Transcript

Fair Play · Letter to America

0:01
SPEAKER_00: The rules of football were written down in England in 1863 and traveled around the world, already reaching as far away as Argentina with British immigrants by the 1880s.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: The history of England-Argentina matchups at the World Cup is a storied rivalry that bears the scars of moral outrage.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Shots fired on the pitch and battlefield, echoing back and forth over the years.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: They faced off for the first time in 1966, and England won on a match Argentine fans still call the theft of the century.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: A goal disputed on a claimed offside, a captain sent off and escorted away by police.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: There were also claims of biased officiating and an outburst by England manager Alf Ramsey in the press referring to the Argentines as animals.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: That match, the very reason that red and yellow cards exist.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Four years after the Falklands War at the quarterfinals of the World Cup in 1986, Diego Maradona carried the weight of history on his shoulders, and by the hand of God and the goal of the century, won the match and further fueled the rivalry.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: England feeling cheated by a handball that wasn't called another stolen prize.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Then in 1998, Simeone's foul, Beckham's flick, Simeone's flop, a red card, England swears cost them the match.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Beckham burned in effigy.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: This year we witnessed the next chapter of this generational football family feud, like the Hatfields and McCoys, each side seeking to regain honor and redemption.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: I love the feeling of being connected to friends and family around the globe, experiencing this moment together, texting, emojis, expletives weaving us together on threads of a World Cup web.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: As FIFA says, football unites the world, except maybe on the pitch.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: The player sang the national anthem, clutching jerseys like flags.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: The match kicked off in a high gear that continued with no shots and eleven fouls before the end of the first quarter.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, commercial break.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean hydration break.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Both teams incessantly fouled, kicked, and shoved each other, stopping the flow and preventing opponents from launching attacks.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: The officiating was solid, and Moroccan-born American soccer referee Ismail El Fat became the first in 60 years to come through one of these World Cup matchups unscathed.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: He and the rest of the officiating team were beyond reproach, somehow both allowing a very intense, even rough match, while staying even in their calls and not allowing things to escalate.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Neither side can credibly claim that a referee decision made the match.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Ten minutes into the second half, England's Anthony Gordon buried across from Morgan Rogers to take the lead.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: No handball, no offside, no review, 60 years of disputed goals, and finally one that wasn't.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Argentina and Messi's relentless attacks finally prevailed in the dying minutes, where eleven Englishmen fought to hold their lead but fell under a hail of shots.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: At the end of 90 minutes plus injury time, the Argentines took this round, fair and square, two to one, with 39-year-old Messi assisting both goals.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: They advanced to the final against Spain to attempt a miracle, back-to-back championships.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Then everyone heads back home to regular programming after this month-long commercial break.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: And we line up and play again the next time, seeking that fleeting moment when our country raises the World Cup over our heads and hoping some of its glory rubs off on us.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: My friends and I are fans of the Egyptian national team, and it was hard not to feel the contrast from their July 7 round of sixteen match against Argentina.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: We watched with an added level of scrutiny and sensitivity.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Would the scales be tipped?
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Because it does tip.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Zico scored, tore off his shirt, spent the joy, and then Barr took the goal away.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: So he scored it again, minutes later, a seemingly insurmountable two zero lead, with under fifteen minutes of play left.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Then a penalty appeal waved away.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Then a possible foul in the buildup to Argentina's winning goal, the same offense that erased Zico's, left unreviewed.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: When a two zero lead by Egypt turned into a three two win by Argentina, well, that hit different.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't fair.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Even England's all time leading scorer Alan Shearer, no friend of Argentina, wrote, What we all saw, either both are fouls, or neither is.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Those wounds take longer to heal.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: They confessed her.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: It's great when it goes the way it's supposed to, the fair play, and yet in an ironic twist, the hunger that the agony of defeat creates, especially when it feels taken away, not earned.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: That's the key ingredient in the sweet taste of victory, too.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Ask any Argentinian today.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: My boys are following the World Cup action from New York and have had a lot on their plates in the real world of their day-to-day lives.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: They've enjoyed this once every four years distraction of World Cup matches, to temporarily take their minds off real life, played on a far less even pitch.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Earlier this year, my elder son, a funny thing to call a 28-year-old, was looking for a job, having finished a run as an assistant archivist with a well-known New York fashion brand.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: The other son, looking for his next move, and planning on leaving a job with a VC backed portfolio of startups that he'd been with since college, a chance to expand his horizons and resume.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Nominally, both looking for a job, but in ways that hit very differently.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Half full, half empty, or running over, depending on the calls of the day.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: They share a common disdain for hypocrisy and injustice with each other and their generation.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: The refrain, but that's not fair, a common one in our household, and I rarely disagree.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: The archivist's stint ended just before Christmas.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: His boss loved him, wanted to keep him on.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: But the private equity firm that owned the brand liked things lean and flexible.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Only afterward did the shape of it come clear.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Kept just under full time and just under a year, just under every line that might have obliged them to keep him.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Like so many people in businesses today, he lives in the gap between success in the attention economy and the one that pays rent.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: He has a strong following for his archive fashion page and a second, even bigger one he collaborates with as an archivist.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: The circles he's in are tight, and he often meets his heroes and finds that they already know his page and follow or subscribe.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: In short, as I joke, even he has to admit, he's kind of a big deal.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: And yet, he's couch surfing until he finds a sublet or a couple of paste ups to sign a lease.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: This rub between Buzz and Bucks can be crazy making.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Being both overqualified and still somehow turned down, pounding the pavement and wrestling with algorithms until he finally caught a break.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: This week he started a full-time retail job with a storied English luxury brand, as old as football.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: He's still crashing at his uncle's place while being flown business class to Europe on an unrelated assignment for yet another luxury European fashion house that's almost the same age.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: You can't make this stuff up.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, earlier this year, our younger son got approached by a headhunter before even starting his hunt in earnest.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: After a flurry of emails, he had an offer in hand and took it.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: He was walking away from some equity, but for a larger company with a bigger job and an options program.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Long story short, he submitted his resignation, and they countered, aggressively.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: When all was said and done, he pulled his acceptance and stayed with a higher level job and pay rise to match.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Then in another sudden plot twist, within months, his company was acquired, creating a windfall and an even bigger job in pay package, with equity at the new publicly traded parent company.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: It was a lot to process from the sidelines in Istanbul.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Like a football fan, I stare at the screen and love seeing their hard work over the years pay off in their careers.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Their obvious talents carrying the day and being rewarded.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: The social compact honored.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Their dream fulfilled.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And then a bad call.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: It hurts.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Deeply.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: The hardest part is feeling so invested in the outcomes and having no real ability to impact them.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: My younger son plays on three pickup soccer teams in Brooklyn.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: The other day we caught him on FaceTime after a match, soaked to the skin, beaming.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: All the crazy twists and turns on the job front, it was nice to see him feeling simply happy.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Glowing.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: After playing in the pouring rain in the 7v7 finals of his most competitive league.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And they won.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: He was happier than he'd been when all the other cards fell his way.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: He raised the trophy to the camera, smiling ear to ear.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Tiny, plastic, and priceless.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: This is Hand Dalin from Istanbul.