World Cup Football 2018

From Russia With Love

The 2018 World Cup delivered on all the promises and allayed all the suspicions and jeremiad predictions. It had a gamut of ineffaceable moments, vocabulary of emotions, kaleidoscope of iconic goals and unforgettable controversies. More often than the football fan would want, World Cups can be deceptively monolithic in terms of crippling nerves, attritional play, combative and virulent atmospheres and[Read More...]

The Woes of Luka Modrić: Croatia, Nationalism and Football

Juraj Vrdoljak of Telesport was convinced.  “I think half the population didn’t show up to work on the morning after the win against England.” The victory had inspired early shop closures, a feeling of rampant escapism. “Croatia is a country with a deep economic crisis.  Every day, life is really hard.  It’s full of bad stories and tough times.  There[Read More...]

Giant Killing, Heroes and Teams at the 2018 World Cup

They have been falling like ninepins at one of the most unpredictable World Cups in generations.  Even before the kick-off in the tournament, Italy’s absence was conspicuous.  By the time the first phase of matches had been concluded, Germany, whose teams have made it to the elimination phase for eighty years, found itself in exit mode, a victim of exhaustion,[Read More...]

The Ugly truth of the Beautiful game

The dark arts of fear-mongering and rabble rousing are not new by any stretch for the sport of football especially in Europe. Though, before obsessive vitriol for Islam became the new normal it was the menace of racism and skin color that plagued many a football arena among other sporting spectacles. Impassioned crowds hollering monkey chants and reprehensible banana throw-ins[Read More...]

World Cup Soccer Fun in a Moscow Targeted by Nuclear Missiles in US Silos, Submarines & Bombers     

  Imagine before each match of the World Cup the FIFA World Soccer Federation making an appeal over the loud speaker asking all the fans in the name of the future of soccer to tell officials of their government to demand Americans stop threatening the future of the World Cup with nuclear war. Soccer stars President of Liberia & UN[Read More...]

Bangladesh’s World Cup Frenzy Dribbling Beyond the Obvious

  2018 Football World Cup frenzy in Bangladesh has left everyone astounded. Entire nation seems to have gone crazy over this year’s championship tournament. Supporters have divided themselves among their favourites and doing the most unthinkable to reveal their choices. For example, a guy in a village, a supporter of Germany, had sold a piece of his land and made[Read More...]

Saudi Arabia drags geopolitical baggage on to the World Cup pitch

Saudi Arabia has much at stake when its national soccer team enters the pitch for the opening match of the 2018 World Cup in Moscow. With politics a permanent fixture, Saudi Arabia is playing in the World Cup finals for the first time in more than a decade at a moment that the kingdom is vying for enhanced influence in[Read More...]