From the simple question of the quality of reportage through the central problem of footballing professionalism to the downright philosophical challenges which peaks of human endeavour (any peak, any endeavour) inevitably present, the latest World Cup proved both the most informative and the most insight-provoking ever - ever since, that is, television has enabled football-loving humanity to watch World Cups away from home. Television has, moreover, enabled the truth-loving sports fan to check, for the first time in the history of reportage, its reliability: the inevitable tautology of the televisual sports commentary - you hear what you see - enables us to see what we don't hear and hear what we don't see - quite a shock for those who tend to accept, unquestioningly, the facts of the expert reporter.

LRB 5 August 1982 | PDF Download