Football in Sun and Shadow
Eduardo Galenano, 1995
Review by Harlem Lamine
Eduardo Galeano is a Uruguayan author, playwright and journalist. He has written landmark works on understanding Latin America through its colonial history, imperialist states, the exploitation of so-called ‘indigenous’ peoples and slavery.
“Open veins of Latin America” is one of his most popular essays, providing an understanding of what is at stake in this part of the world. Nevertheless, Galeano was not only a brilliant essayist who devoted himself to retracing the history of his continent, but also, like every Uruguayan, a football fan from the cradle.
“Football is a place where reason and emotion inevitably meet all the time. I'd like to start by confessing that I always wanted to be a professional football player. I wasn't born with the dream of becoming a writer. Like all Uruguayan babies who shout ‘goal’ when they crawl out from between their mothers’ legs” said Galeano cite when and where he said this.
For Galeano, being Uruguayan and loving football means saying the same thing twice. And for this brilliant writer with the allure of a failed footballer, it is impossible not to link his two passions. Having written a number of works on Latin America in previous decades, Galeano thereafter began work on his book picking apart a phenomenon that is just as intertwined with the history and culture of Latin America: the religion of the ball. In 1995, he published “Football in Sun and Shadow” in the tradition of the French moralists of the 17th century. A fragmentary exercise that offers reflections on the habits, customs, ways of life, heroes and anti-heroes of this sport. The writing is subtle, intelligent and elegant, revealing a uniquely original view of football and, above all, gives us an insight into a passion that can be “absurd and devouring.”
The fragmented writings are as much ironic observations on the evolution of football as they are expressions of admiration. Galeano alternates between thoughtful reflections and the frivolous. It is a style of writing that ultimately embodies the place football occupies in our societies.
In the space of a sentence, he shifts and sharpens our gaze, as in one of his first fragments on “the Manager”:
“The trainer used to say, ‘Let's play.’”
“The manager says, ‘Let's go to work.’”
As well as on referees who are easily blamed whether you win or lose:
“The losers owe their loss to him and the winners triumph in spite of him.”
And on the description and analysis of a goal, which is not just a tactical decoding but also a social and historical plunge. A goal begins with the gestures, guile and agility that some footballers have learnt from childhood.
Like the description of Pedro Rocha's goal: “he did whatever he wanted with the ball, and she believed every bit of it,” or Jairzinho's goal at the 1970 World Cup: “He came on like a black bullet and evaded one Englishman before the ball, a white bullet, crossed the goal line defended by the keeper Banks. It was the winning goal. Swaying to the rhythm of a fiesta, Brazil's attackers had tossed off seven guardians of the steel fortress”; we enter and understand the nuances of each culture through the dribbles, the allure and the genius of each player through his writing.
“Football in Sun and Shadow” by Galeano is a book that celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. And despite the decades that have passed, the criticisms he addresses and the testimonies of the actions of Di Stéfeno and Garrincha are just as relevant today. And one truth remains which is expressed in the book’s Author’s Confession: “when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don't give a damn which team or country performs it.” — HL