Tag Archives: Soccer

Bram Stoker’s Cure for Biting

By Robin Bates | Published: June 28, 2014

Soccer star Luis Suarez has a problem with biting. Bram Stoker had advice for dealing with biters.

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Spain No Longer a Soccer Colossus

By Robin Bates | Published: June 21, 2014

Spain, which once did bestride the soccer world like a colossus, has been ousted from the World Cup.

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U. S. as Prey in Most Dangerous Game?

By Robin Bates | Published: June 14, 2014

America’s soccer squad has an unsettling resemblance to the human prey in “The Most Dangerous Game.”

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Beckham Bends It Like Achilles

By Robin Bates | Published: December 29, 2012

In 2010 Carol Ann Duffy compared Beckham to Achilles after he went down with an injury to his Achilles tendon.

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Spanish Soccer as the Lady of Shalott

By Robin Bates | Published: July 7, 2012

In “The Lady of Shalott,” beauty can’t stand up against the real world. By winning the European Cup, Spain showed us this doesn’t always have to be the case.

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Twice Left for Dead, Japan Claws Back

By Robin Bates | Published: July 23, 2011

Two images came to mind as I twice watched the Japanese soccer team rebound from deficits. One was from Alain’s Renais’s film “Hiroshima Mon Amour” where we see grass clawing its way back in the city streets on the day following the atom bomb. The other was of the tortoise crossing the road in “Grapes of Wrath.”

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Cinderella vs. Jane Eyre in Soccer Final

By Robin Bates | Published: July 16, 2011

In tomorrow’s World Cup finals, Japan is Cinderella going up against America’s Jane Eyre.

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Barcelona-Madrid Is Like Goneril-Regan

By Robin Bates | Published: May 28, 2011

Think of the elder Lear sisters as Barcelona and Madrid and Edmund as a spot in the Champions League final. This would make Goneril Barcelona since she’s the one that emerges (temporarily) triumphant.

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Spanish Yin, Dutch Yang, and Shakespeare

By Robin Bates | Published: July 12, 2010

The commentators called it an ugly game, but I found something compelling about Spain’s victory over the Netherlands in yesterday’s World Cup final. And after all, regardless of what happened earlier in the game, how can one argue when the winning goal–and a beautifully struck ball at that–occurs just minutes before the end of overtime? […]

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