Lechner’s article focuses on the Dutch national team and their development of a “Dutch National Style” of football throughout the late 20th century. Lechner bases some of the Dutch resurgence in the late 20th century on the collective memory of earlier Dutch victories. \u00a0It can be drawn from our discussion about national myths that the Dutch victories of ’74 and ’78 are part of the foundation of Dutch soccer. The Dutch as a team know they are capable of this greatness, therefore blocking one of the first hurdles of attaining a championship, the preconceived notions of a teams limitations. Tying this back to the article of American exceptionalism, I feel that it is this preconceived notion of limitations that is hindering America in adopting the sport of soccer.<\/p>\n
The United States has never enjoyed this ‘myth making’ period that is so integral to the creation of a national identity for soccer. One could argue that we are currently in the ‘growing pains’ period, given the United State’s recent success at international competitions, particularly the Confederations Cup. However, in order to cement a true national myth the United States must achieve a resounding victory, one which will propel it over the status of second rate soccer nation.<\/p>\n
Alex Law’s ‘Playing with Tension’ brings up his Hyper Critical Theory, where sporting events serve to antagonize preexisting states of violence, nationalism, xenophobia, racism etc. in players and fans. He uses EURO 2012 as a backdrop for this theory, focusing especially upon fans in the home countries of Poland and the Ukraine. While his theory is strong and there are many fine examples I do not believe that EURO 2012 is the best example for supporting this thesis. Though before the matches the world waited in anticipation of racism and violence from soccer fans, spurred on by some truly fear-mongering reporting, the outcome was quite different. Many of the teams and their fans were composed and the EURO 2012 match, much in the same as the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, showed the world the great improvements in both countries.<\/p>\n
Post-Soviet nations are allegedly prone to the kinds of violent racism that, it is claimed, was removed decades ago from football stadiums in western Europe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Questions<\/h3>\n
\n
- In decades from now will America view this time as the beginning ‘myth’ period of its football?<\/li>\n
- Why was so much attention paid to the potential failure of Euro 2012?<\/li>\n
- How much of an effect did reporting pre Euro 2012 have on the number of fans who attended?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lechner’s article focuses on the Dutch national team and their development of a “Dutch National Style” of football throughout the late 20th century. Lechner bases some of the Dutch resurgence in the late 20th century on the collective memory of earlier Dutch victories. \u00a0It can be drawn from our discussion about national myths that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":711,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44,43,23,25,16,24,1],"tags":[69,56,71,31,36,40,67,70],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/711"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":863,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions\/863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}