The Global Journey of Football: From the origins of the beautiful game to its recent use as a social catalyst

Football s consolidation as the world s most popular sport is the result of both the inherent attributes of the game, that is, its simplicity and universality, as well as the historical processes that have contributed to the expansion of this sport throughout time. Although the game has undergone very little structural transformation in the last decades, one of most notable developments in the world of football has taken place in the new application of the sport as a tool for social change. This has generated a true global social movement encompassing a multitude of actors such as national governments, the private sector, international organizations and NGOs, around the issue of development and peace through sport. With this background, the purpose of this book is two-fold: 1) Provide an overview of the history, evolution and global expansion of football, 2) bring to light the recent transformation experienced by the game as a social movement and as an agent of community change. This part includes the grassroots project Goals for Peace in Colombia and the Philippines, which aims at assessing the ways and extent to which this sport can be a transformative tool.

Autorentext

Alexander Cárdenas completed an MA in Global Studies at the Universities of Vienna, Austria and Leipzig, Germany. He has played football at a competitive level in Colombia and the US, and has an extensive collection of football items. He is currently involved in the design and implementation of sport for peace projects in Latin America, Asia and Europe, and undertakes doctoral research in the areas of peace, conflict resolution and development.

Klappentext

Football s consolidation as the world s most popular sport is the result of both the inherent attributes of the game, that is, its simplicity and universality, as well as the historical processes that have contributed to the expansion of this sport throughout time. Although the game has undergone very little structural transformation in the last decades, one of most notable developments in the world of football has taken place in the new application of the sport as a tool for social change. This has generated a true global social movement encompassing a multitude of actors such as national governments, the private sector, international organizations and NGOs, around the issue of development and peace through sport. With this background, the purpose of this book is two-fold: 1) Provide an overview of the history, evolution and global expansion of football, 2) bring to light the recent transformation experienced by the game as a social movement and as an agent of community change. This part includes the grassroots project Goals for Peace in Colombia and the Philippines, which aims at assessing the ways and extent to which this sport can be a transformative tool.

Leseprobe
Chapter 2.4 Professionalization of Football: Some people tell me that we professional players are football slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence .
Bobby Charlton
English player and 1966 World Cup winner
In football, players technical skills as well as the team s tactical dispositions on the pitch are both fundamental components for success. Accomplished teams throughout the history of the game have enriched football by developing new tactical schemes directed towards making a more efficient use of the possession of the ball while creating the most possible opportunities to score. After all, games are won by scoring more goals than the adversary. But these developments in football did not happen overnight. They were a consequence of a transformation in the game which favored the collective way of playing over the individualistic possession of the ball. The Scots were the first to practice a more collective football similar to the type we are all familiar with today. Their contributions to creating a more cooperative way of playing football translated into richer and more complex tactical and technical schemes. This in turn, can be argued, also was a factor in propelling the advent of the professionalization of the football.
The Scottish s approach to playing football was a simple, yet a very accurate one: the ball travels faster and more efficiently than a man. This principle allowed for a redistribution of players on the field to keep more players on defense, include two wingers in attack, reinforce the middle and learn a more accurate way to pass the ball. The passing of the ball development instead of the old Kick and Rush a tactic often associated with the English footballers, also contributed to a more precise short passing of the ball while keeping it on the ground so that the game looked more elegantly played and more dynamic in essence. This, in turn, led the players to develop new technical skills to control and pass the ball (Murray 1996, p. 8).
Prior to the Scottish development of the game and because of the earlier version of the off-side rule, football had become a dribbling game where chaos and disorder reigned on the pitch. The FA had adopted the following rule regarding the off-side position: When a player has kicked the ball anyone in the same team is regarded as off-side is he is nearer to the opponent s goal-line than the kicker . As a consequence and to avoid offside, most of the players had to adopt attacking positions even though it was very difficult to score. In 1886, the rule was changed so that a player was not in offside if three opponents were nearer to their own goal line. Queen s Park, a popular team in Glasgow, was the first to make use of the tactical advantages that the new rule presented. The team proposed a scheme composed of two fullbacks, two halfbacks and six attackers. In fact, the team was so successful with the application of the new formation that it went unbeaten and without a goal scored against them from the date of its founding on July 9 1867 until January 16th 1875 (Bolling 1994, p. 20).
Up until the 1880s it was common for English teams to display a 2-1-7 formation, that is two defenders, one player in the middle and seven attackers, an unconceivable arrangement for the modern times. A later 2-3-5 formation was widely adopted by English teams which allowed for a smooth movement of the ball across and along the pitch. The role of the wing was emphasized on this new model as it permitted an efficient use of empty spaces of the football field, usually crowded by players in the center (Golblatt 2006, p. 37).
Due to the technical skills and the elegant display of the game by the Scottish, these players became the most wanted in the powerful English Cup. Although many of them had migrated to escape the precarious economic situation of their former industrial towns, their priority was to play for one of the mythical teams of the English league. Golblat