The fans’ favourite, plucky Croatia’s fairy-tale story had a sad ending. But France deserved to win the FIFA World Cup, having played consistently throughout the tournament — grinding out wins and stepping up the flair quotient when required. France’s tactically astute performance almost came undone during the finals where its water-tight defence looked uncharacteristically vulnerable. The game that unfolds on the pitch sometimes does not follow the script written by the coaches.
It was a strange finals, with an own goal, a controversial penalty given by the video assistant referee (VAR) and a comical error by one of the best goalkeepers in the business. The game at half-time, despite France’s 2-1 lead, still hung in the balance. Croatia began the second half strongly but two brilliant goals in quick succession by France put the game to rest. Though Croatia pulled a goal back because of a horrendous error by French goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, the game had slipped out of its hands.
Until the finals, France had played in an almost ‘Italy-like’ style. In the finals, when the defence looked shaky, France’s forwards stepped up with a couple of brilliant goals.
But the most heartening aspect of this World Cup was the way smaller teams such as Japan, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Nigeria gave the bigger European and South American sides a run for their money. South Korea even sent the defending champions Germany packing. Though no team outside of Europe and South America are likely to lift the cup any time soon, the gap seems to be closing fast.
‘Political’ football
If one goes by social media, the biggest star of this World Cup seems to have been Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. Whatsapp messages gushed about how she travelled economy-class to Russia, sat with fans and hugged all the players in the dressing room after the soul-sapping semis against England. In the finals, too, she sat with France’s President Emmanuel Macron, in her trademark Croatian jersey cheering her team.
But behind all this praise lies a darker story which some astute observers have commented on. Much has been said about how Croatia, after Uruguay, was the smallest country to have almost won the World Cup. But football in the Balkans has always been associated with the violent far-right and an unhealthy dose of xenophobia. As journalist Leonid Bershidsky mentioned in his recent Bloomberg column, after the split of the erstwhile Yugoslavia, football in Croatia was inextricably linked to its nascent nationalism. The then Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman, openly made use of the fans’ fanaticism to further the cause of Croatian nationalism. Football in Croatia continues to be mired in corruption.
Luka Modrić, who won the Golden Ball award, is a deeply divisive figure in Croatia for his links with discredited football official Zdravko Mamić, who was sentenced to a prison term.
But all this shouldn’t surprise us as sport and politics have always had deep links. Those who say the two shouldn’t mix, sadly understand neither politics nor sport. The political class, world over, has used sports as a vehicle to further its agenda. The most notorious example of this is the way Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Olympics to push his murderous ‘Aryan supremacy’ agenda.
Colonial tools
The modern Olympic movement was essentially a political movement conceived during the heyday of European imperialism. In fact, European colonialists used modern sport to “civilise” their colonial subjects.
It is also interesting to see how the “colonial subjects” consumed sport and its attendant symbolism. In India, cricket was one among the many sports the British introduced to the “natives”. While the Princes, the Nawabs and even the Parsi business class accepted this sport to cosy up to their colonial masters, the same was taken up by nationalists as a symbol of resistance. Beating the colonial masters at their own game had a rich symbolic twist in the nationalist narrative. In 1911, when Mohun Bagan beat the East Yorkshire Regiment to win the IFA Shield, it did as much to the cause of nationalism as the Congress Party and other freedom fighters.
Mega sporting events such as the Olympics and World Cup are often used by the ruling dispensation to bolster its image, at home and abroad, and Russia was no different. Russian President Vladimir Putin, another deeply divisive figure in world politics, used the World Cup to showcase his country as an open, inclusive and friendly society. Going by the reports of European journalists covering the event, Putin seems to have succeeded spectacularly.
The heavens suddenly opened up during the World Cup presentation ceremony. An umbrella immediately sprang up over Putin’s head. But the hosts left the French and Croatian Presidents, former Croatian footballing star Davor Šuker, and others soaking in the rain before the umbrellas made their belated appearance.
That, ironically, would be one of the lasting images from Russia 2018, apart from (of course) the engrossing football.