Spain, the serial underachievers were about to win at an
unprecedented pace, should they find a way to be victorious at Euro 2012.
Broadcasters, and others in the media, nearly led me to
believe a triumph by La Furia Roja would be the first time in soccer history a
country won three straight major tournaments. Spain’s emphatic victory Sunday
meant they completed the treble.
Throughout Euro 2012, something in me remained skeptical
each time I heard someone trot out that useful piece of history to justify the
Spanish as the best team of all time. I just had a hunch there was a
long-forgotten South American team that won successive major titles.
The Brazilian teams of the early 60s led by the incomparable
Pele came to mind. But, after winning the 1958 and 1962 World Cups, the
Brazilians faltered in the 1963 South American championships to Bolivia of all
teams.
Turns out it wasn’t the Brazilians that set the standard for
winning in the beautiful game. It’s
their neighbors — Uruguay.
For a country with fewer inhabitants than greater Miami, it’s
pretty remarkable they won Olympic titles in 1924 and 1928, the 1929 South
American championship and the first World Cup in 1930.
The current Spanish soccer team would likely wipe the floor
with the Uruguayans, because soccer, like so many sports, has changed over the
past 80 years. To me, the bigger annoyance is how those past accomplishments
were conveniently swept under the rug when a more colorful narrative arises.
Sunday night, I sent a text message to some very close
friends highlighting that frustration:
“I find it funny
people have fallen over themselves to say Spain is the first team to win three
major tournaments. … My point is the Euro-centric media is quick to omit or
forget history when it doesn’t suit them. South America and Africa held
continental championships long before Europe, but that’s forgotten.”
South America held its first continental championship in
1916. The Asian Cup was created in 1956, while the first African Cup of Nations
was first held a year later. Europe didn’t get around to hosting its first continental
championship until 1960.
The deification of the Spanish national team was a reminder
of the European World View, a term I was taught in a black psychology class
back in college. I digested most of the lessons from that course with a raised
eyebrow and a quizzical look. However, some fragments stuck around like broccoli
in incisors.
One such lesson came in a chapter titled “The Development/Acquisition
of Cultural Misorientation. The following sounds like a mouthful, but it made
all the sense in the world this weekend as journalists exalted Spain, and
brushed aside everyone else.
“Eurocentric curriculum content, which presents European history
and culture as the frame of reference for world history and culture; denies,
fabricates and distorts true African History and Cultural contributions to the
world; and presents the Eurocentric models of reality in the liberal arts,
natural sciences and social sciences as universal standards for optimal human
expression and European culture as the universal referent for human culture.”
In layman, and soccer-specific terms, Spain is not the first
team to win consecutive continental championships.
Asia has had four repeat champions, including an Iranian
trifecta in 1968, 1972 and 1976. Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil have won the South
American championship/Copa America multiple times. Ghana won consecutive
African championships in the early 60s. Cameroon did the same four decades
later, while Egypt won three straight African Cup of Nations tournaments in
2006, 2008 and 2010.
Soccer is certainly not the sport for everyone. But, when
history is conveniently forgotten in a sporting context, we should all take
note to ensure other, more important issues, are not being whitewashed from our
conscience.
Laughs and liveliness,
-Wb
