The World Cup starts tomorrow and I am seriously excited about it. We’ll be showing almost all the games, of course.
People see that we’re into soccer and so forth and ask if we’re European, or what. So I’d thought I’d take a couple lines and explain why I like soccer in general, and the World Cup in particular.
I’m not one of those folks who think that we as Americans should feel bad about ourselves ’cause we’re not as into soccer as the rest of the world.
There are a lot of really good reasons soccer isn’t the US’s most popular sport. We’re a big country with lots of other things going on. We’re physically a very long way from every major soccer country except Mexico — contrast that with, say, the Netherlands which is a short train ride to about a half dozen major soccer countries. Plus our own major sports, particularly football, are also very compelling. I don’t buy the line that American football is an inferior sport. It’s awesome.
All that said, there’s something really great about us participating — at a high level — in the world’s most important sport. Nothing brings people together like football. (That sentence required the World English word for the sport — “soccer” just wasn’t going to cut it there.)
In the last World Cup in 2002, I was in Korea (where many World Cup games were held) right before the tournament started, and then I traveled through Europe while the Cup was going on. On both sides of the globe, because I knew a little bit about soccer and the American team, it immediately gave me a way to find common ground with the people I’d meet.
And as the US progressed through the tournament, when people found out I was American, they immediately wanted to talk about it and to show their enthusiasm for the American’s progress in the sport — at least up to a point. I’ll always remember the German train ticket vendor who sadly shook his head about our upcoming game with Mexico: “It was a good run but now it will be over.” I tried to explain that we’ve usually been outplaying Mexico outside of Mexico City, but he was having none of it — we are American, we don’t play soccer, that was it. I just enjoyed the conversation and got on my train. And of course the US won the game.
I watched the final match, between Germany and Brazil, in the “college district” (sort of) of Munich, where there were a lot of Latin bars. Hundreds of South American immigrants to Germany were there, along with hundreds of German Germans. Both sides were singing songs, drinking beer, eating sausages, and having a great old time, and there was no tension beyond the friendly rivalry. The Germans repeatedly sang a song for their spectacular goalkeeper, Ollie Kahn. When he then made an error which cost Germany the match, the Latin fans sang it back, mockingly, and everyone in the crowd laughed.
Afterward, the Brazilians rolled their party truck into the street, turned up the dance music, and everyone boogied in the street. Young people from all over Munich started streaming into the area to party with the Brazilians. Girls were dancing on their balconies in the apartments above the street. It was the coolest spontaneous street party I’d ever seen — and it was the losing country.
That’s what soccer can mean to people, and the fact that the US gets to be a part of it is a great opportunity for us to get to share something important with people from the other countries of the world and to celebrate sport and fun with each other.
As far as the games themselves go, I believe the US can do well even though we’re in a tough group. I’ve been thinking for quite a while that Brian Ching is going to be a big star, and I predict that he is going to be the US hero of this tournament. And I don’t think that only because he’s a fellow native of Hawaii. Though it’s cool.
We are very excited about the world cup at the Linkery.
‘Football’ as me and my fellow Brits call it truely does bring people together. On my many trips to Spain before I spoke Spanish football was the one thing I could sit and chat for hours about despite speaking hardly a word of the native tongue.
It was also one of the things that brought me and my husband together when we met in Brazil- I had never before met an American guy who was actually a soccer fanatic! For want of a strong US team my husband had grown up a enthusiastic Argentina fan. When we spent the last world cup together in England we almost had to sit in seperate rooms to watch the matches tension was so high.
This year will be my first world cup not in the UK and I was feeling a little sad about that however I think the Linkery and the Princess pub should make for some great match time environs- and I think my love of the England team will come out very more strongly when surrounded by other ex-pats far from home.
Yay for Rooney!