Category: Memes

Today we celebrate Mexico’s triumph on the field by honoring its rebel side: the famed EZLN FC. In 2005, Subcomandante Marcos challenged world-class Italian club team Internazionale Milan to a friendly match, as a gesture of appreciation for the solidarity and support given to the Zapatistas by the club – especially from its captain, the…

Talk about wearing your politics on your sleeve! As Argentina kicks off against Iran, we pay tribute to arguably the two most famous Argentines in history: the revolutionary fighter Che Guevara, and the revolutionary footballer, Diego Maradona. Maradona, who is currently a World Cup commentator for left-wing media network Telesur, is perhaps as famous for…

On a day when the Azzuri play, we give a shoutout to the left-wing ultras of Associazione Sportiva Livorno Calcio, whose fan culture reflects the great tradition of Italian Communist autonomism. Striker Cristiano Lucarelli, who hails from Livorno and played on the Italian national team, famously walked away from a career at top-flight club Torino,…

As 2010 World Cup champions Spain face an unthinkable elimination in today’s game against Chile, we remember the powerful history of Spain’s greatest football club, whose players form the core of the Spanish national squad. FC Barcelona’s slogan is “mes que un club” (“more than a club”) – and throughout its history, it has indeed…

In 1958, Rachid Mekhloufi, star striker for French club team St. Etienne, and nine other Algerian players walked away from promising careers in France to form a national team for a country that, at the time, existed only in the revolutionary dreams of the anti-colonial movement in Algeria. The Algerian national team formed by the…

Football hooligans, or ‘ultras,’ are notorious for their fanaticism, violence, and reactionary home-team politics. But on the other hand, football fandom can also express radical virtues of solidarity, community, and resistance. As Germany plays today, we pay tribute to the revolutionary anti-fascist fan base of Hamburg’s football club FC St. Pauli – embraced by anarchists,…

Bill Shankly, the legendary Liverpool manager, never coached a World Cup team – but his legacy of great sports and fierce politics is carried on by progressive and radical followers of English football across the globe.

Today’s meme is in honor of today’s victory for Mexico’s national team, El Tri, as well as its storied legacy and passionate national fan base north and south of the border. Adelante la selección!

Sócrates was a fierce political thinker and philosopher who used his football stardom on the legendary 1982 Brazilian national team and his home team, São Paulo’s Corinthians, to agitate, educate, and organize the Brazilian people. Against the dictatorship, he turned his own club, Corinthians, into a popular school for democracy. O Doutor, presente!