Blog category: World Cup

So Long, World Cup | July 11th, 2010

• It’s too bad Uruguay and Germany weren’t the finals matchup. That was certainly the more entertaining of the two weekend games.
• Things I will miss now that the Cup is over: The country going nuts after the Donovan goal; France collapsing in hilarious fashion after cheating Ireland; the fact that a tremendously meaningful game was happening nearly every day during June; Ian Darke calling out poor players and cracking jokes during the play-by-play — let’s get with this idea, American sports announcers.
• Thing I won’t miss: the diving. It’s weird to compare World Cup referees to NHL playoff refs: World Cup refs call fouls that don’t actually occur; NHL refs wouldn’t call a major penalty if a player’s head rolled past them on the ice. Runner-up thing I won’t miss: TV commentators only referring to Africa in mystical, isicathamiya-backed generalizations instead of as a multinational continent with real, modern people.
• As much as the Donovan goal was an amazing national moment, and as much as the same “Soccer is here to stay!” meme goes around the American media every four years, it’s time to realize that professional-level soccer’s failure to widely catch on after 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006 means the sport’s only going to be major-league popular in this country during World Cups — and that’s totally fine.

  I love watching the world’s best players every four years, and seeing these guys in action makes me curious about their pro careers, but I know it’ll be 2014 before I follow soccer again. In talking to my World-Cup-loving friends, who should be prime candidates to follow MLS or the Premiership, I’ve learned I’m very typical in this regard. I have the NFL and the NHL, and I’m cool with that.

  Rather than the tiresome debate between the misguided American pro-soccer optimists and the xenophobic “Real Americans hate soccer, and get off my lawn” grumps, let’s just enjoy the World Cup Olympics-style: as a fun, international treat that comes along just often enough to be special.

And the requisite highlight vid:

Picking a Side for the World Cup Final: Time to Get Historical | July 10th, 2010

With this Sunday’s World Cup final fast approaching, I realized I have to pick a favorite team among two countries about which I care not at all. I’ve never been to Spain or the Netherlands, I don’t have any acquaintances from Spain or the Netherlands, and I don’t even care that much for paella or whatever it is they eat in the Netherlands that isn’t Heineken. (Actually I’m pretty curious on that one, so feel free to fill me in.)

But in my quadrennial soccer-fan career, I have really enjoyed this 2010 World Cup, so I feel I should go ahead and find a side to support. My man Tony argues for the benefits of historical symbolism in World Cup matches, so I’m taking a page from that.

Because Ireland deserved to be in this Cup and was unfairly cheated out of it, and because I’m of Irish descent, I’m going to base my decision on Irish history and go with Spain. Spain and Ireland had the Catholic thing in common, they had the Spanish Armada thing and the subsequent Black Irish myth, and today they’re both known as PIIGS. Meanwhile, the Netherlands was the home of William of Orange, the infamous usurper of James II and winner of the still-a-sore-spot-in-Ireland Battle of the Boyne. (Coincidentally, that battle ended on July 12, and the game is July 11.) Maybe Spain and William were on the same side in that fight, but I’m not about to let facts get in the way of this nerdy argument. The Dutch dudes even wear orange uniforms — this one is a no-brainer.

So ¡Vamos España! — let’s all eat tapas and fight some bulls this Sunday. I look forward to my last day as a soccer fan until 2014.