Soccer: Mind vs. Heart

We all know that as far as the medium of video is concerned, all bets are pretty much off with regards to reality. You simply can't be sure that what you're seeing on a tv, movie, or computer screen is real. The technologies available in video enhancement, computer graphics and the like are edging beyond the ability of the human eye to separate the actual from the manipulated. I know this. I am well aware of this. Being a sometimes-cynical person, I would even say that I embrace this. Further, this skepticism is most appropriately applied to any advertisement, a medium which fundamentally relies on deception.

But there are a few other things to consider which, I swear, are related:

First, the World Cup is beginning June 9. Held once every four years, this is one of the most globe-uniting sporting events in human history, possibly even more so than the Olympics. Unlike curling or the heptathlon, the world is familiar with and nuts about soccer, to put it mildly. There hangs in the sporting air a palpable sense of international excitement and even, I daresay, unity. This is exciting stuff.

Second, I've been playing soccer pretty much constantly for the last twenty-five years, so I love the game in general and the World Cup in particular. I believe in the game. There is great joy and beauty in it. My cynical side smirks at me when I say things like this, but my cynical side was asleep when the rest of me stayed up until 7 a.m. four years ago sitting in a bar with a few hundred soccer nuts watching England vs. Argentina followed by USA vs. Germany, so it doesn't know what it's missing.

Third, if there is right now one individual who sums up the beauty and jaw-dropping physical feats that soccer has to offer, it is Brazilian forward Ronaldinho (Yes, he only goes by one name. Brazilian soccer players do this for some reason). He is widely regarded as the best player in the world right now. The gentleman is nothing short of unbelievable when it comes to motivating a ball without the use of his hands. The things he does are frequently physically impossible. If you've got a spare three minutes and fifty-eight seconds, go here and enjoy a highlight reel.

And finally, with the world cup comes the expected advertising blitz, where multi-billion-dollar companies round up the multi-million-dollar athletes they sponsor and get them to do really cool things in stylish settings. Even in these ads, there is a great deal of the joy and camaraderie that I feel is inherent to the game. (Compare this to, say, the relentlessly "I'm a badass" ads that pro basketball typically inspires.) For example, consider this Nike ad which came out during the 2002 World Cup. (Right click the link and save to your desktop. You'll need Quicktime.)

This year, Nike has rolled out a campaign called "Joga Bonito," which apparently is Portuguese for "Play Beautiful." Grammatical issues aside, the campaign features some pretty hilarious and amazing ads, especially this one called "Brazilian Ping Pong," which features the aforementioned Ronaldinho:



What’s your gut reaction on first viewing? I have found two polarized responses when I show this ad to people. About a third say, “That is amazing and real,” and the rest say “That is obviously fake.” Personally, I’m torn.

This ad has caused a philosophical battle royale between the cynic and soccer fan in my head. To put it ungracefully, I really really really want to believe that this is real. Bouncing the ball off the crossbar four times without letting it touch the ground is nothing short of impossible, but it is also a thing of great joy and wonder. As the highlight reel demonstrates, Mr. Ronaldinho is impossibly talented, and is therefore capable of doing impossible things, right?

But this is really impossible. But maybe it isn't. But it is. But I deeply want it to be possible, because one of the wonderful things about sports is the semi-frequent occurrence of things that are strictly prohibited by the laws of physics and probability. It is impossible for an NFL quarterback to throw forty-nine touchdown passes in only fifteen games of a sixteen-game season, but Peyton Manning did it in 2004. It is impossible to chip a golf ball onto the green, make it change directions forty-five degrees and roll twenty-five feet into the hole, but Tiger Woods did it at the Masters in 2005. It is completely impossible to win the Tour de France seven times in a row, but Lance Armstrong did it. This catch was impossible. This list could go on forever, of course. This is why we love sports: the chance that on any given day, the limitations of human ability and physics will be overcome in ways that illuminate the wonder of life.

On the other hand, "Brazilian Ping Pong" is a staged advertisement, and the point is to further inflate the legend of Ronaldinho so that we'll all run out and buy Nike cleats and Nike-sponsored Brazil national team jerseys. And video is completely untrustworthy. And maybe this particular feat goes beyond the realm of sports-impossible and into the realm of okay-fine-actually-impossible.

So, what's a conflicted idealist soccer fan to do? In this particular case, I am going to try to stomp on my natural curiosity, squash my tendency for exhaustive internet research, and force my cynical side to calm the hell down. Whether or not it's real, this is still a very cool ad, and Ronaldinho is still a very good soccer player. Rather than dwell on the particulars of digital alteration and ball-crossbar impact angles, I'm going enjoy this ad for what it is, and then I'm going to watch as many games as I possibly can of this summer's World Cup, and enjoy the beautifully impossible things that I see.

(If you'd like to check out the rest of Nike's "Joga Bonito" ads, which are pretty cool, go here.)