Poetics and the Beautiful Game (Soccer) (Essay‪)‬

Soccer fans often claim their sport is "the beautiful game." But anyone who has ever played or watched the sport must concede that not all games are beautiful. The history of soccer tactics can be characterized as the tension between creative and result-driven ambitions. Whether or not a side emphasizes the objective of scoring or the objective of not being scored upon, the means employed to achieve either or both objectives is often a source of debate among pundits and punters. "Its football, not figure skating" is a popular phrase that dismisses the ideal in favor of a more practical approach. The will-to-win often negates creativity and sporting expression; the "best team" doesn't always win. Nonetheless, such a result can be pleasing, even to the neutral disinterested spectator. Soccer isn't a judged sport--the winner isn't determined by ideal spectators whose trained eyes allow them to discern the truly great from the merely good. How then can we account for a well played game if an anti-aesthetic approach achieves the pleasurable result? Is there a method we can employ that will help determine the aesthetic quality of soccer games? Throughout this summer's FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the use of the word "drama" was de rigueur, if non-reflective, among the professional commentators in various media. This wasn't a critique of the "bad acting" on the part of players appealing for fouls but to convey the tension and excitement of the games as the tournament's narrative unfolded. This isn't unique to soccer and the term's use extends to the vocabulary of sport marketing: "The most memorable [sport] event experiences build drama from the playing surface outward" (Mullin, Hardy, and Sutton 153). The critical evaluation of sporting events isn't dissimilar from the assessment of theatrical events (both are, after all, forms of play). Though many philosophers of sport, such as David Best, are keen to distinguish sport from art, the art of drama can provide us with a means that will allow us to judge the aesthetic value of sporting event.