...quoth Liverpool legend Bill Shankly when it was suggested that soccer was life and death to him. I was thinking of this because of a goofy story about the Mexican national team (with the help of Radio Shack) resorting to voodoo in an effort to break their decade-long losing streak on American soil. We'll find out if it worked on February 11.
Jan 27, 2009
"Listen, It's More Important Than That"
...quoth Liverpool legend Bill Shankly when it was suggested that soccer was life and death to him. I was thinking of this because of a goofy story about the Mexican national team (with the help of Radio Shack) resorting to voodoo in an effort to break their decade-long losing streak on American soil. We'll find out if it worked on February 11.
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3 comments:
nobody do voodoo like we do.
I strongly suspect that Bill Shankly would have answered something entirely different if he was asked if *soccer* was life and death to him.
Only Americans (and a few stray Australians) call it 'soccer'. Everywhere else it is called football. I'm willing to bet a month's wages that the original quote was along the lines of: "Football is not just a matter of life and death: it's much more important than that."
Actually, shankly.com (http://www.shankly.com/lifeanddeath.htm ) has it as "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."
I saw it given as above in a transcript from some show or other. And guess who coined the word 'soccer' and got it into general use? The British. They hate to admit this, but it's a truncation of "association football." Not that this would have mattered to Shankly.
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