just wondering

Maybe nationality is such an archaic category that the World Cup should feature teams of different Jungian personality types, or different zodiac signs. It would lessen the chances of riots based on frighteningly pent-up nationalistic emotions.

I don’t usually talk this way, but I’m afraid I’m still a bit jittery after having seen an actual, bona fide violent nationalistic mob on my street for several days last month. Not sure I’ve ever seen the real thing before. If you have any sort of historical imagination, it’s frightening to consider the more serious situations that such a mob might inhabit. And such mobs could arise in just about country you can name.

But this leads me to a thought experiment. What level of World Cup violence would it take to close down the World Cup completely? Don’t get me wrong, I’m as intoxicated a sports fan as you will ever find. But I’m also not insane. There is a certain level of sports-related violence which, if reached, would lead me to say “shut the whole sport down.”

There are generally a few hooliganesque incidents at these tournaments, and I can look the other way on those, as long as they are isolated acts of a few despicable thugs. The legal system can address those thugs.

But what would it take to shut the whole tournament down forever? Here’s a scenario: one team beats another in a pivotal match off a poor refereeing decision. The fans of the losing team attack the winning team’s bus after the match and kill half or all of the team. South African security panics and fires into the crowd, killing 200 rioters, and all hell breaks loose. The rest of the tournament is cancelled, but reprisals in Countries A and B against nationals of the other country lead to dozens more deaths and rampant looting of property. Perhaps an Ambassador is killed somewhere.

Would that do it? I mean, would it shut down the World Cup for the foreseeable future? I do believe it would.

One of the uglier incidents I recall was when that Colombian player (ANDRES ESCOBAR) scored an own goal for the USA in the 1994 Cup, and was later shot to death at a Medellin café by Colombian fans shouting “Goal! Goal! Goal!” That’s about as ugly as life gets.

And here’s poor Escobar, scoring accidentally for the USA: