London in each of the next five seasons after three contests there this year.

The moves mark a quickening of activity by two sports that have yet to arrive in the U.S. and U.K., respectively, on a national level. Of course, cricket has billions of fans around the world. Test matches between England and Pakistan, and between India and South Africa, are among the top events this weekend in all of sport.

The matches in the states will feature Sachin Tendulkar, who retired from the Indian national team two years ago after scoring 15,921 runs in 200 test matches, or 2,000 more than his closest rival; and Shane Warne, an Australian who retired in 2013 and ranks second of all time in wickets taken (getting a batter out) in test matches.

Tendulkar, 42, who may be the greatest batsman of all time, and Warne, 46, among the best bowlers ever, will helm opposing teams of former greats from Pakistan, India, England, South Africa, the West Indies, and Sri Lanka. “The vision is to globalize cricket,” Tendulkar told the Times. “Somewhere we need to start.”

That could be America, which in 1844 hosted the first international cricket match, between the U.S. and Canada. Today roughly 35,000 Americans play cricket, according to the United States of America Cricket Association.

The grounds at Citi Field will include a pitch that organizers of the matches have trucked from Indiana, where it was grown for the occasion by Mark Perham, the former groundsman at Eden Park, the largest stadium in New Zealand. The pitcher’s mound, which had a workout in the recently concluded World Series, will be lowered so as not to present a hazard for cricketers.

American football comes to rugby grounds

Separately, the NFL announced on Tuesday it has leased Twickenham Stadium, which normally houses rugby and recently hosted the sport’s world cup, for each of the next three seasons.

That brings to three the number of venues the league will use to host games in London between now and 2020. In addition to Twickenham, which holds 82,000 people, the league will play at least two games a year at Wembley Stadium over the coming five years.

The NFL also is slated to play two games a year at a stadium being built for Tottenham Hotspur when it is completed in 2018.

According to the league, the three games it hosted this season at Wembley averaged 83,777 fans apiece, a crowd roughly equivalent to the capacity of MetLife Stadium.

The push by the NFL to expand internationally will extend south as well. The league is expected to play at least one game in Mexico City in 2016 and says it is exploring matchups in Germany and Brazil.

Categories
Sports

Amakhosi4Life

panoramaKaizer Chiefs is a football club that plays in South Africa’s Premier Soccer League. The Chiefs, league champions who sit atop the standings, came to Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday to take on Maritzburg United.

Thanks to friends Rachel, Sipho and Sandile, I had the thrill of being among the roughly 12,000 fans who packed the bleachers to watch Maritzburg host the Glamour Boys, as the Chiefs are known. Most fans who filled the stands seemed to be decked out in the black and gold colors of the Chiefs, who happen to be the most famous team in this football-crazed country. Chiefs are the South African equivalent of Manchester United or the New York Yankees.

Now I know why Chiefs fans invoke the mantra Amakhosi4Life, which uses the Zulu word for chief to make a point about loyalty.

Along with the action on the pitch, I loved being surrounded by the Chiefs family, which includes Sipho, who blew his vuvuzela in unison with other horn-toting fans. Rachel and Sandile cheered for Maritzburg, which scored within the first minute and battled the Chiefs to a 2-2 draw. The contest “was perhaps the stadium’s finest football match in recent years,” columnist Lloyd Burnard wrote in The Witness, the local daily.

As for me, I feel lucky to have been part of the crowd on a 80-degree summer night under a waxing moon in a lavender sky here in the Midlands.

Categories
Travel

Going for the Goal

bee-kickingAccording to the rules of football – the game we Americans refer to as soccer – a scissors or bicycle kick is permissible provided that, in the referee’s opinion, it is not dangerous to an opponent.

I recently set out to learn about football in anticipation of relocating to South Africa. The prospect of learning a team sport that might be fun to play and provide opportunities to meet people appeals to me.

For an introduction, I turned to a friend, the Wave, a lifelong footballer and Man U fan who played goalie at New Jersey’s Lawrence High School in the early 1980s.

Together on a recent visit to Edina, Minn., we headed to a pitch at a local high school. There under a blue sky on an 85-degree afternoon, the Wave introduced me to some of the game’s basics.

We reviewed kicking with the inside the outside of the foot and trapping the ball with the chest, thighs and shins. “Let the ball settle in front of you,” the Wave instructed. “Use your body to absorb the shock of the ball.”

We passed the ball back and forth as I alternated kicking with my right and left legs. “Boobs over the ball, don’t lean back,” the Wave barked. We sat on the ground and used our arms to pass the ball to each other as if simulating tennis strokes – an analogy the Wave said would show me how to lock my ankle for kicks.

He also showed me how to locate the ball’s center of gravity by reference to the alternating five- and six-sided panels that join to form a football, which produces a satisfying “pop” when struck correctly.

We gathered in front of the goal, where the Wave showed me some of the basics of shooting. “When settling in front of the goal, keep the ball moving toward the goal, within two feet of you at all times,” he said.

From the corner of the pitch, the Wave passed me the ball repeatedly so I could get the feel of trapping the ball either briefly or, alternatively, shooting without stopping, a concept known as “no-touch.”

“Don’t chase the ball, let it come to you,” the Wave counseled.

We reviewed the rule against being offside, which means being nearer to the opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the next-to-last defender (besides the goalie). “When passing downfield, lead your teammate,” the Wave said. “Especially when you go to the corners.”

We worked on my throw-in, which refers to a way of restarting play after the ball has crossed a sideline.

We took turns dribbling the ball while playing a two-person version of keep-away. The Wave showed me how to watch my opponent’s belly button – it reveals one’s center of gravity – as a way to avoid getting faked-out by one’s opponent.

After a few shots on goal we discovered that my left leg happens to be my dominant leg. I am left-handed but had thought my right leg was the stronger appendage. “You have a natural striker’s kick,” the Wave noted. I loved the feeling of striking the ball and watching it arc slightly as it left the ground and sailed toward the net.

I felt as if I could do that all day.