DON'T GET LOST IN THE WASH.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI David Beckham's earliest fashion statement, the first of many in the life of sports' leading clotheshorse, was a red No. 7 Manchester United jersey. ``My dad used to buy me Manchester United (jerseys), and my granddad used to buy me Tottenham,'' Beckham said on the way to the Real Madrid team bus after practice Sunday. ``Soccer shirts were all I ever wanted to wear.'' That sounds perfectly natural for a London lad, a soccer prodigy who would grow up to emulate his boyhood hero Bryan Robson
Bryan Robson OBE (born 11 January, 1957 in Chester-le-Street, County Durham) is an English football manager and former player. by wearing No. 7 for Man U and England. So what are we to make of all the grown Americans strolling around in soccer shirts these days? While I sit here at Home Depot The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,164 big-box Center on Monday night with a crowd of 27,000 watching Real Madrid outclass out·class tr.v. out·classed, out·class·ing, out·class·es To surpass decisively, so as to appear of a higher class. outclass Verb to surpass (someone) in performance or quality the Galaxy 2-0 in an early stop on a U.S.-Asia preseason tour by a soccer club so star-studded that its roster may be more recognizable to L.A. sports fans than the Dodgers'. The night before, 8,000 fans filled the stands on one side of the Home Depot field to watch the Real Madrid training session. What I'll remember most from this night - beyond Zinedine Zidane's mastery - is those fans in the stands, Americans wearing the infinite, colorful uniforms of a benign global army. If you believe the intellectuals who say soccer is the sporting symbol of globalization globalization Process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation , then the increasingly common phenomenon of Americans in the uniform tops of other countries and major foreign professional teams is the signal that the world has crossed our doorstep. ``It seems unbelievable,'' Beckham said. ``You see young kids wearing soccer shirts, and you see granddads wearing soccer shirts. It's amazing how soccer touches so many people.'' At Real Madrid's practice Sunday, I counted a dozen distinct styles of Beckham jerseys on fans' backs. Real Madrid No. 23s, Manchester United and England No. 7s. White, and red, and blue. Short sleeves, and long sleeves. Name in capital letters, and caps and lower case. Almost any permutation One possible combination of items out of a larger set of items. For example, with the set of numbers 1, 2 and 3, there are six possible permutations: 12, 21, 13, 31, 23 and 32. (mathematics) permutation - 1. one can order online or purchase for $90 at a Home Depot Center souvenir stand. It wasn't only Beckham. There were Real Madrid jerseys of six different players, and shirts representing other major teams from every populated continent. A man in Barcelona's red and blue stripes heard the wrath of the Real fans. It isn't only at soccer fields. You see the shirts, with their tiny club crests and dominant advertising logos, on college campuses, everywhere. Maybe we can't bend it like Beckham, but we can stretch it, bleach it, tumble-dry it and wear it like Beckham. One suspects this is about more than soccer. There's a certain sort of person who collects soccer shirts. It's easy to picture John Kerry  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. in a soccer shirt, not so much
for George W. Bush. Dixie Chicks, yes. Charlie Daniels Charles Edward "Charlie" Daniels (born October 28, 1936 in Wilmington, North Carolina) is an American musician famous for his contributions to country and southern rock music. , no. Paul
DePodesta Paul DePodesta (born December 16, 1972) is baseball front-office assistant for the San Diego Padres.He has also served as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from February 16, 2004 to October 29, 2005. , not Bill Stoneman In his book ``How Soccer Explains the World,'' Franklin Foer Franklin Foer is an American political journalist and the editor of The New Republic. Foer graduated from Columbia in 1996. Before joining The New Republic, Foer was a frequent contributor to the online magazine Slate. writes about a U.S.-Honduras World Cup qualifying match in Washington in 2001. As often happens at international soccer games, fans of the American side were outnumbered by fans of the visitors. Fans had been encouraged to wear red shirts to support the United States against blue-and-white Honduras. ``But most Americans don't possess a red USA jersey and aren't about to go down to the sporting goods store to buy one,'' Foer writes. ``They do, however, own red Arsenal, Man U and Ajax jerseys, or, in my case, an old Barcelona one, that they collected on continental travels. While we were giving a patriotic boost, we couldn't help revealing our Europhilic cosmopolitanism.'' It's the culture of the soccer shirt. Where do corporations stamp their trademarks for maximum TV exposure? On the chests of soccer shirts. What was the name of the musical ode to English soccer? ``Three Lions on a Shirt.'' How do players from opposing teams make peace after the final whistle? They trade shirts. Welcome to the soccer shirt culture, America. We've been told over and over that Real Madrid's U.S. tour, this soccer-style barnstorming
Barnstorming , is about marketing. About opening a rich market to shirt sales. Maybe the market's already open. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion