Eduardo Galeano
Eduardo Galeano – who has also done some “serious” writing – is famous for writing one of the best soccer books ever, “Soccer in Sun and Shadow“. In that book he provides a thorough and poetic explanation of what is beautiful about the “Beautiful Game”. But Eduardo Galeano is not Brazilian. Eduardo Galeano is Uruguayan.
We don’t intend to offend devotees of this site who are looking for a complete focus on Brazilian futebol and the highly anticipated 2014 Brazil World Cup but we may from time to time step out a bit and try to bring perspective to this project by introducing other ideas of what exactly the “Beautiful Game” is.
And so for today we draw your attention to Galeano’s joy at seeing his Uruguay once again triumphant.
Uruguay was once a major soccer power, having won the World Cup twice in the early days of the competition. In recent years there has not been much to speak of on the international stage. That is until the 2011 Copa America.
With Brazil and Argentina surprisingly knocked out early in the tournament for Supremacy of the Americas, Uruguay managed to win the whole damn thing, doing so in fine style and with superb individual performances from Luis Suarez and Diego Forlan. it was Uruguay’s record 15th title, putting them ahead of – well everyone – and to emphasize the point – ahead of Argentina and – yes – beautiful Brazil – who incidentally were not beautiful in this tournament.
No it was Uruguay which was beautiful, in the way it played.
The “way” – that’s what brings us back to Galeano, the great artist, who knows a thing or two about beauty. Here’s what he said about the Uruguay Copa win (via Google Translatlor):
MONTEVIDEO, 25 (ANSA) – “I’m very, very happy. For the victory and the cup number fifteen, but even more for the way they won,” wrote the writer Eduardo Galeano today about the triumph of Uruguay in Copa America .”The Uruguayan football is practicing solidarity, all for one, one for all, which retrieves the joy of playing, and playing together,” Galeano said on his Facebook page.
Ah yes – the way they won.
That’s important to us here.
The “way” is important in understanding what the “Beautiful Game” means.
And today we learn about the way of beauty from a Uruguayan.
We can do that for a day, can’t we?
