Trolling for Gold Cup commentary, I ran into this piece (via Beautiful Horizons) that attributes Rafa Márquez's dirty number on Tim Howard in the February qualifier to machismo. This is a parody of stereotype; I can't imagine anyone being offended by something so silly.
The author defines machismo as, "supreme valuation of characteristics culturally associated with the masculine, stressing attributes such as physical courage, virility, domination and aggressiveness", as well as the inability to weigh the future consequences of an action. Is there a non-artistic sport on the planet that doesn't value the bolded characteristics? Márquez's problem isn't machismo; it's letting competitiveness translate into dirty play, which is something that has always hounded athletes around the globe, from Zinedine Zidane to Bruce Bowen to Joel Casamayor to Rodney Harrison to Andrew Golota. Or put another way: if Márquez has a problem with machismo, every athlete who's taken a cheap shot a few times does as well.
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