FIFA for Poets: On Poetry and Soccer

Soccer Poems for the World Cup Final

I recently came across Charles Simic’s 2014 piece in the NYRB: Confessions of a Soccer Addict (subheading: I haven’t done a thing in three weeks except watch soccer). In it, he shares a delightful story about visiting the great Mexican poet Octavio Paz in Mexico City on the day Mexico was playing Italy in the 1994 World Cup:

At first, we lolled around fo…