{"id":72761,"date":"2014-06-17T17:05:17","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T21:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=72761"},"modified":"2014-06-24T17:28:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T21:28:43","slug":"desire-and-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/17\/desire-and-despair\/","title":{"rendered":"Desire and Despair"},"content":{"rendered":"

Germany vs. Portugal; Iran vs. Nigeria; USA vs. Ghana.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>

Watching the World Cup in DUMBO<\/small>. Photo: Rowan Ricardo Phillips<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

The greatest poverty is not to live
in a physical world, to feel that one\u2019s desire
Is too difficult to tell from despair.
\u2014Wallace Stevens<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yesterday, in a tunnel down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, a flatscreen floated in the light of an arch like the iris of a giant eye. Tables and benches of the sort you\u2019d find at a picnic site were spread about; it was one of those rare times in New York that space was clearly not at a premium. The tunnel was shady and cool. Behind the flatscreen, at the end of the long arch where the noon light seemed irrelevant, a renovated factory glittered.<\/p>\n

On the screen, we watched as Germany took apart Portugal. The Portuguese team exhibited their typical flaws: an overreliance on hierarchy and on their best player; a rash of madness by their most hotheaded player, which led to his ejection; a lack of belief against a team with a higher pedigree. The German team, on the other hand, exhibited their typical strengths: you know, German stuff. They won 4-0.<\/p>\n

Soon afterward, the tournament saw its first draw, with Iran and Nigeria sputtering through a scoreless game. The big story of the match was probably Nigeria\u2019s forest and key-lime-green color palette, combined with their fluorescent pink-and-yellow shoes. That, and that Iran had a Christian on their team. The world, like a football, is round and confounds. <\/p>\n

Watching Nigeria\u2019s very good players amble toward no reward, I couldn\u2019t help but think of twenty years ago, almost to the day, when the country debuted in the World Cup by beating the eventual semifinalist Bulgaria 3-0. Back then, Nigeria\u2019s team was fearless, ebullient\u2014they quickly became one of the darlings of the tournament, a favorite of the neutrals, and supposedly the harbinger of Africa\u2019s footballing arrival on the world stage. That\u2019s proven to be the case, but it hasn\u2019t exactly been a meteoric rise. We\u2019ve yet to see an African team reach the semifinals. Over the years, they\u2019ve found themselves eliminated from the Cup in a variety of heartbreaking ways.<\/p>\n

Ghana will probably be no exception. By now you know who won the Ghana-U.S. game. The Ghanaian team exhibited their typical weaknesses. They were profligate in front of the goal; they confused being thirty yards out with being in front of goal; they demonstrated a bewildering taste for timely lapses in defense. The U.S. team, meanwhile, exhibited their typical strengths: a fundamentalist reliance on sheer effort, a tendency to huff and puff toward whatever result fate has laid out for them, and a belief in the virtuousness of those first two qualities.<\/p>\n

Rowan Ricardo Phillips\u2019s second book of poems, <\/em>Heaven, will be published next year. He is the recipient of the 2013 small>PEN<\/small>\/Joyce Osterweil Award and a 2013 Whiting Writers\u2019 Award.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Germany vs. Portugal; Iran vs. Nigeria; USA vs. Ghana. The greatest poverty is not to live in a physical world, to feel that one\u2019s desire Is too difficult to tell from despair.\u2014Wallace Stevens Yesterday, in a tunnel down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, a flatscreen floated in the light of an arch like the iris […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13859],"tags":[1867,14323,212,247,303,14324,86,14322,89],"class_list":["post-72761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-cup-2014","tag-africa","tag-dumbo","tag-football","tag-germany","tag-ghana","tag-nigeria","tag-soccer","tag-team-usa","tag-world-cup"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWorld Cup Recap of July 17, 2014<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rowan Ricardo Phillips on Germany vs. Portugal; Iran vs. Nigeria; USA vs. Ghana.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/17\/desire-and-despair\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Desire and Despair by Rowan Ricardo Phillips\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 17, 2014 \u2013 Germany vs. Portugal; Iran vs. Nigeria; USA vs. Ghana. 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