AJC.com > Sports > Soccer blog > Archives > 2006 > June > 09 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USIt’s finally here! So cheer up!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AP / The World Cup is F-U-N! So relax and enjoy, no matter where you are.
Off the Ball’s traumatic third grade experience led her to grasp a singular, inescapable conclusion: Schoolmarms are the scourge of the educational experience.
This belief has been further reinforced by the come-lately chiming from America’s sportswriting sweetheart about why Americans don’t get the World Cup.
While it’s hard not to agree with every word she has said, the you-better-eat-your-vegetables quality to her writing (she knows no other way to put words together) is typically depressing. Yes, some of my readers point out, this is the best thing she’s written in a long time. That’s just the problem, isn’t it?
Today is the start of the World Cup. In about three hours time, Germany kicks off with Costa Rica, and a month of bliss, joy, exasperation and insanity will be for the taking for those of us who care to soak it all in. I could care less about why most of my fellow countrypersons don’t give a good corner kick about the game.
If they want to obsess with baseball on-base percentages, third-string tight end recruits or whatnot, then let them. That’s all fine by me. If knuckleheads hosting call-in radio shows want to bash soccer, they should go right ahead. If the game generates nothing but a big yawn on these shores, who am I to tell them to wake up?
This column, as are so many that have penned by American scribes in recent days, smacks of “it’s all about us.” Why can’t WE get with the program? Why can’t WE get excited? Yes, I wish the World Cup were the manic focus of this nation’s attention. I wasn’t here four years ago when the Yanks made their quarterfinal run, as I was chronicling it in Korea. But I’ve been told that it was the biggest sports story in America for a few days, from the Mexico to the Germany games.
That’s a big breakthrough, folks. Just because we don’t have dancing samba girls shaking their thighs around The Bruce for a month beforehand, or have the ridiculous press corps following the Yanks that Beckham, England & Co. have to deal with doesn’t mean there’s a dearth of following here.
We’ve got posted on this website a list of a dozen or so places in the Atlanta area to watch the games. Some are hospitable to fans of particular nations, and we know the list is far from complete. In the first week I aim to visit a few. On days I want to stay home and watch, I’m comforted by the fact that the ESPN monolith is covering every game, and is really starting to take this event seriously. Although I understand no Spanish, I may catch a bit on Univision once in a while.
And we can listen to, watch or read just about every word uttered or printed about the World Cup on the Internet. Yesterday I tuned into the BBC’s Five Live Sports show from Munich, and it was a romp, alternately informative and entertaining in the uniquely British way. The only thing you can’t hear are the games, which are available for streaming only in the U.K. If you need your fix, you can get it, for the most part.
This is too happy and exciting a time to be worrywarts about why our country is isolationist about soccer. There are far too many people here, including many of you, who feel the way I do, for this to bring us down.
We are beyond that. Too bad that so many of my countrypersons, and fellow media professionals, can’t see beyond their own myopia to enjoy it anyway.
The schoolmarms wouldn’t appreciate The Guardian’s last pre-World Cup podcast, which talks about naughty things in such a refreshing, adult way that make many of us here in The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave very uncomfortable.
Near the end, the lads discuss the new line of condoms issued for England’s appearance in the World Cup. These products are known as “Victory Vibes,” and the bhoys wonder if the slogan “Come On, England” should or shouldn’t have a comma. I’m no grammarian, but I do know if England doesn’t do so well sales will surely plummet.
Oh, the schoolmarms are uptight now, just as they are by the sight of the samba girls.
Enjoy it all, folks, and I’ll be back after the games today.
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By Chris
June 9, 2006 9:53 AM | Link to this
Excellent quote off of BBC.COM from a resident of Deutschland and how he shall observe the holy month of The World Cup:
“The special thing I will be doing to mark this month is wake up each day not knowing where I have been or what I have done the night before”
Binlargen
By Rutuger
June 9, 2006 10:32 AM | Link to this
Anyone know where there is a live online audio stream of the World Cup games?
GO TEAM USA!!!
By Don
June 9, 2006 10:54 AM | Link to this
XM-radio has two channels dedicated to World Cup coverage. One in English and one in Spanish for the illegal immigrants.
By Horn Guy Dos
June 9, 2006 11:37 AM | Link to this
Don,
I’m fluent in Spanish and I’m a white American. I prefer to listen/watch in Spanish.
Does that make me an illegal immigrant or you a bigot?
Shut up and go back to the Opinion blogs.
By Horn Guy Dos
June 9, 2006 11:41 AM | Link to this
Also, I didn’t really get a kick out of the subhead in today’s print edition.
The “World’s Super Bowl”??????????
Sorry, this is much bigger than that commercial-filled overhyped game played around a theatrical halftime show.
By WirelessBuzz
June 9, 2006 4:31 PM | Link to this
Yawn Soccer…neat. At least the college baseball super regionals are this weekend and the College World Series is right after that. Go Jackets! Oh..and why might soccer be the top sports story in the U.S. in July for a few days? Hmm..oh yeah…there is not much going on sportswise in the U.S. in the summer. MLB does not really heat up until late summer and September, at least not enough to be a huge daily story.
By Wendy Parker
June 9, 2006 4:33 PM | Link to this
College baseball? Ping! Ping! Ping!
By WirelessBuzz
June 9, 2006 4:36 PM | Link to this
Well thanks to those pings it got more offense than MLB. Few leads are safe late and that makes it that much more exciting!
By Nicholas Irwin
June 9, 2006 5:11 PM | Link to this
If by “exciting” you meant “lame” then yes…I guess it is that much more exciting. I love baseball, but college baseball is terrible. A typical college baseball game (that is…a game where each team scores in double figures and the ball is just getting hammered around the yard) is almost unwatchable. I mean, they might as well televise a youth t-ball game. Without any hope of the pitchers getting anybody out, the excitement level is about zero. I’m beginning to loathe the common misconception that the more scoring, the more exciting a game or sport. When a game is nothing but scoring, you’re missing half of the game (defense/pitching). I bet you like arena football too, huh?
Oh right…soccer, heh. Sorry about that. But you can apply that to people who say soccer is terrible because there’s “no scoring”, so I guess it’s pertinent.
By Nicholas Irwin
June 9, 2006 5:17 PM | Link to this
Oh, and Germany’s backline sucks. They may get away with it in this group, because Poland apparently isn’t a threat to anyone or anything and even if Ecuador does expose them, they’ll be through to the round of 16 anyway, but when they get out of the group stage, they are toast. Let us not forget that Costa Rica has no defense before we go lauding Germany for their four goals.
By Chris
June 9, 2006 11:23 PM | Link to this
WirelessBuzz,
Are you really as stupid as this comment or are you just pulling comments out of your butt to make yourself feel better because a sport you may not enjoy is getting media attention. By the way its June you moron.
“Oh..and why might soccer be the top sports story in the U.S. in July for a few days? Hmm..oh yeah…there is not much going on sportswise in the U.S. in the summer. MLB does not really heat up until late summer and September, at least not enough to be a huge daily story.”
The NBA finals and the Stanley Cup are on this week. NFL camp just opened and some big news is starting to come out of that all within the last week (Owens to Dallas, Culpepper starting to run in Miami and Mcnair to Baltimore). Ricky pass the weed Williams to the Argonauts. In MLB, Roger Clemens is making a comeback and his minor league games are being telecast. Bonds is chasing history and that has had exposure all summer while Pujols evolves into the next great home runner hitter. Another potential big drug issue for MLB with Grimsley. NBA draft quickly approaching. Michelle Wie making an attempt to change the perception of gender in sports forever. These stories have all been big stories lately. How much do you want going on you idiot. Guess what the media is covering soccer because that is what it is a profitable endeavor for them. After the World Cup please feel to make a contribution to blogs and tell the world how much it bothers you that sports your mommy and daddy didn’t take you to are on television.
By tbflowers
June 9, 2006 11:26 PM | Link to this
wireless buzz - Funny, I’d figure that a fellow jacket fan would understand and have empathy regarding being a media afterthought and what not.
Takes all kinds.
Even trolls.