The Soccer War

In this moment of the book I can start to connect and undesrtand why the book is called The Soccer War. In this chapter specially we can see how Kapuscinski describes wars, as if they where soccer matches. "But the return match of the series took place in San Salvafor, beautiffly named Flor Blanca stadim, a week later. This time it was the Hunduran team who spent a sleepless night. The screaming crowd of fans broke all the windows in the hotel and threw rotten eggs, dead rats and stinging rags inside." Pg. 158 We can see like in a sentence involved with war and revolution, he writes about staidums, fans, and crowds. What I think about the name The Soccer War is that it is named like that, because in every war there are two opponents, and one that is deafeated. Rearly there is a tie, it also involves fans(if it is correct to call it this way), which defend their sides, and their hometown. In this case the soccer war was between El Salvador and Honduras, which alarmed and destroyed many people, and ended in a "tie", none of the two sides, achived any progress or any gain, they both lost many people.


In this chapter of the soccer war we can also see how poverty and roughness is a big issue between people. "He kept looking at the shoes of the other members of his company as the crawled forward. He blinked, weighed somethin in his mind and at last said hoplessley: Toda mi familia anda descalzada(My whole family goes barefoot." Pg.177 In this quotation we can see how poverty is affecting the people around, and how simple things like shoes are a very important factor in a persons daily life, and how we people that dont have those needs dont find it relevant. " A wounded boy arrived in a truck. A salvadoran. He had taken a bullet on the knee he was ordered to lie down on the grass. The boy was barefoot, pale, spattered with blood. The orderly pokedaround in his knee, looking for the bullet. The boy moaned." "Quiet you poor bastard, the orderly said. You´re distracting me." Pg. 173 In this quotation , we can see both roughness and poverty. The childeren was also barefoot, and Kapuscinski, highlighgts that in several ocassions, in this quotation and in the one before in page 177. And in this quotation, we can also see the roughness of the orderly towards the bullet boy.