Six: Proposal for a Parallel Kemari League

Calling it the Beautiful Game Takes Guts Sometimes

I have argued that some features of soccer itself explain why the game has taken on some of the cultural roles it plays. The look of the pitch and the visibility of the players sets up the spectators' ability to project character traits and narratives. 

However, blame and credit should also be given to the claims people have made about the game. Early in FIFA's history, the organization organized something called "The World Cup" and continues to produce slogans like "For the Game For the World". 

  

There is a chance that we would hear less from soccer if FIFA had called their primary tournament the "Football Championship" and used slogans like "Soccer is Great to Play and to Watch." I do not know the reasons behind the very high aspirations of FIFA and, as an aside, the Olympic movement. How did they expect to get away with such strong claims? I argue that the beauty of the game produces a desire for a game that is also good. Slogans like "For the Game For the World" fit this desire for good to come from the organization of soccer. Of course, this would require less corruption, more charity, and continued use of soccer events to denounce bigotry of every sort. 

One of the slogans you often hear with soccer is "the beautiful game". Part of the actual appeal of the game is that a match can put up any aesthetic category. Matches can be brutal or ugly and at the same time dramatic. All the same, fans very often talk about which teams and managers play a good looking game. Teams that play a beautiful, daring, game are the ones that "deserve" to win. 

Calling it the "beautiful game" raises an aesthetic expectation that sometimes seems to have as little to do with the sport as do charity and world peace. However, I like the fact that soccer links itself to beauty as well as to charity and peace. The fact that this is often counter-factual (and even hypocritical) is, in the long run, a good thing. People start asking for changes to make the game better looking, less corrupt, and more beneficial. 

The idea of beauty is strongly linked to an idea about one team "deserving to win." We use this word "deserve" in a funny way. A team that really did score more goals than the other team can still fail to deserve to win. Sometimes, one says that a team should not have gotten a penalty or a red card but we even say this sort of thing when the team that passes and runs nicely just didn't get the ball in the net. We can draw from other sports and make sure a team that plays beautifully is awarded something. 

Call it the National Kemari League. 

Kemari is the name of a ball game played by aristocrats in thirteenth-century Japan. There was no winner, though members of the court often evaluated players. The game is still played in Shinto shrines on festival days. 

A recreation of a round of Kemari. Getty Images

Chikanobu tryptich showing nobles watching a round of kemari

The focus of Kemari is on keeping the ball in the air beautifully. I propose that a group of judges be appointed who watch soccer matches. They watch the same matches we do throughout a league's season. The judges use criteria developed over time to determine which team performed most beautifully. The most beautiful team in each match is awarded three points. If the teams are equal in their aesthetics, then they both get one point. 

At the end of the season, the winner is given a trophy or perhaps a traditional Kemari ball. 

We would call this Kemari as an homage to this earlier sport's focus on the beautiful. 

There is precedent in other sports. Diving, gymnastics, and figure skating have judges who reward the athlete whose moves they think looked the best. 

There are also sports that have multiple awards within the tournament. I think of cycling mainly. In the Tour de France there is a different colored polka dot shirt you get if you get the best times in the mountain stages. A green shirt is awarded to whoever wins the most sprints within each stage. A pair of magazines even give an award to the most "courageous" or "combative" cyclist. 

                         

Kemari would bring some attention where some ought to go. When a player runs beautifully around opponents only to miss the goal, why should that come to nothing? Now such a run could win the Kemari match within the soccer match. Time-wasting and whinging for a penalty now makes you more likely to win the soccer match. At least now it might cost you the Kemari match. 

Kemari could have its own audience. Broadcasters could have an alternative audio that explains why this team will be getting a high or low score. 

During the World Cup, I once tweeted that I would like to have an alternative audio featuring Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir. It got a strangely large response. I would genuinely love to see them talk about the moments that prove the athleticism of the players and the moments that give us a picture of grace. They were the best announcers in the Winter Olympics. Every other match, I would love to see them rate Tottenham and Boston Breakers matches. (Erik Lamela and Roberto Soldado could be Kemari legends.) 

Bring them in! 

Kemari could have its own arguments. Should bad hair cost you? What about the manager's dress sense? Should the fans be taken into account? Goal celebrations? Post-match strops? 

There would be no need to wait until a league made this official. Let's get a sponsor and make this a thing. 

Knowing that judges are watching the beautiful aspect of the game and awarding a trophy could help fans who decide to keep watching the soccer match. They can finally decide between their conflicting desire for beauty and vicarious victory. Or will they end up wanting to win both leagues as fans do with the multiple soccer tournaments their team is in? 

Whatever fans decide to do, the establishment of a parallel simultaneous Kemari league will make sense of the strange idea that the losing team "deserved to win". Now they win. 

Shoki the Demon Queller Plays Kemari 19th Century Hanging Scroll Brooklyn Museum Collection