Table Of ContentTHE AESTHETICS, POETICS,
AND RHETORIC OF SOCCER
Edited by
Ridvan Askin, Catherine Diederich, and Aline Bieri
The Aesthetics, Poetics, and
Rhetoric of Soccer
Soccer has long been known as ‘the beautiful game’. This multi- disciplinary volume explores
soccer, soccer culture, and the representation of soccer in art, film, and literature, using the
critical tools of aesthetics, poetics, and rhetoric.
Including international contributions from scholars of philosophy, literary and cultural
studies, linguistics, art history, and the creative arts, this book begins by investigating the
relationship between beauty and soccer and asks what criteria should be used to judge the
sport’s aesthetic value. Covering topics as diverse as humor, national identity, style, celebrity,
and social media, its chapters examine the nature of fandom, the role of language, and the
significance of soccer in contemporary popular culture. It also discusses what one might call
the ‘stylistics’ of soccer, analyzing how players, fans, and commentators communicate on and
off the pitch, in the press, on social media, and in wider public discourse.
The Aesthetics, Poetics, and Rhetoric of Soccer makes for fascinating reading for anybody
with an interest in sport, culture, literature, philosophy, linguistics, and society.
Ridvan Askin is a Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow in American and General Lit-
eratures at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He is the author of Narrative and Becoming
(2016) and the co- editor of Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives (2015)
and a special issue of the journal Speculations on Aesthetics in the 21st Century (2014). His
publications include essays on aesthetics, contemporary North American fiction, narrative
theory, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He supports the German Bundesliga team SC Freiburg.
Catherine Diederich is a Teaching and Research Fellow in Linguistics and Language Didactics
at the University of Teacher Education in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Her research focuses on the
development of pragmatic competence in the foreign language classroom. Her main research
areas include cognitive semantics, intercultural pragmatics, and sensory language. She is the
author of the book Sensory Adjectives in the Discourse of Food: A Frame-S emantic Approach
to Sensory Language (2015) in which she explores the interrelation between language and
sensory perception. Her interest in the senses and embodied cognition is also what fascinates
her about language use in the soccer arena—apart from her passion for soccer since early child-
hood when she played in the American Youth Soccer Organization. In addition, she is interested
in multilingualism in soccer team management, particularly from a didactic perspective.
Aline Bieri is a Research Assistant and Instructor for English Linguistics at the University of
Basel, Switzerland. She holds an M.A. in English and Biology from the University of Basel and
is currently working on her Ph.D. entitled Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
in the Swiss Context: The Linguistic Challenges and Implications of Teaching a Subject such as
Biology in English. She is especially interested in the interface of biology as a subject and its lin-
guistic requirements for students and for teachers in a CLIL and non-C LIL environment as well
as how this then manifests itself in the classroom discourse in a multilingual context such as
that of Switzerland. Her academic research interests cover everything from sociolinguistics to
cognitive linguistics (with special emphasis on first and second language acquisition and bi- and
multilingualism). Other than being a passionate linguist she is also an enthusiastic soccer
aficionado and lifelong supporter of the one and only Swiss soccer club FC Basel.
Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society
91 Global Perspectives on Sports and Christianity
Edited by Afe Adogame, Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker
92 Sporting Capital
Transforming sports development policy and practice
Nicholas F. Rowe
93 Rugby Union and Professionalisation
Elite player perspectives
Mike Rayner
94 International Safeguards for Children in Sport
Developing and embedding a safeguarding culture
Daniel Rhind and Frank Owusu- Sekyere
95 Transforming Sport
Knowledges, practices, structures
Edited by Thomas F. Carter, Daniel Burdsey and Mark Doidge
96 Football Fans, Activism and Social Change
Dino Numerato
97 Rethinking Olympic Legacy
Vassil Girginov
98 Surfing, Sex, Genders and Sexualities
Edited by lisahunter
99 The Aesthetics, Poetics, and Rhetoric of Soccer
Edited by Ridvan Askin, Catherine Diederich, and Aline Bieri
www.routledge.com/sport/series/RRSCS
The Aesthetics, Poetics,
and Rhetoric of Soccer
Edited by Ridvan Askin,
Catherine Diederich, and
Aline Bieri
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Ridvan Askin, Catherine
Diederich, and Aline Bieri; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Ridvan Askin, Catherine Diederich, and Aline Bieri to
be identified as the authors of the editorial matter, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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including photocopying and recording, or in any information
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-8153-8573-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-18040-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Lists of figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Pep talk 1
Klopp’s Heideggerianism 3
SIMON CRITCHLEY
Taking the field 11
Introduction: aesthetics, poetics, rhetoric, soccer 13
RIDvAN ASkIN, CATHERINE DIEDERICH, AND
ALINE BIERI
First half: aesthetics 25
1 Good games as athletic beauty: why association football is
rightly called ‘the beautiful game’ 27
EMILY RYALL
2 Appreciating the not- obviously-beautiful game 44
ADAM kADLAC
3 “England ’til I die”: soccer, national identity, and
contemporary art 62
DANIEL HAxALL
vi Contents
4 The messianic manager in novels by David Peace 90
DAvID kILPATRICk
Half time: poetics 107
5 The man in the dugout: fictional football managers and the
politics of resistance 109
CYPRIAN PISkUREk
6 The importance of trivial oppositions in football fandom:
the narcissism of minor differences in derby games 126
kRISTOF k.P. vANHOUTTE
7 Stupidity in football 141
PHILIP SCHAUSS
Second half: rhetoric 161
8 “Caveman stuff ”: Ireland’s soccer struggle with identity,
style, and success 163
MICHAEL O’HARA AND CONNELL vAUGHAN
9 The beautiful and the grim: British cultural discourses of
the Eastern European game 182
BLANkA BLAGOjEvIC
10 “Text sex with Becks”: football celebrities, popular press,
and the spectacle of language 200
jAN CHOvANEC
11 Multimodal construction of soccer-r elated humor on
Twitter and Instagram 227
THOMAS MESSERLI AND DI YU
12 Multilingualism in football teams 256
EvA LAvRIC AND jASMIN STEINER
Notes on contributors 275
Index 279
Figures
1.1 The relationship between open and closed skill and
their corresponding value as a skillful interchange 40
3.1 Stuart Roy Clarke, Three Pillars of Society, 2015 65
3.2 Chris Steele- Perkins, England, 1982 66
3.3 Mark Wallinger, 31 Hayes Court, Camberwell New
Road, Camberwell, London, England, Great Britain,
Europe, The World, The Solar System, The Galaxy,
The Universe, 1994 67
3.4 Mark Wallinger, They think it’s all over … it is now,
1988 69
3.5 volker Schrank, Gesammelte Helden: Beckenbauer
(A Collection of Heroes: Beckenbauer), 2003–2005 72
3.6 Werner Büttner, Cultural Imperialist Rascals’ Trick,
1987 73
3.7 Albrecht Tübke, Spieler (Hans-J ürgen Kreische), 2006 75
3.8 Thomas Hoepker, Munich, day before the opening of
the Soccer World Cup, scene from downtown.
Brochures on newsstand in Kaufingerstrasse, 2006 76
3.9 Paul Pfeiffer, The Saints, 2007 79
3.10 Paul Pfeiffer, The Saints, 2007 80
3.11 Esra Ersen, Im Strafraum (In the Penalty Area), 2001 82
3.12 Hassan Hajjaj, Nike v. Adidas, 2010/1431 84
3.13 Hassan Hajjaj, Just Do It, 2006/1427 85
10.1 Humorous treatment of taboo in the Matt cartoon 220
10.2 A parody of the taboo guessing in the Matt cartoon 221
11.1 Incongruities in pictures 234
11.2 Recontextualizing incongruity 235
11.3 Reinforcing incongruities in pictures 237
11.4 Incongruous action 238
11.5 juxtaposing incongruities 238
11.6 Incongruous collage 239
11.7 juxtaposed incongruous pictures 240
viii Figures
11.8 Humorous caption 242
11.9 Humorous recontextualization 243
11.10 juxtaposed pictures and captions 244
11.11 Breaking the pattern 245
11.12 Crying- laughing emoji 247
11.13 Stranded conversation in comments 249
11.14 Multimodal comment 250
11.15 Multimodal comment 251
Acknowledgments
This book originates in a conference on “The Beautiful Game: The Aes-
thetics and Poetics of Soccer in Transnational Perspective,” organized by
the editors under the auspices of the Swiss Association for North American
Studies and held at the University of Basel during the 2016 European
Championship. The conference was generously funded by the Swiss
Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences. Without the many excellent
contributions to the conference, this book would not have been possible.
Our thanks are also due to the members of staff of Basel’s Department of
English who provided invaluable help in the preparation of and during the
conference: Sixta Quassdorf, johanna Schüpbach, Rahel Ackermann Hui,
and Denise kaufmann. That this volume is not a mere conference proceed-
ings is due not only to the fact that we asked our contributors to signifi-
cantly expand on the topics and issues they first raised in their conference
papers, but also to the follow-u p workshop held at Wake Forest University
in the summer of 2017 when most of the contributors came together again
to discuss a first version of their articles. We would like to express our
gratitude to Adam kadlac and the Wake Forest Department of Philosophy
for making this possible. Adam is unrivalled in his generosity, both in intel-
lectual and in more material terms, his patience, and his—sometimes
unrelenting—humor, a most formidable host indeed. We would also like
to thank all our contributors for their commitment and their hard work.
We feel privileged to have been working with such splendid colleagues.
We gratefully acknowledge the permission to use material from Simon
Critchley, What We Think About When We Think About Football,
London: Profile Books, 2017.
Ridvan Askin, Catherine Diederich, and Aline Bieri
Basel and St. Gallen, November 2017
