Exhibit 1: “Gerardo Tata Martino quien Coño es ese ahora?” (Gerardo Tata Martino who the hell is that now?”)
A post from a self-identified Barca supporter, this sort of statement represents an example of the most basic disdain for non-European football. The person who wrote and posted that tweet felt comfortable enough sending it out to their followers as a show of rebuke to the new coach but could not be bothered to use fewer keystrokes to look up Martino and figure out who he is and what he has been doing in the past few years that put him on the short list for one of professional football’s top jobs. Clearly, if people don't make it onto European league coverage, they must not matter.
Exhibit 2: Primera opción del #Barça: Tata Martino. Muy acorde al juego del equipo azulgrana. Lo malo es que no tiene experiencia en Europa. (Barca’s first option: Tata Martino. Very consistent with the play of the blue-red. The bad is that he does not have experience in Europe)
Exhibit 3: Con todo el respeto al "Tata" Martino pero el Barça no puede reemplazar a Tito con un entrenador de experiencia cero en el fútbol europeo. (With all due respect to “Tata” Martino, Barça cannot replace Tito with a coach with zero experience in European football)
Exhibit 4: “So should Barca fans be happy with Tata Martino as new coach? No experience in Europe as a coach, mind you!”
On one level these are seemingly more sophisticated than the previous example. For one, they all portray a basic understanding of Martino and his trajectory thus far (at least enough to maintain appearances). A deeper look, however, reveals these as three examples out of many thousands of possible all hinging on the same trope to mask a basic football cultural supremacy. Exhibits 2 and 3 depart from misinformation to make their basic case (Martino does have experience in Europe, as a player for Tenerife in 1991). Exhibit four at least hedges by qualifying the statement with “as a coach” but still uses proximity to European football as a measuring stick. So what’s the problem?
The problem with this is that this basic Eurocentric premise blatantly contradicts the history of modern football.
First, in order to asses an alleged or implied “superiority”, these sorts of arguments rest largely on the 'prestige' lent (i.e. cultural superiority) added by the mountain of corporate investment, petrodollars, and the result of various money laundering schemes that are currently responsible for propping up European football leagues and backing the hiring of top players from around the world. This ‘prestige’ rooted in financial power simultaneously and drastically debilitates leagues elsewhere, and facilitates the construction of the “Europe is best” argument. For example, the exile of talent from Southern cone clubs continues to figuratively and literally empty national leagues across the region year after year. In 2011 Argentina had upwards of 1500 professional footballers playing across the world, at least 935 of which were registered with UEFA leagues, and a good number of which played first and second division. For perspective, that same year there were a total of only 1200 players (approx) on rosters in Argentina’s top two divisions. How many people would sit down to watch *any* games between Spanish club sides if pretty much their entire first and second division had been economically exiled overseas?
Second, the type of argument deployed to purportedly disqualify Martino also rests partially on a basic historical denial. Throughout the entire century of modern football, there is nothing substantial that separates European football from the rest of the world and especially not from the South American context that shaped Martino’s career as both player and coach. It is true that in the last few years European capital and the aforementioned mountains of cash have substantially tipped the scales in advantage of UEFA leagues and have created a chasm in terms of remuneration, shooting market share into the stratosphere. Performance, however, continues to tell a different story. While on some level the large contracts lend credence to the ‘superiority’ of UEFA—something possible largely because of the on the field performance contributions of significant numbers of South American and African players—South America has continued to be competitive in international competition at the club and national team levels. While the huge amounts of money poured into Spain and England may allow sponsors to brag about ‘the best league in the world,’ what would be the fate of those leagues if foreign-born players were repatriated back to the precise national context Euro-centric perspectives so clearly disdain and dismiss as not valid?
In short, while critique of Barcelona's hire is fair game, arguments on Martino's "lack of European experience" represent the articulation of a Euro-supremacist position without foundation. European football is neither played on another planet nor has it shown to be fundamentally 'superior' in terms of performance. Furthermore, dismissing Martino's actual experience amounts to a denial of the reality of European leagues. The influx of capital from reputable and not so reputable financial sources that has been central to the hiring of the thousands of foreign born players since the reopening of Serie A's 'frontier' in 1980 and, in particular, in the aftermath of the Bosman ruling, is not a separate and unremarkable feature. The consolation prize to all this unfortunate banter is that at least Martino's hiring allows for a momentary flash of the layers of contradictions imbedded in the assumptions behind this unfortunately and widely held common sense that otherwise continues to operate unmentioned and unchallenged.
