Word: spain
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...next day, we take a bus to the Pyrenees—Devin to hike into Spain, me to research at the foot of glaciers. When I come back to Lourdes a few days later to finish my work, I have no thunderous emotional reaction. Lourdes is old hat, and I'm all business. I check off addresses and check out new restaurants for Let's Go. Finally, I'm ready to leave...
...wastes of the former Soviet Union?s rundown industrial cities brimming with angry, racist skinheads. But there's more than money to compensate: the Russian and Ukrainian teams play in the pan-European tournaments, offering their imports a platform on which to impress the scouts of clubs in Italy, Spain and Britain, who'll offer a better wage and more benign living conditions. Today's estimates are that around 1,000 African players earn their keep in Europe, a low figure compared with the Brazilian pro Diaspora which is believed to number in the region of 5,000 players...
...reflect the impact of globalization. A quarter century ago, the best-capitalized clubs, who could buy the contracts of the best players from lesser clubs and offer them more lucrative deals, were those who could fill the biggest stadiums week in and week out - hence the anomaly that Spain and Italy, two of Europe's weaker economies in the postwar years were nonetheless home to football clubs that could buy the best players from rivals in Germany, France and Britain. Today, however, global capital markets may be starting to play more of a role: Manchester United is traded...
...questions and tensions raised by globalization on the way the game is played, watched and organized. Where the loyalty of a fan base has traditionally been organized on the basis of local, often sectarian or political affinities, he notes, that hardly helps turn it into a global brand. In Spain, encounters between Real Madrid and Barcelona still carry the stamp of the team of General Franco (Madrid) clashing with the irrepressibly rebellious and republican Catalans (Barcelona), but that encoded history which enflames the home crowd's passions means nothing to consumers who might buy either team's shirt...
...club level, there's no longer a national idiom in the top tier. The teams are an assembly of global all-stars, as are the coaches, often. And while that has greatly enriched the spectacle of club level football in Britain, Spain, Italy and elsewhere, it's effect on the national game may be double edged. On the one hand, greater efficiency has facilitated more championships by Brazil and previously unthinkable success for such relative outsiders as Greece, South Korea or Senegal. The idea that "there are no longer any easy games" at international level has become a mantra among...