Quick Review: The Unattainable Goals of ‘Infinite Football’
Michael Cox in The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines begins by emphasising that the biggest influence on the state of contemporary English football was not the advent of the Premier League itself, but its synchronous implementation alongside the new back-pass rule (see Chapter 1: A Whole New Ball Game). The rule itself is now as natural to the game as the offside rule — spawning a new generation of foot-savvy keepers and progressive defensive lines, eliminating the sluggish and cynical defensive ball-recycling which plagued the 1990 World Cup and 1992 Euros, while also alienating an older generation of players and staff who were professionally-attuned to the now defunct system. While it had its initial detractors, the rule as a whole is a success story. From its implementation, goalkeepers like Manchester United’s Peter Schmeichel and Norwich City’s undervalued (as Cox acknowledges) Bryan Gunn thrived — contrary to the protests of Alan Hodgkinson who felt that the new rule set out to make keepers “look foolish” (p. 12). There were, of course, no substantial qualms about whether or not the definition of “football”, in spirit, had changed — most critiques seemed to emphasise individual or team adaptability, and not so much the rule’s intentions: to help concrete a collective sporting philosophy which emphasised positive, forward-thinking, and optimistic play. In essence, cut down on the bullshit.
In trundles Laurentiu Ginghina, a Romanian soccer fan from childhood who — after suffering an ambition-crushing injury to his leg — was left to ruminate on the side-lines about the state of the game. In that spare time, he developed a new style of football designed to prioritise ball-movement over player-movement (mockingly referred to as “infinite football” — roll credits — by filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu because of Ginghina’s constant need to adapt his plans). Its implied that Ginghina’s emphasis on the ball rather than the player stems from the limitations of his injury: a desire to almost “expand” the echelons of the game by allowing players of varying fitness-levels to meaningfully interact with the ball. Ginghina’s ambitions are well-intentioned, but ultimately result in more rigorous rules and barriers that warp the game increasingly in favour of Ginghina’s own flawed vision— distinct field lines that cannot be crossed; the removal of right-angled corners to prevent unnecessary “vacuums”; limits on how many players can occupy which areas of the pitch; quarrels over whether any of this would actually work on a standard 11v11 field (which Ginghina insists it does and, fundamentally, must). Eventually, Ginghina concedes that this may no longer be “football”, but that does not deter him.
The cynical conclusion to reach would be to totally dismiss Ginghina — to look at his attempts at wanting to “improve” the game as the consequence of some kind of stubborn foolish ego, and paint him as a character to ridicule as he ambitiously associates his time studying Philosophy as an undergraduate with the arguably less lofty philosophies of sport. To a degree, Porumboiu does paint Ginghina as such, but not before dedicating the time to place him in a crucial context — a factory-worker turned bureaucrat, as if somehow his professional trajectory were the stereotypical caricature of Romania’s transition from austere Eastern Bloc Communism to an equally-droll capitalist republic. Porumboiu’s footage is practically raw — as if intentionally left without color-grading — with each shot coming across as relentlessly utilitarian. It appears Porumboiu’s intention here is to place Ginghina in a tonal universe whereby his passions for the art of football are actually quite transgressive; a quixotic creativity that feels out-of-place amidst the spiritual dead-zone around him. Perhaps the most patience-testing and spiritually-destructive sequence sees Ginghina sat in his office: token Romanian flag flopped in the corner, and tediously inoffensive off-white furnishings all around (the radiator, telephone, copy machine, and blinds — even the trees and sky through the window are a monotony, robbed of any green-and-blue hope). Its a nearly 22-minute sequence — around a third of the film’s total runtime — that remains largely unbroken. Its only real “breaks” are the occasional cut to a close-up (albeit still bound by real-time), and the brief interruption by somebody coming in to his office — including a very old woman who has, appropriately, been waiting decades for her land to be privately returned to her. Ginghina tries diligently (well, as diligently as his spirit will let him) to find out the progress, only for his several inquiring phone-calls to go unanswered.
Ginghina likely sees his changes as, just like the back-pass rule, the next great shift in the philosophy of football. With credit to him, both the back-pass rule and his changes are born from a widely felt lack in their contemporary game — but whereas the back-pass rule fulfilled a collective necessity, Ginghina’s feelings are far more individualistic. His individualism leads to a sort of unintentionally solipsistic authoritarianism — but as a cinematic statement, Infinite Football cannot help but be sympathetic to that feeling of exclusion. The professional game is more committed to statistical elitism and rigorous athleticism than it has ever been. Consequently, this has set a precedent for the lower tiers and less financially-lucrative divisions which, on both the economic and psychological stage, demands more from them. It is commercialised professionalism; an insistence on the necessity for sports to obey the economic-gaps created by institutional football’s neoliberal position. That more emphasis is placed on the Premier League’s commercial prospects (undoubtedly influential though it may be) than the back-pass rule is further testament to the growing philosophy of sports as, first and foremost, a commercial enterprise than a fundamentally philosophical one. This review suddenly seems at risk of drifting off into political commentary, but in truth, Porumboiu’s film is materially-tied to the stagnant uncertainty of the postmodern individual. Ginghina is a man knowingly alienated by the trappings of modernity, but incapable of envisioning a structural universe outside of it. “Infinite football”, as mocking as its name may be, is damn well appropriate — the tragedy of liberal individualism, built from the myth of “perfection”. A love for the art of play, crippled by a widespread inability to conceive of change beyond the realms of assimilation or tyranny.
Quick end note: thank you to those who found the time to read this review. I actually intend on doing a larger essay-style piece on football in the future — in relation to my research on nostalgia actually. Sports criticism is new territory for me, and it’s certainly a crowded field — but if this sounds like something you guys would be interested in reading, watch this space.
Love, Dan.
