Profligacy and Olympic Soccer
FIFA has a pretty decent summary of the Brazil-Nigeria women’s Olympic soccer match on their site, and there is a great blow-by-blow from kickoffnigeria.com, so I’m not going to give the detailed account I gave for the Super Falcon’s battle against Germany.
Watching today’s entertaining match, I found myself mulling over the way the word “profligacy” was used in FIFA’s summary of that last game againt Germany:
The African champions dominated much of this match and had enough chances to win a few games, but their profligacy in front of goal – which had already been in evidence in their 1-0 defeat to Korea DPR – once again proved their undoing.
Warning: I am an English Professor by trade. The author meant something like “wasted goal scoring opportunity,” a situation that writers about football find themselves needing to write over and over again, and so one’s vocabulary stretches along with that striker’s foot, and like that prodigal daughter who discards the perfect pass and misses the wide open net, sometimes the writer, too, goes wide of the mark. All that aside, profligacy is an odd word choice. Its first meaning is:
1. Licentious or dissolute behaviour; debauchery; spec. (in later use) sexual promiscuity. [Oxford English Dictionary]
Given the centuries-old racist and sexist traditions that inform representations of African women, it is not a word I would choose. I am sure the FIFA writer didn’t mean to draw from this (the primary) meaning of the word. Better to use the word in a statement like “Manchester United’s behavior off the pitch is a good example of the profligate lifestyle of contemporary footballers.”
Even the secondary meanings for “profligacy” feels inappropriate as a description of how the Super Falcons play:
2. a. Reckless extravagance, prodigality; (also) a wasteful or extravagant act. 2. b. Lack of moderation, excess; great abundance, profusion. [Again, this is from the O.E.D.]
On this point, my objection isn’t political, but technical. In footballing terms, I would say “profligacy” is more apropos of the striker who strikes too soon, of the player who sends the ball too far down the pitch. (In which case, one might tag Brazil for its profligacy in the first match against Germany in which we saw lots of long balls just launched away.)
If the Super Falcons suffered against these teams – the very best teams in the very toughest group in this tournament – it was, I think, more properly because they were too conservative. Which is perhaps counterintuitive, because the Super Falcons play with a lot of style and imagination. But style isn’t the same thing as wastefulness. If that were true, Argentina and Brazil would have the weakest records in football. And England would have qualified for Euro 2008.
A team of goal scorers and a lame back line may be accused of profligacy, in which case we can turn to Tottenham as a fine example. But the Nigerian women’s team plays more like Arsenal, who would never be called “profligate” with the parsimonious Wenger at the helm. We all know the purse strings are kept tight chez les Gunners. And then we have the style of play: lots of jaw dropping short little passes right up to the goal. Spectacular to watch. But, as we all know, eventually the odds go against these genius little moves up the field. Every pass is a pass that can go wrong or be interfered with. Every moment you hold onto the ball is a moment a defender has to catch you. The problem, here, then, is not “letting go” but holding on.
I am wondering if, in the case of the Nigerian women’s team, this isn’t about confidence, and the opportunities a team has to play together. You didn’t see Nigeria, for example, making a whole lot of medium or long passes into space – Germany’s Stegemann scored off of exactly that kind of optimism (“I know she’s on her way, and will be there by the time the ball gets there”), and Marta and Cristiane work off of exactly this kind of confidence in each other (“Marta – draw those three defenders off me, and then cross me the ball!”).
Nigeria’s problem isn’t profligacy – it’s the opposite. A fear of letting the ball go. And with so much riding on them – the only African women’s football team at the Olympics (and, therefore, the only all black team on the tournament’s rosters), who can blame them.
Want to talk about parsimony? Let’s talk about FIFA’s ambivalent support of African football over the years, and then let’s talk about FIFA’s even more ambivalent support of women’s football, and, well, marry those two histories: et voila! You have the special burden of being the only African women’s team allowed to take the world stage. Who can blame them for playing a somewhat skeptical game.
Well, there you have it, my reading of one sentence in a FIFA match report. This is what happens when a feminist English professor becomes a football fan.
Before I sign off for the day, let me just say some things about today’s game. The Super Falcons have super fans! You could hear them shouting, cheering, and singing alongside their own brass & drums band from the start to the finish of the match. And while plainly Cristiane is player of the match, I’d like to give a shout out to Nigeria’s Faith Ikidi who got in some technically perfect tackles and was just a hornet in both of the games I was lucky enough to see. She’s one of the defenders of the tournament in my eyes.
Cristiane’s bicycle kick goal brought tears to my eyes. So amazing, so perfect – she was surrounded by defenders and still got a controlling touch and just sent it over her own body and into the net. I was rooting for Nigeria, but I’m a fan of the beautiful game, and I don’t know what’s more gorgeous & inspirational than a goal like that. (Note the Nigerian player who nearly takes Cristiane’s foot in her face!)
So – here it is:
About the Author
Jennifer Doyle an occasional contributer to Pitch Invasion, and also writes From a Left Wing, ruminations on the beautiful game, from an unlikely player & fan.
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It’s really a shame that these three teams are in the same group, some of the football has been sublime, and you do a great job of capturing that.
Perhaps it’s just my middle aged white male insensitivity, but I think the use of “profligacy” here is more of a case of a pressured and underpaid hack latching onto to a stock phrase than an indicia of any inherent sexism or racism.
When I put “profligacy goal” into Google, I got 394,000 hits, with the first page including your From a Left Wing post (yea!) and a series of British match reports in which Carlos Tevez, Liverpool, Sunderland, Leeds United, a Scots non-league side named Bo’ness United, and yes, Arsenal, were all accused of the very same failing. As a Barca socio, I’m shocked that “we” didn’t make the top 10, as the accusation seemed almost mandatory in English-language reports of our matches last season (even though, Barca, like Nigeria, tended not to waste chances, but rather simply not create or take them).
It’s the hack antonym to “clinical finishing” (in fact, a number of those pieces use both in the same report).
And its use is, well, a bit profligate (in the OED 2 sense).
By the same token, if they accused the Nigerians of being naive . . .
I’m enjoying these posts on women’s Olympic soccer. Keep up the excellent unique coverage!
[note: I think the YouTube embed did weird things to the blog, my comments view is much larger than usual and is grey on black background, FYI, I'm using Firefox and Windows XP]
It´s just incredible how the women catched up in the past 10 years. I really enjoy their playing, especially as a german;)
profligacy
seems totally out of place in an article about football. I do say this jokingly since it was great to be fed my word of the day while I’m checking out the blogs I follow. Go players and don’t let this happen in front of the net again.
great post, since a come from Togo it resonates
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Ah man the video has been removed I wanted to see the super bicycle kick …
It does seem somewhat a strange word to be using you are right. I think a commentator should be sticking to a simpler blurb for the common man, im glad you gave the definitions as i would never have known what it meant even.
What a bad choice of words. Thanks for explaining profligacy, because I had no idea what it meant. Neither the first or second definitions have any place in a football editors arsenal of descriptive text. I do, however agree that the Nigerian women need to let go, and feel more positive about scoring. It’s held them back for quite some years now.
Any idea is the video will be back up? cheers!
Good Work here, Women Soccer really is working now. its always exciting to watch women soccer.
It’s very simple but it’s very classy
I’ve seen some similar videos to the one’s that you used to be to view on here. I think they were on youtube. Try going to search there. Some of them are really quite brilliant.
Can somebody remind me when the next women’s world cup is? Also where is it going to be played? I enjoy watching team USA.
Hey Clean Red, Looks like the video is up, not sure what you were looking at, maybe your browser was slow in loading…
Yeah I see the video too, maybe you need a codec or something for your browser.
Great Article.
Emo ve emolar hakkında her türlü bilgiye ulaşabileceğiniz bir blog sitesi
I am enjoying the FIFA league. In this game we can look peoples amazing passion. Its very fantastic game.
Thank for topic
I like the womens football but it’s a bit unsexy, I prefer to watch them play volleyball
Teşekkürler.
Article Thank You (;
I’m looking forward to 2012! I’ve got Brazil to win by a mile…