久久亚洲国产成人影院-久久亚洲国产的中文-久久亚洲国产高清-久久亚洲国产精品-亚洲图片偷拍自拍-亚洲图色视频

US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
Sports / Sports latest news

Plenty of soothing benefits to World Cup fever

By Agence France-Presse in Paris (China Daily) Updated: 2014-05-29 06:55

The World Cup is the holy grail and Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the prophets - it is not just a game for the hundreds of thousands of soccer fans heading for Brazil.

A growing body of scholars see soccer playing an under-appreciated role as keeper of society's well-being - providing a sense of identity with an almost religious role.

The late Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said soccer is more important than "life and death". But Pele's "beautiful game" might also be providing a healthy outlet for tribalistic aggression.

"It provides you with an opportunity to side with your country without being violent to another. So in that way it does replace war," said David Ranc, a French sociologist who specializes in group identity in soccer.

"It is a non-violent way of resolving conflict ... and taking sides where there is not that much at stake."

Ahead of the June 12 start to the World Cup, fans are outfitting themselves with wigs, T-shirts and other regalia, and rehearsing the lyrics to patriotic anthems with an eye toward putting up a united national front either at home or in Brazil.

Plenty of soothing benefits to World Cup fever

Rather than mere nationalistic zeal, the behavior might be symptomatic of a deeply entrenched desire to belong, the experts said.

"Identification with a sports team can provide people with an important identity prop ... a sense of belonging in what would otherwise be an isolated existence," according to Eric Dunning, a sports sociologist with the University of Leicester.

"It can help to give people a sense of continuity and purpose in contexts which are highly impersonal and beset by what many experience as a bewildering pace of change."

For some, this can even take on religious overtones.

The new religion?

"The fans of a soccer team form a community of believers that is characterized by distinctively religious forms of behavior," sports sociologist Gunter Gebauer of the Free University of Berlin said.

It is not uncommon for fans to turn their bedrooms into soccer shrines, and "the saints are their team's players, for whom they will make harrowing pilgrimages".

Dunning said sport may have replaced some of the functions once performed by religion.

"It may in part be catering for a type of need which, for increasing numbers of people, is not met elsewhere in the increasingly secular and scientific societies of our age," he writes in his book Sport Matters.

Despite high emotions, deep hostility to rival teams and the often crushing disappointment that comes with defeat, soccer matches, overall, are unifying social events, the experts said.

Apart, that is, from outbursts of fan violence which they argue are rare given the huge numbers who watch games around the world every day.

In fact, sports like soccer developed at pace with civilization and "came to embody the elimination of some forms of physical violence and the general demand that participants should exercise stricter self-control in regard to physical contact," Dunning said.

Hooliganism is more a function of social inequality than a product of sports rivalry, said Ranc.

"When you study violence in soccer, it has to do with people who are losing ground socially ... people who are marginalized, ostracized, described as an underclass. It has a lot to do with the social climate."

Soccer allows people from different social and economic spheres to meet and bond around a common passion, experts said.

And one of the things that binds them is the sport's perceived ability to create heroes like Pele, Portugal star Ronaldo and Argentina's Messi, from nothing.

"The stories told in sports are not pure fantasies; individuals who were previously powerless really are elevated, they really do win fame and fortune by their own strength and are thereby allowed to play a role in society that is otherwise closed off to them," said Gebauer.

But there is also the speed and skill on display, the excitement it generates, the fact that soccer is easy to play almost anywhere, does not require specialized equipment and has relatively simple rules.

"Of course, other sports possess some of the characteristics listed here, but arguably only soccer has them all," said Dunning.

(China Daily 05/29/2014 page23)

Most Popular
What's Hot
Highlights
Special
...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 九九九九精品视频在线播放 | 国产午夜在线观看视频播放 | 老司机精品影院一区二区三区 | 国产一区二区三区免费在线观看 | 毛片手机在线视频免费观看 | 中文字幕国产视频 | 国产毛片久久国产 | 国产成人精品免费视频大全软件 | 亚洲欧美另类视频 | 成人毛片免费观看视频在线 | a级毛片毛片免费观看久潮喷 | 久久www免费人成精品 | 国产大片中文字幕在线观看 | 毛片无码国产 | 国产在亚洲线视频观看 | 热99re久久精品精品免费 | 成人亚洲国产综合精品91 | 成年性午夜免费视频网站不卡 | 看a网站| 成年人黄色网址 | 久在线视频 | 国产理论最新国产精品视频 | 毛片手机在线 | 欧美成人性动漫在线观看 | 国产成人亚洲精品老王 | 久久精品视频亚洲 | 男人天堂国产 | 国产精品一区二区三区久久 | 欧美一二区视频 | 在线观看视频一区二区三区 | 大陆精品自在线拍国语 | 日韩欧美国产亚洲 | 91热国内精品永久免费观看 | 亚洲伊人色综合网站亚洲伊人 | 午夜毛片视频高清不卡免费 | 久久精品午夜视频 | 自拍偷自拍亚洲精品一区 | www.黄色片 | 免费一级毛片在播放视频 | 亚洲高清国产一线久久 | 国产成年人在线观看 |