Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/89420
apologize for the head-butt.) Te answer, of course, was the passion I could sense in the game, even as a 12-year-old. Te match mat- tered so much to everyone involved — the Italian and French fans; the German hosts, who were ecstatic to be at the center of such a crucial international event; even Zidane himself — that I could see instinctively that it should matter to me as well, that I should be as invested as all the other spectators. But the reason I saw this passion is something I am only beginning to understand. Soccer in the modern day is a slippery game, simultaneously constrained to what happens on the field and exploded into an entirely new dimension the instant this in- imitable atmosphere becomes something that can belong not only to the people who are there (singing, chanting, living and dying with the team) but also to the nameless mil- lions watching it like a drama unfolding on a computer or television screen; the moment when passion ceases to merely be a part of the game and instead becomes a selling point. And this explosion, or expansion, or com- mercialization, whatever you want to call it, can now be packaged and sold, a convenient way to access this culture of passion (because whatever they may tell you, that is what most soccer fans want, not the intricacies of the game itself) from your own living room. Te result hardly matters; you are a consumer of Te Anfield Experience™. Order your adidas jersey online with Standard Chartered's logo splashed across the front, make sure you have your Fox Soccer Channel or GolTV package, check your Twitter feed every few minutes to see what the pundits and journalists and bloggers are saying about the starting lineup and the "superb atmosphere" at Anfield to- day, and hey, presto, you're a real Liverpool fan, a Red to the end. Walk on, walk on. It was inevitable, of course: Too many peo- ple are invested in the world's most popular sport, and too much money is at stake. Te best English teams are now owned by Russian business moguls (Chelsea), Arab oil tycoons (Manchester City) and wealthy Americans (Liverpool and Manchester United). Even basketball superstar LeBron James purchased a share of Liverpool last spring. To associate one's self, or one's company, with the culture surrounding a storied club like Liverpool is only logical. Fast-expanding markets for soc- cer, especially in Asia, mean that a Liverpool fan from China with a nephew who loves the NBA might think of James as sharing that Liverpool "passion" — and suddenly another kid is sporting James' name and number on his back. Somewhat appropriately, my obsession with Liverpool emerged largely as a result of this perception of passion imbuing the club, which is widely regarded to have one of the best fan bases in all of soccer. I was addicted to the atmosphere of the game, and I wanted to be a part of a tradition larger than myself, to [84] LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.12