F*** The World (CUP)
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by user Marcvsxiv
I searched for it, and cannot seem to find an opinion here about of f-awful soccer is and how stupid is this world cup.
There isn't much to add on top of http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/384qgmke.asp, but I'll pepper in a few more notes
(a) One thing an american sports fan is going immediately miss when watching soccer (besides, of course, the chick-in-bikini commercials) are (relavent) statistics. The two most frequently posted statistics seemed to be the number of appearence a player made for the national team and the national team's historical record in this or that circumstance. As if what france in in nineteen dickerty two tells me something about the game I am watching. If you are really, really lucky and pay close attention, you may catch a time of possesion number at some point during the game (as if I care how much time or the other team took passing the ball around the backfield, and to and from the "keeper")
(b) Given that we idolize athletes who shrug off injury -- Kirk Gibson, Donavan McNabb et al -- its odd to watch a sport in which players seem to be supposed to pretend to be injured.
(c) The whole learn-to-use-a-frucking-stop-watch thing.
(d) Finally, a comment on the broader context. This is, of course, one of those opportunities for Americans to bash the silly europeans and for europeans to, once again, confuse themselves with "the world" (see for example http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_SDPSVJD ).
Which I wouldn't care about except I'm still bitter that they took baseball out of the olympics for not being "international" enough. But baseball compares rather favorably to soccer. Certainly, world class baseball players are a more diverse lot then world class soccer players.
(e) It is often said that the World Cup is a metaphor for international war. It is probably more true that soccer is a metaphor for, or a re-enactment of, colonialism. It is basically only played by europeans and their former colonial subjects. And for whatever reasons, it seems that, with an exception or two, the formerly subjugated never stand a chance.
Date
Fri 07/07/06, 8:12 am EST
