Imagine if instead of winning billions of rands of prize money when you won a soccer World Cup game, you won the country you played against. If, instead of using nuclear weapons, expensive artillery and valuable human lives to wage war, each state had to fight their territorial or ideological battles through soccer. If, after sending their highly skilled team onto the battlefield then the world would be divided on who won or lost the game. Nations without soccer teams would need to be partnered with those who did so that all nations had an equal chance at domination. This would be a global battle, an epic battle, winner takes all. The final match would be an opportunity for total world domination, at least until the next World Cup that was.
Interesting idea. So let’s take a look at the last World Cup results to see where we’d all be now. I’ll start at the second round by which state we must note that Africa has very little chance here of world domination. By this stage Ghana was our only hope. There were 8 pivotal games, in this scenario, to rule the rest of the world. The competitors — Argentina, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, Portugal, The Netherlands, England, Ecuador, Italy, Australia, Switzerland, Ukraine, Brazil, Ghana, Spain and France. So thank goodness for all of us, the US was out (otherwise we all know there would be a World Cup every year, the teams would be increased and there would be more than one soccer ball, and the captain would be listening to some berserk old white man telling him that war was the way, and that guns should be allowed in sport.) The epic battles of this round left only 8 further competitors for the quarter-final. Africa’s chance at domination was eliminated. Two South American countries had a chance — Brazil and Argentina. So like, much of history, it was really a battle between the South and Europe.
In the quarter-final Europe reigned supreme. Germany beat Argentina (which beat Mexico in the previous round) meaning that it added an excellent supply of nuts, and tequila to its world pot. Italy (who thankfully for all of us had beat Australia — I mean an Australian world order … interesting to keep it clean!) beat the Ukraine (which beat Switzerland in the previous round) meaning it managed to add some extra chocolate to its store, and something Ukranian (probably Eastern European debt, or cold, or both). Portugal trumped England (which had beat Ecuador in the previous round) allowing it to accrue terrible cooking, terrible climate and great beer, as well as a nice patch of sunshine in the South Americas to drink it in. Finally, France beat Brazil (who had beat Ghana, Africa’s only chance, in the previous round) allowing it to get two great spots of territory, with some great jungles and mountain hikes.
After the semis left Italy and France as the only competitors for ownership of the whole world (Italy got Germany, France got Portugal) the world became a more complex place. The French don’t like to work hard (though they have been fairly financially stable for quite a long time) and are next door neighbours to the Italians (not big fans of democratic participation, but a great wealth of historical landmarks). In short, in our new world-conquering game we were left with two European nations to rule the world.
As any of you who actually watch soccer know, it was to be Italy that ruled our world. This wonderfully accented nation, a great purveyor of ciocolata calda, skew architecture and a paucity of political freedom, would be the one that dictated our global freedom, the way we treated our planet, our environment and our working classes.
So, if soccer were war, it would have the same ridiculous result that war has now. Spectators would gather aghast at the loss and failure, waiting for some sort of glimmer of sense and hope. A nation that nobody really wants to be in power would be in control of everything, and nations would submit until the next World Cup (read US elections) based on bizarre rules that required them to acquiesce.
In short, war is stupid, and it never has the desired results. The commitment to proceeding with it as a way of making decisions has led to more death, heartache and dis-empowerment than if nations tried to resolve things through peaceful means.
Thank goodness that soccer isn’t war.
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