A banal mysticism, which is so banal that all the mysticism seems to have evaporated long ago, binds 'us' to the homeland - that special place which is more than a place, more than a geophysical area.

— Michael Billig

The sports pages are men's pages, although they are not presented as such. /.../ On foreign fields, the men win their trophies, or lose their honor, doing battle on the nation's behalf. The readers, mainly men, are invited to see these male exploits in terms of the whole homeland, and, thus, men's concerns are presented as if defining the whole national honor. The parallel between sport and warfare seems obvious...

— Michael Billig