Soccer seemed to remind Americans of something they instinctively feared – foreign languages, foreign influences. I’ve seen the freaky reaction of Americans’ renaming French fries ‘freedom fries’ in the run-up to the war in Iraq – irrational, but not totally funny. Or the horrible stigma of John Kerry speaking French or Republicans’ shock upon learning that Mitt Romney could also speak French.
George Vecsey, Eight World Cups
What a great day June 26 was for the United States and its standing in the world. We are a country of many peoples, speaking different languages, and that has always been a great strength of U.S. culture, our ability to take the passions of immigrant groups and mix them into the great melting pot of American life.
Except when it comes to the world’s most popular sport! Apparently even to watch the sport, let alone enjoy it, is to some “anti-American” or, cue up the guffaws, “a sign of the nation’s moral decay.” But that was all before the U.S. turned in a strong game against tournament favorite Germany (hey, I for one think they’re the team to beat), losing 1-0, good enough to advance to the elimination round. They play Belgium next Tuesday, marking the first time the U.S. has advanced in two straight World Cups, and the steady growth of the sport’s popularity in this country will take another important step forward.
Here’s one thing I love about football (soccer): the other day, Sarah and I stopped in at our favorite Vietnamese lunch place in San Jose’s Little Saigon and when I pointed to the table I wanted, the Vietnamese-American hostess said knowingly, “Oh, you want to watch football!” Yes we did. Two games were showing as we ate our spring rolls. An hour later I stopped into an auto-parts store to pick up brake pads, heard the Spanish broadcast of a Mexico World Cup in the background, and was talking about the game to the Mexican-American cashier when the announcer went crazy with a minutes long “Gooooooalllllllllllllllllll!” eruption. I walked out of their grinning. Who wouldn’t?
I’ll be smiling right through to the end of the World Cup, so much do I enjoy these games, and that goes whether my favorite team wins or not. This is spectacle, public drama on the highest order, and it’s also great fun to see the way that national identities come through in the play of the teams. I’m not going to blame the pouting pretty-boy arrogance of Cristiano Ronaldo on the Portugese, since in the end a narcissist is a country of one, but the impish glee with which Lionel Messi works genius on the pitch feels very connected to Argentina. It’s hard not to cheer for him and the men in blue and white.
Above all I love World Cup because I love watching the human dramas that unfold when people who have spent years preparing for a key moment deal with setbacks or freak events. Like Luis Suarez of Uruguay pulling a Mike Tyson and biting another player? That’s just plain weird, and awful – but also fascinating. Like the great Zidane’s head butt to mar the 2006 World Cup final. What happens inside a person to make them do such things?
So if you have little understanding of football, but want to watch anyway to see what the fuss is about, I say: Just have fun! Don’t sweat the little things. Basically, a World Cup game is a two-track competition – on the one hand to kick, head, knee or belly-bump the ball through the opposing team’s goal mouth, and on the other to work on the referee to encourage him to whistle the other team for fouls and hand out yellow and red cards (meaning: “Bad boy!”) or award penalty kicks.
Many are put off by the theatrics of football, although such antics are a part of most team sports. I once discussed basketball flopping at length with the NBA’s all-time master, Vlade Divac. As a high-school water polo player in California, I remember the coach drilling us on yelling loud and pretending to drown any time anyone bumped us from behind.
I think what bothers some U.S. viewers about football is simply that this is a sport that requires focus: Each half runs just over 45 minutes and to get any sense of what happened, of all the plots and subplots unfolding, you have to pay close attention throughout. That can be excruciating, during a tense game knotted up, but it means when there’s finally a breakthrough – “Goallllllllllllllllll!” – there’s an amazing sense of release. But along the way there are hundreds of little details to catch.
So if the urge strikes at all, join in the fun! Catch some World Cup action. For most of us, there is a thrill that comes with knowing you’re watching along with people all over the globe, jumping up to cheer or curse at the same time. Far more than cheesy reality TV, football offers vivid characters emoting, and if you watch closely, you can often guess at what’s about to happen next, just by watching the faces; in this sense, it’s a kind of workshop in building emotional intelligence, the ability to understand others.
As longtime New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey puts it early in his excellent book Eight World Cups, “To me, with my European roots, soccer did not sound like tromping boots, did not smell like tear gas. It sounded like prayer chants and universal rock, it smelled like beer and empanadas, wine and wursts, and it felt like home.”
Pick up George’s book if you want a companion for this World Cup – and comment below and let us know if you’re watching World Cup, and if you think the U.S. can ever become a great soccer power.
– Steve Kettmann, co-founder, WCR
Steve’s earlier blogs:
Remembering Those We’ve Loved and Lost
Were You Kind to Someone Today?