All Hail King FIFA

by

Danny Schwartz

Season Categories Published
MP00 Life Sports

Dec 30, 2012


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It’s the 88th minute, and Tottenham trails Arsenal 2-1. Tottenham’s players are spent, emotionally and physically, but confident that they will equalize. If they can just get the ball to Gareth Bale.

Bale waits patiently on the sideline for his teammates to work the ball around to his sector of the pitch. He gathers the ball at midfield, finagles his way around the initial defender, and BOOM – he is bolting down the left flank, in the clear with a head of steam. He swiftly enters the 18-yard box, cuts back, and aims a shot at the far post. The ball curls around the goalkeeper’s outstretched fingers and ripples the side netting. Butter.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” It is 2:30AM, and people are sleeping just on the other side of this dorm’s paper-thin walls, but Samir does not hold back his cry of anguish. He moans again, and presses his controller against his forehead as Bale runs to the corner flag with a triumphant fist in the air. He had done it. Well, I had done it. I had tied up this game of FIFA 12 in its waning moments. I had reduced Samir to a pathetic, tormented shadow of his former self. His extreme, but understandable reaction made my own physical celebration unnecessary. So I just sat there silently and basked in the glow of how cool I was.

Chill bros across the country report a similar emotional investment in FIFA 12. While the FIFA video game franchise has always been reputable, only recently has it become the premier sports game and a “standard” game on the level of Modern Warfare and Halo. In late 2009, FIFA 10 sold 1.7 million copies worldwide in its first week. The next year, FIFA 11 sold 2.6 million copies in its first week. The year after that, FIFA 12 sold 3.2 million copies. The global success of FIFA is unsurprising. I am interested in its apparent stranglehold on American males age 15-24.

I attribute much of FIFA‘s rise in America to the 2010 World Cup, hosted by South Africa. The 2006 World Cup was hosted by Germany. Nobody gives a shit about Germany. South Africa, on the other hand, was chic. With the abolition of apartheid, it had (seemingly) emerged from the shadows of its dark history, and thus had ripened to endear itself to the (white) American mainstream. Before the 2010 World Cup, the only South Africans commonly known to Americans were Nelson Mandela, and Matt Damon in Invictus, and the dude who wrote Kaffir Boy. Now, we were able to blow awesome vuvuzelas and cheer on South Africa, the country and its soccer team, lovable underdogs both.

Landon Donovan’s eleventh hour goal against Algeria to send the US into the knockout round was too much for Americans. We ate it up. After slogging through the first 99% of group play, the hometown squad’s clutch goal seemed to validate American soccer in its entirety, and we welcomed our boys home with open arms that summer of 2010. We even let EDM in too. Just as importantly, in that magical month we had become fond of various international stars, and we were determined to follow them as they returned to their clubs in the fall.

After the World Cup, most American soccer fans adopted Manchester City as their favorite European side. Yet the season is long, and it is difficult to keep tabs on a team playing a few thousand miles away. Since the World Cup, American soccer fans have done four things to stay current on the state of soccer: watch El Clasico (Real Madrid-Barcelona), watch the Champions League final, watch individual highlight reels on YouTube, and play FIFA.

Watching El Clasico is a guaranteed home run; always a high-level of play, and afterwards everyone gets to jock Messi and talk excessive shit about Cristiano Ronaldo. Watching the Champions League final allows us to properly assess the hierarchy of soccer clubs in Europe. It also allows us an opportunity to reminisce about watching Liverpool’s epic comeback against AC Milan in the 2005 final, when in reality we just watched the highlights on YouTube.

Indeed, YouTube is a vital resource for the contemporary American soccer fan, especially when used in tandem with FIFA. For example, I first that knew Gareth Bale was awesome after watching this video (bonus: he slangs dick at 1:40. maximize the screen for full effect). As an owner of both FIFA 11 and FIFA 12, I am able to confirm Bale’s improvement over the course of a year; in 11, he was rated an 81, and and in 12, he was rated an 86. Conversely, Inter Milan’s Diego Milito was rated an 86 in 11, but only an 81 in 12. Clearly, the ratings people had been influenced by the pair of goals he scored in the 2010 Champion League final. Between two congruent editions of FIFA, I not only feel attuned to the state of the game, but I get to participate in its virtual counterpart.

If FIFA‘s usefulness as an annual gauge of global soccer since the World Cup isn’t enough, the gameplay itself has gotten unreal. The sport of soccer is about fluidity and organic movement, unlike the punctuated equilibrium and tactics that characterize football. Improvements in video game engineering, seen in graphics and physics engines, have taken FIFA to the next level and left Madden in the dust. Vastly improved realism in the more recent FIFA games has created an arena in which we dictate the movements of players of varying styles and skills. Unlike with Madden, which uses predesigned plays, the FIFA player is given creative agency, and thus takes greater ownership of the course of each game.

Us Americans can’t be European hooligans, because we have to apportion out our hooliganism across football, basketball, soccer, and to some lesser extent, baseball. FIFA does us a joyous service in bringing our raging, drunken inner soccer hooligan to life. I find great solace in the fact that future FIFA games will only get better, that I will always be able to take over games with Gareth Bale, and that Samir can brighten my day by uttering a single world with an upward inflection at the end: “FIFA?”

The End is Here

by

Andrew Schwartz

Season Categories Published
MP00 Life

Dec 21, 2012


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Death approaches. That much is certain. The idea, it seems, is to cram as much in before the bastard gets to you. Of course, there are more things to know than you possibly can; of course, there are more places to go than you ever possibly will; of course, there are more people to meet, and books to read, and paintings to ironically ponder, and rides to ride than life’s brevity will allow for. There is not much time. The end is nye. Today B’ak’tun is complete; the fourth and final cycle of Mayan lore draws to a close. I have lived eighteen years, every minute spent in deep introspection. I have looked within. Found the answers. They are mine.

I suppose that now is the time we must get serious. The clock is ticking, ticking, ticking toward our demise, and the Lord’s work is yet to be done.

If you are reading this, it is probably just the beginning. Perhaps the sky has not yet fallen; perhaps the power is still on, but rest assured, the gears of renewal are turning. I can write whatever I want here; soon it will not matter.

Cynics abound. Poor fools, ignorant to what awaits them! Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps you don’t buy this “myth,” this “delusion.” Perhaps you think it is all a fairy tale, that this world is all roses and ice cream. What is the basis of your thoughts? From what foundations have you conjured up your philosophy? Will they still remain when all else is in ruin and despair? Reflect! For your bets have been made and soon it will be too late to hedge them. It is not long before your fate, thank heavens, is out of your hands.

But for now, you have control, and in that you can take some solace. It is time to plan, prepare, take the fruitless endeavors of the past and meld them and manipulate them into a future where you’ll have a fighting chance.

Some of these failed undertakings will be less conducive to survival than others. Were these worth it? Were they rewarding per se? Time is not as abundant as it once was. It speeds you toward your doom; there is no stopping it. How do you now feel about all those lost hours spent on Sporcle and Reddit? Do the experiences give you warmth, comfort, fulfillment? Will they help you stave off imminent death?

No. Of course not. All that matters now is your gumption and willpower. The primal instincts will, after a 14,000-year respite, again be primary. When everything is down to the wire, they’re all you’ve got.

It all ends today. Your past, your future, your present. These things most personal will be lost, smoke winding through the air. Fighting, though futile, will at least give you something to do. The Mayans fought, and they fought well. Their Eagle Warriors were agile; their Plumed Archers shot arrows straight and true. They were the premier civilization in the “Age of Empires: The Conquerors” expansion pack. What conquerors they then must be, that today they no longer remain.

The conqueror conquered. A new conqueror is anointed. The great cycle. If transitivity holds, would that make us, the last, the greatest conquerors of them all?

Did we win?

It is on such matters that we must unapologetically ruminate as apocalypse, whatever form it may take, descends down upon us. Don’t doubt, don’t succumb to delusion. Accept what was handed to you and wield it like a sword. The world is ending today, and the futility of denial is vastly more potent than the futility of hanging on when little remains to hang on to.

Will yourself to hang on for as long as you can. It will soon be every man for himself; the bonds of camaraderie that you’ve worked so hard to build will fracture and crumble like the bridges and the skyscrapers that will soon be of old. Much time has passed since you began reading. The world’s end approaches. Ride into the storm. Have no regrets.

Performance Enhanced, or Performance Achieved?

by

Carver Low

Season Categories Published
MP00 Sports

Dec 14, 2012


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A winning compound?

Ever since Seahawks cornerbacks Brandon Browner and Richard Sherman’s got suspended for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy last weekend, something has been bothering me.  I think it’s the Adderall.  Yes, the drug that’s probably helping you write that last ten page essay or party your face off in celebration of finishing thesis.  That original suspension wasn’t the only of its kind.  More than a few other players have been suspended over the course of the current season and the NFL is dealing with a problem big enough for the media to write about. While most people have responded to this newest performance enhancing scandal with the usual outcries of “THIS IS AN EPIDEMIC, IT MUST BE STOPPED,” I’m only surprised this hasn’t become an issue sooner.  The problem hasn’t been confined to the NFL either.  Carlos Ruiz, starting catcher for the Phillies, has also been suspended for 25 games for Adderall use.  In the middle of the off-season.  Clearly both leagues agree that Adderall is a performance enhancing drug.  However, it doesn’t enhance performance in the traditional vein-popping, syringe-injecting, muscleman way. Adderall use is far more akin to a problem Major League Baseball had in the 70s and 80s than the one it dealt with in Barry Bonds and BALCO.

The year is 1970.  The Summer of Love has just passed and people everywhere are doing drugs.  Lots of drugs.  Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis throws a no-hitter while on LSD. The same year, Jim Bouton releases his book Ball Four.  It’s less of an expose and more of a retrospective, but a retrospective that nonetheless brought the abundant use of amphetamines in baseball to the attention of everyone.  Not that the use of various amphetamines in sports was a recent development.  Players had been using what were (and still are known) as ‘greenies’ during the baseball season since the 1920s.  Since then the chronicle of drug use in sports, particularly amphetamine use and baseball, has been well documented through suspensions, arrests, and even deaths.  Players from that era openly admit to the lack of stigma against cocaine and other amphetamines.  Players took them before, during, and after games.  Their perks sometimes turned out not to be, but the increased energy, confidence, and focus the drugs gave contributed to a general goodwill towards their use in sports.  They also got the players high, which helps.  There wasn’t a specific amphetamine prescribed for every ailment.   Players just generally did them.  Eventually the leagues began cracking down, and since then health studies, a slew of suspensions, and a general shift in the American cultural paradigm have rendered the exploitation of cocaine and illegal amphetamines non-existent in professional sports aside from the occasional anomaly.

Returning to the current era, it’s easy to see why a player would use Adderall.  It is, after all, an amphetamine in the same vein of the Greenies golden era baseball players used.  Adderall offers many of the benefits rudimentary amphetamines afforded players from the seventies, but without almost any of the detriments.  Increased focus.  Extended mental stamina.  Heightened energy. Lack of appetite.  The last one might not exactly be a benefit, but Adderall holds a trump card that even anabolic steroids never fully held – legality.

Still, the legality of Adderall hasn’t stopped the league from handing out suspensions.  Rookie New York Giants safety Will Hill, despite having a prescription for Adderall, was suspended for using the substance this October.  The Phillies’ Ruiz was caught and suspended, but in reality 1 in 10 MLB players uses Adderall legally with a medical exception.  While it’s true that NFL players can often get access to prescriptions and medications that wouldn’t be available to the average, non-multimillion dollar man, Hill’s case does illuminate the areas where the Adderall ban fails.

A pro football player’s job doesn’t stop when he leaves the football field after each game, or even each practice.  He watches film.  He studies his team’s plays. He studies the other team’s plays.  So when the league bans Adderall use, that can make each of those tasks challenging for a player who actually needs Adderall to focus.  Yes, Adderall probably helps players’ performance on the field, but it also probably helps players’ more off the field.  However, any push back along this line of argument may be a product of college life, where Adderall use without a prescription as common as walks of shame.  In that sense, the NFL’s ban on Adderall is actually more akin to its marijuana use policies than any PEDs, as it directs how a player may use his time outside of games rather than within them.

Herein lays the greatest difference between any other ‘performance enhancing drug’ and Adderall.  Other PEDs have acted as useful augmentations in specific scenarios like recovery or muscle-building, but Adderall is usually prescribed and generally understood as an everyday supplement.  Even though there are specific instances where Adderall is most effective (like studying film), the perception of Adderall is as a way to right an individual’s inefficiencies and shortcomings on a daily basis.  If steroids are a way to boost a body beyond its normal limitations, taking Adderall is a tool for to maximize everything a mind and body is already capable of.  It’s the difference between a black and white distinction of normal and abnormal growth and a question of potential.  Both heuristics have their limitations, but one is based in objective science while the other is based on the eternally-unpredictable future.

The NFL and MLB have opened a can of worms when it comes to restricting ADD and ADHD medication, and while it may take years for the results to manifest, we can learn a lot about Adderall’s place in society in the process.  When I was in elementary school, finding out someone was on ADD or ADHD medication was a reason for ridicule.  In college fifteen years later, that same kid would be the subject of more unwanted attention, although of a very different kind.  Adderall has become a ubiquitous leg-up on the competition in any facet of school, and in turn business.  NCAA restrictions on Adderall use are also far more lenient than those of the NFL, in large part because their players are (say it with me) “student-athletes.”  Everyone who plays in the NCAA doesn’t end up being a professional athlete, and neither does everyone who graduates from college end up being a CEO.  Colleges realize this.  However in life, just as in business, not everyone is on a level playing field.  Some “know the right people,” others have enough financial or cultural clout that everyone wants to know them, and the rest are left with their own ambition and talents.

It seems ironic that while professional sports work hard to remain a more level playing field than society (something sports have long been lauded for), Adderall is fast becoming the golden standard for excellence.  At least part of the reason professional sports are so against PEDs is because of the moral example it sets for kids (and parents).  So it’s really beside the point who gets suspended for Adderall, and for how long – these players aren’t all trading secrets on how best to beat the system and break the game they love.  They’re just using what they’ve learned (especially in college).  Because how long will it really be before fast tracked students are given Adderall from a young age, or drug companies begin developing designer versions of the drug a la Limitless?  These ideas may be ridiculous now, but so was the notion that a player could be suspended for Adderall as a performance enhancing drug.  Maybe the NFL, MLB, and the rest of professional sports aren’t the ones out of their depth.  Maybe it’s the rest of us.