…quoth Liverpool legend Bill Shankly when it was suggested that soccer was life and death to him. I was thinking of this because of a goofy story about the Mexican national team (with the help of Radio Shack) resorting to voodoo in an effort to break their decade-long losing streak on American soil. We’ll find out if it worked on February 11.
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Crooked House Fictions 
3 responses to “"Listen, It’s More Important Than That"”
nobody do voodoo like we do.
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I strongly suspect that Bill Shankly would have answered something entirely different if he was asked if *soccer* was life and death to him.Only Americans (and a few stray Australians) call it ‘soccer’. Everywhere else it is called football. I’m willing to bet a month’s wages that the original quote was along the lines of: “Football is not just a matter of life and death: it’s much more important than that.”Actually, shankly.com (http://www.shankly.com/lifeanddeath.htm ) has it as “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”
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I saw it given as above in a transcript from some show or other. And guess who coined the word ‘soccer’ and got it into general use? The British. They hate to admit this, but it’s a truncation of “association football.” Not that this would have mattered to Shankly.
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