Initial Thoughts on the World Cup

So, every four years there is a great big soccer tournament that almost the entire world gets fired up about (even North Korea is in it this year!), while Americans typically smile, yawn, forget about it entirely, or brag about how much they hate it. This year, the tournament is in South Africa, and the US has a chance to do ok -- probably not great, but ok, and might even make it to the elimination rounds, beyond the group stage. (We play England, Algeria, and Slovenia, and have to be at least second-best to advance.)

But what I find to be interesting is the number of people who have moved from the third category (forget about it entirely) to the first and fourth category (smile or brag about how much they hate it). It seems that in the American media there are more and more discussions about it than I remember from 2002. (I was in Germany for the 2006 Weltmeisterschaft, and that was insane, but I didn't read very much of anything at that time.)

Part of this, of course, is because we are playing England in the first game, which is far more interesting than last time around, when the US played Italy, Czech Republic, and Cameroon. If you ask the typical American to name a famous foreign soccer player who's still playing, I would imagine that respondents would answer "Beckham" 50% of the time. It doesn't matter how good Petr Čech or Gigi Buffon are in goal, they simply aren't household names in the US, even if Becks is best known for having silly hair and a Spice Girl wife. So the popularity of the English game contributes to it. Moreover, the ability to broadcast everything and everything on million-channel cable and satellite means that it's easier to find niche markets for any sport. If you want, you can watch hurling or Australian rules football or whatever. Even in the past four years, internet and satellite communication has advanced to the point where Americans can pay more attention to British elections for a lower "opportunity cost." So why not watch the best soccer players in the world if it's easy, especially if your kid is playing the game?

Of course, this "current of awareness" manifests itself numerous ways, and no one needs to be reminded of the problems Western societies face with respect to assimilating immigrants that continue to watch foreign TV, have Facebook friends in the old country (where it's not banned, at least), and avoid contact with their host country. But it also means that host nations with high immigration, like the US, also discover aspects of the rest of the world. While the US is hardly a hermit kingdom, we have been strongly resistant to soccer fever. The average Joe also has been only tangentially concerned with the domestic politics of other nations. Communication technologies, however, can turn us all into analysts of the election in Whereverstan. He can also watch youtube video of Landon Donovan, and get completely caught up on the highlights of his career in a matter of hours. So Americans learn about it. The native-born discover it more easily, and our immigrants bring their love of the sport to our shores, while assimilating less quickly.

The awareness, however, does not translate however into a loving embrace of what is called "the beautiful game." Certainly, this is often used ironically. Yesterday, for example, two games were played. The hosts, South Africa, tied 1-1 with the Mexicans, and the French, winners of the World Cup in 1998, played a full 90 minutes only to end with a 0-0 tie with Uruguay. Ties are not something we like. If you look at American sports, they are engineered to arrive at a result. Football plays a full overtime, baseball, basketball, and NASCAR cannot end in a tie, and NHL hockey rewards aggressive playing in overtime. Scoreless ties are anathema. Three hours of play yesterday yielded 2 goals, and no winners. so part of this is the structure of the sport, and our desire to see a winner, and to see some kind of accomplishment, to see, well, some kind of goal achieved. That is not to say the game cannot be beautiful. Indeed, that 0-0 tie had some spectacular plays, and the seconds of anticipation between the ball flying through the air to be redirected by some player's head into the back of the net or snatched out of the air waaay above the rim by a talented keeper is truly wonderful.

One last comment for now, for this is a long post, and I have to start grilling cheeseburgers. (Czech word for grilling: grilování. Now you know.) I think that it's interesting that some Americans make a point of hating this game. I know I sometimes do, precisely because it's a bit fun to watch the incomprehension on my friends' faces ("Duuuude, how could hate this??!?!" [Oh, yeah, by the way, the word dude has been successfully exported. You're all welcome.{If I get to these brackets, have I overdone a parenthetical reference?}]). I know there are many people who find baseball as interesting as watching paint dry, for example, yet I rarely read articles during spring training with headlines like "Here we go again. Another season of spitting and scratching." Soccer is still a "foreign" sport, and that's just got to contribute to some people's dislike of it. But I think most people are getting used to soccer as one more thing on our million channels, no more or less boring than Search for the Amazon Headhunters on National Geographic or Unseen on Gorovision. And hey, it still gives us an excuse to talk about how much Slovenia sucks, what with their delicious food, their pleasant climate, their nice people, and their beautiful castles, and how much the USA rocks! So cheer on our guys, forget about Churchill and the Special Relationship for a couple hours, pour out your Bass and get a Sam Adams, and make fun of their teeth. And manage the fact that soccer might be boring, but grandstanding about hating it makes you seem a little obnoxious.