What Are The Subconscious Effects Of Soccer And Nationalism

First Draft
In Simon Kuper’s book Football against the Enemy, Kuper explores how soccer has become convoluted in social, economic, and political views of society. This essay addresses the subconscious effects of soccer and nationalism on fans of the 1988 World Cup game between West-Germany and the Netherlands as well as how they use imagination to relive history through games and how they have all intertwined to prove soccer is a parallel to life.
What we can gather from Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities is that nations are merely made up borders to encapsle the ideas and actions of one people. The idea of nationalism feeds off a person's pride to make them succumb to a unity within these imaginary borders. When it comes to soccer, nationalism seems to be heightened. An example of this would be when the Dutch beat the Germans 2-1 in 1988, “over 60 percent of the population, came out on to the
streets to celebrate. Though a Tuesday night, it was the largest public gathering since the liberation” (pg 4 Kuper). Kuper compares a soccer win to the end of the Nazi, Germany occupation, and in doing so he shows how people use soccer as a parallel to life. It seems that fans find a way to take a game and subconsciously morph it into a political or social conflict even though it is simply 22 players, two goals, and one ball. Soccer is such a powerful force for the very reason that it is a place for people to simplify their conflicts, whether that be social, political, or economical and as Goldblatt said“Football’s status as the most popular global sport was not inevitable. It is a consequence of both historical forces beyond the game, and the intrinsic qualities of its own structure, rhythms and appearance” (Goldblatt 901). Soccer puts life’s problems in terms of two opposing forces, with one winner and a loser. Even in the case of a tie you can sense the victor. People crave conflict as well as resolution and soccer is a way to calm that hunger in society.
Nationalism can even bring people to the point that they become blind to their own shortcomings.
A fan’s mentality is that their team is good, and any other team must be evil, and in the context of this game Kuper joins in by saying “The Germans were evil and we were good” (11 Kuper). For example the Dutch were racist during this time period but “The Dutch briefly forgot their own discipline, their own staidness, and their own intolerance of Turks and Moroccans and Surinamese like Gullit” who was a black player on the team that helped lead the Dutch to victory. The Dutch blocked out their own racist beliefs, disregarding any and all of their shortcomings, that way they are able to place all the heinous acts on Germany without a sense of guilt. Kuper even says “Our shirts were bright, if unfortunately striped; the Germans wore black and white”, as if the Dutch were still prisoners of the Nazi invasion that happened over 40 years ago (Kuper 10). The “act of resistance” during the physical match was imagined to justify the way the Dutch acted and felt (Kuper
12).
Soccer is just a pool of emotions and that emotion is what feeds nationalism. Before and after the retelling of the game, Kuper uses singular diction, only using “I”, however, during the game he changes his diction to “we”, symbolizing the idea of community and nationalism coming alive during a soccer match. Anderson sees nationalism fitting in with the idea of religion and that ties back into humans desire to be apart of something bigger than themselves (Anderson 5). Nationalism gives people a chance to be included; Soccer gives nationalism a platform to perform.

Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism. Verso, 2016.
Goldblatt, David. The Ball Is Round: a Global History of Football. Riverhead Books, 2008.
Kuper, Simon. Football against the Enemy. Orion, 2005.