Soccer & Politics

This past semester, Duke University offered a very interesting class called "World Cup and World Politics". Professor Laurent Dubois taught how international soccer and world politics are often interrelated, and the class studied multiple examples where one has affected or symbolized the other.

Recently the class completed its final projects, exhaustive websites studying a particular country or topic. These informative projects cover the most interesting material of a highly engaging class, so I suggest that you take a look around at least. For the full list of sites and their subjects, click HERE.

The project that I worked on is titled "El Clasico as Spanish History", about the Barcelona-Real Madrid rivalry and its relationship with Spanish politics. Specifically, we tackled the contentious signings of Alfredo di Stefano and Luis Figo, two of the most explosive stories in the history of La Liga. If you're interested, the link is provided via the above link, or you can just click HERE to go there directly.

Finally, the host site itself, Soccer Politics, is also a great blog to follow for stories that extend past the field of play. The whole class contributes to the blog, and anybody can comment on the posts. You can find a feed on the sidebar of this site, or head to http://www.soccerpolitics.com/ to be redirected to the full blog.

Enjoy!

Video of the Week: Barcelona run rampant over Zaragoza

Barcelona put on a show at the Camp Nou on Sunday, beating Real Zaragoza 6-1 as the side beamed with pure class. In one of the finest collections of goals you will ever see, Seydou Keita scored an unlikely hat trick, while Ibrahimovic powered home two goals and Messi brilliantly chipped the keeper for one.

Barcelona looks stronger than ever, as Ibrah's pure strength has added needed muscle to their intuitive passing game. Teams like this are the stuff of legend, so don't sleep on watching the best team in Europe.