Prime Minister Mark Carney (clad in a Canada jersey) and FIFA president Gianni Infantino watched Canada's Group B match against Qatar in Vancouver earlier this month.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
After Italy tanked out of a European championship more than 20 years ago, its on-again, off-again prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had a few thoughts.
“We could have won, and we definitely should have won,” the country’s greatest ever unhired soccer coach said. “Even an amateur would have realized and would have won, by stopping [the best player in the world at the time, Zinedine] Zidane.”
Yes, that guy. Just stop him. Come si dice ‘kick him in the crotch?’
The Italian coach, Dino Zoff, then quit in the sort of huff only an Italian whose honour has been besmirched can summon up.
“The value of a human being comes before anything else,” Zoff said. “I have been offended, and I will reply to Berlusconi personally.”
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How much would you have paid to be at that Illuminati spa day?
This sort of thing happens at pretty much every major soccer tournament. At this World Cup, it’s South Korea’s turn. Its team just bombed out. The president, possibly after getting into the soju, went on a long social-media rant about it.
“I am not just taken aback by this unexpected outcome,” Lee Jae Myung wrote. “I am utterly baffled.”
I don’t know what to tell you, man. There’s a ball and both teams are allowed to kick it. Occasionally, it ends up in places you hoped it wouldn’t.
Hong Myung-bo, centre, resigned as South Korea's men's soccer coach following the team's early elimination from the World Cup, which garnered criticism from president, Lee Jae Myung.Ahn Young-joon/The Associated Press
Getting stroppy about it is one thing. Lee went a step further, calling for a government investigation into the loss. What are they investigating exactly? Newton’s third law of motion?
The nub of sports is not that it is unpredictable. It’s that it is never predictable.
However, it is in the nature of politicians to believe all things are fixable and, surprise surprise, that they are the person to fix them.
This is why elected officials should be prohibited from talking publicly about or being too near the sports. Going to them is fine. They’re still citizens with rights. But stay off the field. Resist the urge to coach.
Don’t do what Emmanuel Macron did after the 2022 World Cup final, wandering around like a sad dad looking for someone’s head to cradle in a vaguely creepy way. The French team’s best defensive move of the match was avoiding him en masse.
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Our own general manager, Mark Carney, is getting perilously proximate to this sort of thing. Clearly, Carney doesn’t think it was disdain for his predecessor or dislike of his opponent that got him the job. It was the hockey jersey.
How many jerseys does this guy own? What’s the problem with going to the game in a nice, collared shirt?
Carney was in the stands for the Qatar game in Vancouver. He was wearing one of those hideous, body-contoured Canada jerseys that look like someone’s Magic Bullet blew up while they were making a vanilla shake. A note about official soccer jerseys – they flatter actual soccer players. On everybody else, they look like tubing.
Sitting alongside Carney, Gianni Infantino was sucked and tucked into a sublimely tailored blue suit. In pictures of the two together, it looks like the FIFA president has brought his kid to the game.
Carney and FIFA president Gianni Infantino in the stands at BC Place in Vancouver.Agustin Marcarian/Reuters
Afterward, Carney gave a speech to the Canadian team in the locker room. Most of them stood there with a ‘Why is one of the equipment guys talking right now?’ look on their faces.
We are close to the line here. Not over it, but toeing it. The Olympics is one thing. Most of the athletes there are young ones working near the poverty line for the national cause. That occasion is all flag, all the time. You’re allowed to get carried away.
But everywhere else, no. These are well recompensed professionals. If you wouldn’t go high-fiving your way through the offices at Torys LLP with a camera trailing behind you, don’t do it here.
Above all, resist the urge to become one of the boys, or girls. They don’t know you and they don’t want to. You’ve got time to give them a speech? How about you give a much louder and more threatening speech to whoever handles summer scheduling at my local transit service? Because that would be of more use to more people.
Eventually, voters begin to wonder why our leaders have limitless mental space to devote to this sports thing, but are unable to figure out the housing crunch. If we wanted to hire a team of national cheerleaders, Ryan Reynolds is permanently available, and looks even better in a tight polyester shirt.
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Now is the moment of real danger – before the big game, with many days of airtime left to fill.
Clusters of politicians will be launching themselves from a great distance at the bandwagon.
I assume they believe that deploying little quips about the qualities of this or that player makes them seem like regular people. Really, it makes them sound like that neighbour who can’t stop nattering about something they half-read on Instagram, and one-quarter understood.
I pine – pine! – for the Canadian politician who says, “Hockey? Yeah, not really my thing. Dumb sport, if I’m being honest.” I’d vote for that person if they were a Maoist. At least they’d be an original thinker.
This would all be in good fun if average people didn’t have real problems requiring political resolution. There is something offensive about parliament taking a three-month vacation so that members can devote themselves to the football. Not deeply offensive, but a little. It doesn’t feel right.
Nor does the president of South Korea throwing a hissy fit because the soccer team didn’t perform to his standards. Aren’t they running out of people over there? That would seem like a better thing to worry about, and do so 24 hours a day until the issue is resolved.
On Saturday, Canada may or may not win. If they do, great. If they don’t, it’s not a problem of national importance. It is a trifle. Let those who deal in trifles – ahem – handle it.