South City Confidential

Four Things That Suck About the World Cup

I really, really love the World Cup. Of course, I love soccer. Duh. I love that it gets showcased on a global level, I love the excitement and fervor surrounding it. I love picking teams to cheer for. I love the spectacle. I love the fans and, critics be damned, I even love the vuvuzelas. I love being in a bar surrounded by people cheering for the United States. I love going to bars in the middle of the day. Wait, I mean, I love going to bars in the middle of the day when lots of people are doing the same. Most of all, I love soccer on the television for eight hours a day a for a few weeks. It’s like March Madness for the rest of the world.

But, damn it, every four years, the World Cup’s emergence onto the American cultural radar means I get annoyed by the following things:

1. People complaining that soccer is boring. Sigh. Yeah, and it doesn’t have electrolytes, either. Soccer is a beautiful, relatively-pure sport, simple in rules and concept. The best part about the game, as discussed by an author I can’t remember (maybe Nick Hornby), is that brilliance can happen at any time. On any given Sunday, my almost-30 body can hit a ball that goes upper-90 for a spectacular goal. I might be sore for two days, but the potential for brilliant moments is there. So if you think about it that way, then realize you get an entire month of opportunities for greatness, and you still think that’s boring, that’s your loss. I’ll happily take your seat at the bar. No, there aren’t time-outs. No, there aren’t commercial breaks until half-time. Play slowly unfolds, and fans must be patient, but the reward is unlike any other sport. It’s cerebral, and some people can’t handle it, so why must the same people make the same pointless argument every four years. Which leads me to my next point:
2. The endless debate on why soccer hasn’t taken off in America. I swear to you, it’s like sportswriters just dig up their research from four years ago, add a bit about what league folded or didn’t fold since the last cup, but largely just say the same things they always say. Unless you’ve got some breakthrough insight on why soccer still hasn’t caught up to baseball, football, basketball, or hockey, you’re beating a dead horse. Soccer isn’t as popular here as the big four: we get it. I suspect the reason we keep hearing about it is because it’s one less story non-soccer sportswriters/casters have to do actual, real research on soccer for.
3. Diving. Oh, lord, the DIVING. Players: your games are filmed. We can see (as I hope most referees do) that clearly, you just got served by a clean tackle. So why the theatrics?  Yes, I get that sometimes it serves to interrupt an unfavorable flow of play, but it’s a bitch move and makes you look like a douche canoe. Please stop.
4. Poser fans. I have no problem with people jumping on the soccer bandwagon, but I get fucking ANNOYED when people all of a sudden start injecting British vernacular into their vocabulary because they think it means they are down with soccer. If you can’t tell me the difference between a 4-4-2 and a 3-5-2 or have no idea what CONCACAF  is, and you’re American, you don’t get to talk about pubs, pints, kits, matches, or wankers. Period. Quit pretending. You sound stupid. Here’s a hint: if you don’t know much about soccer, pay attention to the game instead of the peripherals. You might just learn something.

BONUS: Even if you hate the World Cup, I think we can all agree that Woody Harrleson taking a PK while Wayne Campbell cheers him on is fucking awesome.

Tags: Mike Meyers, Nick Hornby, US, vuvuzela, Woody Harrelson, World Cup

KBO posted this article under Fun, Sporty on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 11:26 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site.