World Cup Magazine of the Week: Colors #90
You’ll have figured I’m excited about the World Cup, and to mark the start of the tourmament tonight we celebrate with a very special edition of Colors. The Football issue is the perfect antidote to the madness that is FIFA, the worldwide body ‘responsible’ for running the sport.
Grass green with gold foil highlights, the cover gives a good impression of a Panini sticker album…
…and in fact inside the issue there is a sachet of stickers to be added at various points.
There’s also a nice touch at the back of the issue, where a yellow card sticks out of a referee’s pocket. The card is actually a booklet giving absurd examples of players being yellow and red-carded for misdemeanours. So far, so fun then.
But aside from the visual fun, the magazine couldn’t be further away from the glitz of today’s football. It features all apsects of what gets called the grass-roots of the game – the amateur league footballers (above)…
…blind football…
…robots learning to play…
…the massed ranks of Chinese football schools. And much much more, I don’t want to give it all away.
I’ve been looking forward to this issue ever since editor-in-chief Patrick Waterhouse mentioned its theme at the Facing Pages conference in April. And it doesn’t disappoint, it’s a really rich look at the wider world of this hugely popular sport.
We’ll have copies available at our pop-up shop at this weekend’s Monocle Summer Fayre.