Envy
by Yuri Olesha
a new translation by Marian Schwartz
(New York Review of Books, 2004)

Okay, I admit it ... I'm a soccer mom, have been for quite some time now.  My term is coming to a close -- I only have one child left in the sport-- but the sport has grown on me.  Other than a smattering of soccer scenes in Roddy Doyle novels and children's picture books, I've not come across much soccer in fiction.  Imagine my surprise when re-reading Envy (written in 1927) and lo, there it was -- a quite brilliant soccer scene.  Moscow versus Germany. The year -- sometime in the early 1920's.  Setting -- a stadium in Moscow.  Germans have a star who holds both his team and the Soviets in contempt.  The Soviets are feeling quite inferior to the Germans and are just hoping to hold their own.  This is an amazing chapter that captures soccer in its nationalistic nastiness and its artistry.  Here are a few excerpts:

"The group of Germans, in their vivid, richly colored clothes -- about eleven of them -- positively shone on the green, in the purity of the air.  They were wearing tan, almost golden, jerseys with green stripes down the right side of the chest and black shorts.  Their shorts were flapping in the wind.
Volodya Makarov, shrinking from the freshness of his newly donned soccer shirt, looked out the window of the soccer players' building.  The Germans had reached the middle of the field.
"Shall we go?"  he asked.  "Shall we?"
"Let's go!" the team captain commanded. 

...Every minute the ball was flying toward the goal.  It struck the goalposts, they moaned, and lime sprinkled off them ...Volodya would catch the ball in midflight, when it seemed mathematically impossible. The entire audience, the entire living slope of the stands seemed to get steeper; each spectator was halfway to his feet, impelled by a terrible, impatient desire to see, at last, the most interesting thing -- the scoring of a goal.  The referees were sticking whistles into their lips as they walked, ready to whistle for a goal...Volodya wasn't catching the ball, he was ripping it from its line of flight, like someone who has violated the laws of physics and was hit by the stunning action of thwarted forces.  He would fly up with the ball, spinning around, literally screwing himself up on it.  He would grab the ball with his entire body -- knees, belly, and chin--throwing his weight at the speed of the ball, the way someone throws a rag down to put out a flame.  The usurped speed of the ball would throw Volodya two meters to the side, and he would fall like a firecracker.  The opposing forwards would run at him, but ultimately the ball would end up high above the fray."