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A forum for all 'english-speaking' fans of Gabriel Omar Batistuta, which EVER team he's involved with! To make it easier to reply to posts, please don't start a new thread if there is already an existing thread related to your topic. Let's try to keep all the same news 'together'. Thanks! |
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Daryl
 IP: 190.58.143.248 Jun 6, 08 - 4:54 AM |
Diego a GOD?
In Diego we trust: Swiss museum's offside take on footy culture by William French 5 hours, 19 minutes ago Buzz Up PrintGENEVA (AFP) - Clad in the blue and white stripes of Argentina, the dark-haired Messiah appears serene as red devils, guardian angels and big game hunters all eye each other up on the pitch. At his side, the Pope stands next to a glamorous blonde while a hooded thug brandishes his baseball bat and a stern judge waves the rule book. It sounds like a surrealist nightmare for any policeman preparing for the Euro 2008 championships, but in fact the characters are part of a new exhibition designed to show how the "beautiful game" touches and reflects all aspects of society. Curators at Geneva's Museum of Ethnography had the idea of commissioning the figures as part of their "Offside" exhibition which shows how folklore, superstition, history and politics are all intimately linked in the world of the football fan. "If football is a religion, then Maradona is its God," one caption reads, a reference to the legendary Argentina star who himself invoked the hand of the Almighty for his controversial first goal against England in the 1986 World Cup. As befits a game that is followed avidly from the plush mansions of Chelsea to the slums of Nairobi, the figures are truly international. They are carved out of rubber tree wood by craftsmen in the Ivory Coast in a traditional African style, but the designs are based on sketches by Swiss artists. The idea was to make "hybrid statues that show both a football character and one from society, sometimes imaginary and sometimes real," the exhibition organisers said. Thus a Pope-like figure is shown with mouth open and arms aloft as if he were giving a sermon - but with the legend 'FIFA' emblazoned across his mitre. "The head of the large federations glorifies football just like the head of the Catholic Church speaks the word of the Lord," the caption reads - an allusion perhaps to the late Pope John Paul II's past as a goalkeeper in his native Poland? The religious iconography does not stop there. A "guardian angel" is shown in goalkeeper's garb, making a play on words with the French 'gardien' which also means goalie. Other footballing 'types' represented include the hooligan, the glamorous 'WAG' (wife and girlfriend) as epitomised by Victoria Beckham, or the wheeler-dealer agent who is portrayed in classic colonialist safari gear searching for his next trophy. The exhibition, which runs until April 26, 2009, also features a wide array of football memorabilia that shows how it has become a multi-million dollar business with diehard officianados of all ages in all corners of the planet. Among the artefacts are a Manchester United piggy-bank, "Soccer Barbie" dolls (a rare non-WAG female reference), and even a baby's dummy bearing the colours and logo of French side Olympique Marseille. The ugly side of football is not swept under the carpet either. One display case shows items confiscated from Swiss grounds in the last season, including pistols, flares and even a Game Boy console that was hurled at a goalkeeper. On a lighter note, and as proof that superstitions are not just the preserve of African witch-doctors, there is also a voodoo doll belonging to an Italian fan from the 2006 World Cup - showing pins stuck into a French player - which certainly produced a result as French icon Zinedine Zidane self destructed and was sent-off in extra-time. "Football is not only a reflection of society, it also 'makes' society by acting as a means of social contact on all sorts of levels, whether it's playing the game, going to matches or just arguing about it in the pub," said exhibition organiser Raffaele Poli. Or as the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly put it when asked whether football was a matter of life and death - "It's much more important than that." Yahoo Daryl Thought it was be an interesting read :) 
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Juan
IP: 117.102.16.126 Sep 24th, 2008 - 5:06 AM |
Re: Diego a GOD?
I spent part of an afternoon sharing Maradona with the crowds. As I saw him swagger out in that (even then) peeling pit of concrete called the San Paolo on a sunbleached afternoon in late April,1987, the reaction of the crowd and his reaction to them personified the tacky exhileration that is Naples and all the rest of the non-suburban world, a world I did not come from. That he would grow all the more the symbol of antithesis to the coming New World Order was unspoken but clear. I recognized the swagger. It was the swagger in the smelly scabbed fellow I saw being released from the drunk tank in Yellowknife. The swagger form the sailor leaving the bordello near the Lisbon docks drawing feverishly on his cigarette. The swagger of the poor Omani peasant leading his two veiled wifes and children out of the van that pulled up to the market. The swagger of the teenage hood from the barrio who just stole stole the purse from a turista in the plaza. The swagger of the Viet Cong in black pajamas who pushed a machine gun in the back of a terrified captured ARVN officer in the television images from Saigon in 1975. The swagger of a man who a year before had called his outrageous first goal against the lordly English "the hand of God". I am of the lucky person who has seen all of Diego. I can write a whole book in one shift if start writing what a gem he is, simply out of this world. However, if ever i have to write just in one sentence just how special he is, i would say, "Without Diego 86 team was only mediocre. If it had been a painting it would have been grey. Diego made it a rainbow". - - - PS. I would post too often in this thread. Wanna see it a sticky one. 
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Richie
IP: 155.198.184.64 Sep 24th, 2008 - 3:18 PM |
Re: Diego a GOD?
Yep, not just the greatest player I've ever seen - he was much more than that. When you saw him play there was a magic about everything he did that I've never seen since and doubt I ever will - he really was form another planet. Juan - what is that piece of writing in your first paragraph? Is it something you've wrote, or is it form a book or article or something? If it's from a book could you let me know which one please? I'd be interested in reading it. If you wrote it - nice one, I'm impressed! The biography of Diego by Jimmy Burns is probably the best football book I've ever read and one of my favourite books of all time. What a life he has lived! |
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Katy
IP: 80.7.116.42 Sep 30th, 2008 - 1:16 AM |
Re: Diego a GOD?
I think we need a piccie in this thread!  We can't have a tribute thread to a GOD without a picture!!  
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Daryl
IP: 201.238.92.196 Oct 8th, 2008 - 5:54 PM |
Re: Diego a GOD?
Nice pic Katy ty, only if he could have remained in that form lol. :)I am just imagining the NT with diego in his prime and bati up front....yeah am a dreamer lol |
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Katy
IP: 80.7.116.42 Oct 9th, 2008 - 1:39 AM |
Re: Diego a GOD?
Hahaha! It's good to dream though, Daryl! This would've been quite a good combination too! 
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Juán
IP: 117.102.16.97 Oct 9th, 2008 - 8:10 PM |
Re: Diego a GOD?
Richie, Muñoz translates the best ever English for me for the prose. Muñoz himself puts it this way. "The God that people venerate does not carry a cross.. Just ask the English, our God carried # 10 on his back" |
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Richie
IP: 155.198.184.64 Oct 23rd, 2008 - 7:22 PM |
Re: Diego a GOD?
OK thanks a lot Juan, I will look out for Munoz in future.
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