[ARETE] deCruz, From Beauty to Duty

[Duncan Jamieson]

All,
Please find attached and below a corrected copy of the review by Sofia Masdeu.  AU changed email servers and it got mixed up in the transition.
Thanks
Duncan


>From Beauty to Duty: A Footballing History of Uruguay, 1878-1917 by Martin da Cruz



da Cruz, Martin. From Beauty to Duty: A Footballing History of Uruguay, 1878-1917. Pitch Publishing Ltd, 2022.



Reviewed by Sofía Masdeu, Yale University



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Squeezed between giants Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay has managed to acquire a reputation as a progressive and politically stable country, as well as Latin America’s strongest democracy. Yet pressed on Uruguay’s successes, its people are more likely to boast of the country’s football (soccer) triumphs, effortlessly recalling victories as far back as the early Olympic Games (1924 and 1928) and World Cups (1930 and 1950). From Beauty to Duty: A Footballing History of Uruguay, 1878-1917 (2022) seeks to move past this shabby romanticism with which Uruguayans, inculcated since childhood, approach the small nation’s successes and instead construct a “footballing history,” as the book’s subtitle puts it. Rather than drawing upon tirelessly repeated myths of Uruguayan exceptionality, author Martin da Cruz displays a meticulous research on how football swiftly became the national sport, especially by capturing the deep-rooted connection between the emerging nation and the arrival of football in the late 19th century.



Uruguay’s identity has always been tied to its massive neighbors. The Cisplatine War (1825–1828) fought between Brazil and Argentina ended, via British mediation, with the creation of Uruguay as a buffer state. Football landed on Uruguay’s shores half a century later, as the country was in the making. Da Cruz claims that “Football arrived when Uruguay’s identity was at stake. When the country needed to set itself apart from its more powerful neighbors” (10). This passage exhibits one of the major accomplishments of this book, namely its ability to provide a solid historical background in a concise and accessible manner. The text offers a glimpse of the economic, social, and political aspects that had an impact on the football scene, and vice versa.



Football, da Cruz shows, was introduced when the nation was in need of bringing together a diverse mass of immigrants, who had arrived in a short period of time to a country smaller than the state of Oklahoma. On the one hand, the sport helped integrate the European immigrants and their children and provided them with a sense of belonging. On the other hand, it exercised exclusion. Even if the situation improved with the years, blue-collar players of Italian descent such as Foglino, Romano, or Piendibene were the ones who “represented a Uruguayan success story, the triumph of the working-class immigrant integration into national life” (239), while others were relegated to the margins. The book thoroughly examines the critical role played by the working class and the immigrant community, suggesting a parallel between the formation of a national identity and the appropriation of football nationwide. Nevertheless, the absence of the black population in the national narrative also finds its parallel on the field, as the author rightfully stresses.



Historically, Uruguay has sought to erase its indigenous and black heritage, instead playing up its immigratory component. As the author shrewdly notes, “Football arrived as Uruguay began consolidating as a nation state. When it saw itself as a new nation. A white nation. It was a nation born from genocide ... The country also denied its Black heritage. The people who in their slavery and eventual freedom built the country and fought its wars and formed part of its working-class mass remained officially invisible, constantly marginalised” (9).



Despite the “cultural walls” (14) the British erected on Uruguayan soil, football was massively played and passionately felt by its people in no time. Football matches were part of a true public space where “Children from tenements could stand alongside those of the well-to-do. Immigrants and Black people could mix with English gentlemen” (49). At the same time, “they only saw white men and boys and elites play the game. On the pitch, there remained a strong regard to sex, age, and condition” (49). Just as the British established their own church, hospital, cemetery, newspapers, and social clubs in Montevideo (most still standing today), the Uruguayan population also divided those who had the right to play from those who could only participate as spectators.



In addition to the rapidly changing demographics, the arrival of football at the end of the 19th century also coincided with a set of internal political disputes. In 1897, a civil war broke out between the Colorado (Red) and the Blanco (White) party. Even at that time, football was already operating as a refuge from turbulent grounds. As da Cruz said of a match in Punta Carretas, at the southern end of Montevideo: “While war raged on in the interior, Uruguayans gathered at the furthest point of the country for some respite. And in Punta Carretas they found the perfect escape. If only for two hours the world around them ceased to exist” (39). However, the succeeding (and final) conflict between fellow countrymen had a major impact on the flourishing national football league, as players were recruited to join the battlefield. The heavily historical passages in the book are mitigated by clear-cut episodes that bring the reader back to the football field, such as the story of the anarchist River Plate F.C. After the last civil war ended in 1904, the club changed its jersey from black to red and white vertical stripes to combine “the red of the Colorados and the white of the Blancos as a homage to national peace, to unity. To declare the era of Uruguayans killing Uruguayans over” (123).



The book does much more than this. In addition to critically examining the concept of nation and the ways in which football contributed to its creation, it also delves into early and historical rivalries (Uruguay vs. Argentina; Nacional vs. CURCC/Peñarol), pioneer clubs (Albion), historical figures (president José Batlle y Ordóñez, as well as many footballers), and social movements. For all that, it is a Montevideo-centered book, with no regard to the football scene in the provinces. That absence mirrors the stark division between the capital and the interior, still present today, when it comes to the cherished national sport.

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