How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, Franklin Foer [reading eggs books txt] 📗

of Moldova o¤ered Edward Anyamkyegh for $500,000, Dyminskyy made the purchase. It seemed like a great deal. Everywhere Edward had played, he had scored goals. His c.v. included stints with Nigeria’s national under-17 team. He had youth, only twenty-three years, and a muscular upper body that looked suited to the physicality of the Ukrainian game. So when Dyminskyy unveiled his purchase to the people of Lviv, he promised that Edward would help catapult Karpaty to success.

At the time, Dyminskyy showed no signs that he considered this venture to be at all risky. But he had put Edward into Karpaty’s green-and-white jersey, covered in Cyrillic lettering, a symbol of Lviv and Ukrainian nationalism. So Edward’s arrival at Karpaty represented more than the purchase of a contract, more than a test of a player’s mettle and an owner’s ability to put together a club. His arrival in the Ukraine was a cross-cultural experiment. In theory, Karpaty’s purchase of Edward had followed the rules of globalization to perfection. The Ukrainians had tapped the international labor market and come back with a bargain. To accommodate their new English-speaking purchase, they brought in a new coach who could speak in a language that their new star could understand. Like many companies from the poorer parts of Eastern Europe, they were adhering to the one-world model that had brought great success to thousands of American and European firms. The western strategy of globalization had, in e¤ect, been globalized. But was it suited to the rigors of life and soccer in the Western Ukraine?

II.

Edward walks me to his apartment. It is several blocks deep into one of the old Soviet neighborhoods of endless, relentlessly linear concrete. We met at the neighborhood McDonald’s. He brought along his wife and two-year-old girl. His wife, Brecing, has a sincere, soft voice. “You’re married? Give a hug to your wife for us. Give her a big kiss,” she says, tilting her head. Edward’s daughter, wearing cornrows and a jean jacket, stays close to his leg.

For nearly two years, they have lived in this complex. Their daughter was born here. “You see, everyone HOW SOCCER EXPLAINS THE BLACK CARPATHIANS

knows me. We’ve got no problems. They like me so much.” Edward always talks quickly, in a singsong cadence. When he describes his neighbors’ a¤ection, he looks to the ground and smirks. As we slowly move toward his home, he points to landmarks. “This is where I play ball with kids . . . this is the bank. You see, bank.” He translates the letters from the Cyrillic, one of the few Ukrainian words he says that he can decipher.

The communists didn’t build to last; and the postcommunists haven’t had the resources or desire to repair. Sidewalks and roads have a topography that alternates between piles of pavement and craters. All around, glass facades have shattered. Soot covers the shards that remain in place. Shirts and bags and socks hang from the branches of trees like ornaments.

Although there’s nothing too fancy or warm about the interior of the Anyamkyegh apartment, it is an immaculately tended contrast to the dark, dingy hall-way. A tiny oil painting of a flower hangs alone in the living room, with action photos of Edward stu¤ed into the corner of the frame. In a corner, a mattress lies on the floor with blankets and sheets neatly piled on top.

Edward and Brecing sleep here. They like to fall asleep in front of the television. “Sit down,” Edward directs me into a chair. He perches on its arm and reaches for the remote. “I have satellite and cable,” he says and turns on African American rap music videos.

Edward removes his black Reebok baseball hat, puts his elbow on his knee, and leans on his palm.

“How does a Nigerian find his way to the Ukraine?”

He rubs his hand over his face and begins to nar-rate his journey through the global soccer economy. For generations, the Anyamkyegh family farmed

near the provincial capital of Gboko, not far from Nigeria’s eastern border with Cameroon. Edward’s father did well by his profession. In a nearby village, he owned groves of mangoes and guava, which he trucked to corners of Nigeria that didn’t have such fertile land as Gboko. Returning from his farm one evening, he tried passing a concrete truck in his small car on a narrow highway. Edward was seven when he died.

A decade or two earlier, Edward would have followed his late father into agriculture. Now, there were many distractions. Agents scoured places like Gboko for teens they could sell to European soccer clubs. This sounded glamorous and an opportunity to make unthinkable sums. Boys began to dream of playing on the continent. Enough local examples made these fantasies seem plausible. Queen’s Park Rangers of London bought Edward’s own older brother, one of seven siblings. And from the time of his father’s death, Edward began telling friends that he would become a European star, too.

There was another reason that this wasn’t such an implausible notion for Edward: He was a man-child. At fifteen, he had sprouted pectorals and biceps. When the best local professional club bought him, the papers predicted that he would be one of the greatest strikers to ever emerge from Gboko. Word of Edward’s talent, how he could outrun the older players and out-muscle the younger ones, reached the coaches of the national squad. They plucked him for a spot on the team sent to the Under-17 World Cup in Ecuador.

A youth team doesn’t sound like that big a deal. But in Nigeria, it is an enormous deal. National television HOW SOCCER EXPLAINS THE BLACK CARPATHIANS

broadcasts the team’s games. Newspapers closely and harshly monitor its progress. After Edward’s team lost to Ghana in the final of the African championship, pundits prodded the coach to purge half his squad. But inevitably it is agents that keep the closest watch. Many of these agents made grandiose promises to Edward. Of the many o¤ers for representation, Edward picked an agent from the Ivory Coast