If Didier Drogba represents the image of a contemporary African hero on the global stage then who or what does Senegalese striker El Hadji Diouf represent?
Meet Digital Diouf. David Kilpatrick’s intriguing post in the New York Times GOAL blog tells us about “We Tripped El Hadji Diouf: The Story of a Photoshop Thread,” a recent exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.
The story is about the intersection of sport, art, and digital technology. At the heart of it is a three-second clip of Diouf (at Rangers) sent flying by Hearts midfielder Ian Black’s tackle. The video was photoshopped and then posted on SomethingAwful.com, where users imaginatively molded it into extraordinarily creative and wide-ranging videos. Eventually, 35 of the videos were looped together and displayed at the Museum of the Moving Image.
“While many of the images embrace Diouf’s agony as some kind of karmic retribution for his villainy,” Kilpatrick writes, “others allow technology to revise the outcome and provide a happy ending.” Rumor has it that Dakar’s digital griots are planning a sequel.
Category: Video
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Goal of the Week: A Goal and…a Spare
By Simone Poliandri
To celebrate the end of the football season and awaiting the kickoff of EURO 2012, Goal of the Week issues its concluding gem with a funny twist. On May 12, Toshihiro Aoyama of the Japanese league team Sanfrecce Hiroshima scored the go-ahead goal on a 70-meter-long shot that caught visiting Yokohama F. Marinos goalkeeper by surprise. Already a fantastic feat, this goal was paired with a much creative “Bowling” celebration by the home side akin to the “famous” goal celebrations introduced and performed by Icelandic team Stjarnan FC.
For the record, Yokohama won the game 1-3.
This goal offers a smile and provides the icing on the Goal of the Week first season cake.
See you in the fall!
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How a “Nutmeg” found its way into Football
Why I won’t be using the term NUTMEG in football again. Wiki dispels the notion the term derives from the never present Tony Nutmeg of Leeds United, and in citing Brain Granville and other football scholars suggest the term probably came from nutmeg export business where unscrupulous traders slipped wooden replicas into sacks and barrels. But like Roy Hodgson’s Apartheid years (also recently missing from Wiki and currently being airbrushed from history by the BBC and others) the most likely origin of the term and how it slipped into the football narrative comes from the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
By Simone Poliandri
This week we pay homage to amateur youth football, showcasing a gem by Farai Mutatu, a Zimbabwean player of TNT Dynamite Soccer U13 Boys Red team of Lansing, Michigan. In the 29th minute of the first game of the season against team SCOR, Farai scored the game winning goal by bicycle kicking a deflected ball into the opponent net. A feat of readiness and great coordination. The final score of the match, played on April 16, was 3-2.
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Goal of the Week: Ladies’ magic
By Simone Poliandri
This week we celebrate women’s football with a spectacular goal by one of the best players in the world, Brazilian striker Marta Vieira Da Silva. Voted FIFA player of the year for five consecutive years (2006-2010), Marta, who just signed a two-year contract with the Swedish first-division team Tyresö FF, gave proof of her exceptional talent in a recent game that her team won 7-0 against KIF Örebro. In the 55th minute, Marta controlled a loose ball in the box with her right foot and back-heeled it with her left to make the score 5-0. As Marta played her first game for Tyreso in March 2012, this is the beginning of a season of extra work (and headaches) for opposing defenders and goalkeepers.
[iPad users click here for video.]
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Goal of the Week: Rewind to…1988 volley!
By Simone Poliandri
The opening goal in Real Madrid’s 5-1 away victory against Osasuna in matchday 31 of the Spanish Liga brings all long-term football aficionados back to memories of past champions. On March 31, Madrid striker Karim Benzema volleyed a surgically accurate cross by Cristiano Ronaldo into the opposite top corner of Osasuna’s net. This marvel of coordination and accuracy resembles closely Dutch phenom Marco van Basten’s splendid goal against USSR in the 1988 European Cup final.
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Fair Play: The way to play the game
By Simone Poliandri
It is always a surprising pleasure to witness episodes of fair play on the football pitch. What should be the norm rather than the exception entails placing a higher value on honesty than on winning a game or scoring a goal. This is exactly what midfielder Vittorio Esposito of Termoli Calcio did in the Italian National Amateur Cup quarterfinal return match against Torres. After being unjustly awarded a penalty kick, Esposito missed it intentionally, thus earning the opponents’ respectful cheers as well as those of all footballers and lovers of the sport. For the record, Termoli won the game 1-0 and advanced to the semifinals on a 3-2 aggregate.
As we still witness countless unsportsmanlike episodes like diving and faking injuries among professionals in all leagues and international competitions, Esposito’s gesture represents both a breath of fresh air and an example that many of his more famous and better paid colleagues ought to emulate. Way to go Vittorio!