adios espana

A post that isn't about labour issues!

It is a great comfort in these dark days to watch the World Cup.  I know many of you are interested and many of you are not.  I don't watch soccer at all over the years when there isn't a World Cup, but I watch every game, or at least as many as I can, when the World Cup is on.  I usually randomly choose a team and cheer for them until they are eliminated -- last time it was Ghana, this time Chile (because my brother-in-law is from Chile).

I have a soft spot in my heart for Spain, though, since my favourite player is Sergio Ramos (who my brother-in-law calls a "criminal" because he roughed up Lionel Messi in some match between Barcelona and Madrid) and of course, they have been such a great team for quite a long time.  I guess their glorious time has drawn to a close though, because Chile beat them soundly yesterday.  They tried and tried, but were unable to score against the younger, stronger Chileans and were unable to protect their own goal either.  They were noble in defeat just as they have been elegant in victory and congratulated the Chileans at the end of the game.  Four years is a long time for an athlete and I expect we won't see many of them back on the world stage next time.  It made me think of A. E. Housman's poem - "To An Athlete Dying Young".  Here it is:

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

It's beautifully written, but I'm not sure I agree.  When you see the continued effort of the Spaniards throughout the 90 minutes of the game, there's something noble about that.  It's like Macbeth at the end of the play.  He knows he has lost.  He knows that evil forces have conspired against him.  There is no hope that he can win, but he fights off despair and doesn't give up and tries to the last:

I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last:  -- before my body
I throw my warlike shield:  lay on, Macduff;
And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"