Posted on 06/02/2006 11:46:01 PM PDT by NZerFromHK
JERUSALEM -- With the soccer World Cup games about to begin next week, the question of which team you are going to support becomes crucial. For an American, it's simple: You support the American team, and if you're Hispanic, you get a bonus, because you can also enjoy Argentina, Costa Rica, Paraguay and Ecuador playing against the rest of the world -- not to mention favorite Brazil.
However, for fans whose country didn't qualify, like Israel, it's not so easy. Of course, people who have immigrated from Argentina or the Ukraine, and there are many of those in Israel, the question is settled. But what about the rest? Should we support Holland, because Dutchmen saved some Jews during the Holocaust? Or Ivory Coast, to stand by the underdog? Or Italy, because their players all look like Leonardo Di Caprio? Tough decision.
We know, though, which team all Israelis are going to hate: Iran. You watch these people chasing the ball and you pray that they stumble, thinking, of course, about a different game, the one their scientists and politicians are playing back home, aimed at destroying Israel. The day will come when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his lieutenants will be coerced to drop their deadly nuclear scheme. In the meantime, let their soccer players suffer a humiliating defeat every time they show up in the stadium.
Recently, however, another team has made itself a candidate to be the most disliked by Israelis: England. The reason? The British National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education has just adopted a resolution calling for a boycott on Israeli universities, because of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians.
That such a resolution should be adopted when Israel has shown its will to stop ruling the Palestinians -- first by pulling out of Gaza and then by indicating its intention for more withdrawals in the West Bank -- is a testimony to the hypocrisy of these so-called educators.
But is this just a criticism of Israel's policies? Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman, author of Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism, believes that there is more. Writing in the International Herald Tribune in April 2005, when the British organization initiated this sinister resolution, he wrote, ``The call to boycott Israeli academic institutions has hundreds of supporters in Europe, nourished by a growing climate of anti-Zionism that is often indistinguishable from anti-Semitism.''
Alexander Yacobson, a columnist in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, concurs. Last week he wrote that coalition forces in Iraq kill civilians ''much more easily'' than Israeli troops in the occupied territories, but that Israeli universities were nevertheless singled out for sanction. ''There is no escaping the conclusion that beyond any legitimate political criticism, the emotional stance of Europe toward Israel is influenced -- and not only on the margins -- by the deep and ancient European obsession and pathology regarding the Jewish nation,'' he wrote.
Hotbeds of free thinking
Indeed, I would have liked to see those Brits, who uphold human rights so much, pass a resolution boycotting Iran because of its president's threats to eliminate Israel and for denying the Holocaust. But that, of course, is asking too much.
Also, there is something totalitarian and McCarthyite in this British approach. Obviously trying to recycle the boycott that worked against South Africa, the British boycotters ignore the fact that unlike in South Africa, where the universities were part and parcel of the apartheid system, the universities in Israel are hotbeds of free thinking and many of their faculty and students are critical of the government's policies. By indiscriminately boycotting the Israeli universities, the British educators will only strengthen those in Israel, mainly from the right, who have always said, ``Why bother, the world is against us anyway.''
Many Israeli academicians are trying to cooperate with their Palestinian colleagues, believing that big politics aside, people of goodwill and capabilities from both sides should work together for a better future for their peoples. By their senseless and vicious motion, the British educators will only undermine such efforts.
That's it. When David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and the other English players walk into the stadium, I'll pray for their defeat, even by Iran. Well, maybe that's too harsh. Let Saudi Arabia beat them.
Shouldn't Israel be rooting for the USA then?
I always root for Enland's and Australia's defeat. I would even go to a cricket match to see them get defeated.
As for Israel, I hope they do well at soccer. Still, I place a lot more faith in (and cheer louder for) their military ability to cause Islamofascists to wet themselves. Personally, I prefer to see the latter.
This American will be cheering for my second favorite country in the world.
Go Paraguay!!
Israel doesn't need to worry. I predict England isn't going to go very far in this world cup.
And I WILL be rooting for the USA. Even more so because the Euro trash "futbol" snobs made sure USA was put in a group of death, and will have to play Brazil if we make it out of it. Makes me hope that USA kicks ass just to stick it to those elitist bastards who think they own the sport. I actually think we have a excellent chance to get out of the first round. I believe Italy is probably the most overhyped team going into the world cup and ripe to have team USA destroy them. We beat Italy and Ghana and we get to the next round, then lose to Brazil. That's probably how it will go down.
GO USA!!!
So we'll just have to win the group and meet Brazil in the finals ;-)
"As most of you know,...."
That's a stretch...
When could we meet Mexico? I'd love to destroy them again.
Do Israeli football fans really follow statements by British teachers' unions that closely? I'd think that if they were looking around for someone to root against, they'd sooner land on England because, y'know, they used to colonize them and stuff.
Looking at the list of teams to find those who have done the least to harm Jews in the last century or so of history, it comes down to a pretty short list -- USA, Australia, and, yes, England. I think Argentina and Brazil have been pretty accommodating both to Jews and to Nazi war criminals, so that's kind of a wash.
I think the earliest we could possibly meet the Mexicans is in the Semis.
I see two things feeding USA soccer's recent improvement and carrying it into the future:
1) (Legal) immigration and sheer numbers. We're a country of almost 300 million people from everywhere, and there are bound to be good soccer players in there. I'm not even talking necessarily about immigrants themselves, but second- and third- generation Americans raised in that tradition.
Look at the Team USA roster. Based on the admittedly unscientific process of skimming surnames, it's a melting pot of a team.
Of course, that can also work against us, as a lot of players who live in America choose to invoke another citizenship because it's easier to make the team elsewhere. The best analogy I can think of is to tennis, in which pretty much all the top players from every nation hang their hats in Bradenton, Fla.
B) A growing farm system. It's a common misconception in the rest of the world that Americans don't like soccer; not so. More kids play youth soccer than baseball or softball, and an ever-growing number of those kids stick with it in high school and college.
It's just that Americans don't like to watch soccer, which I believe is because we can't get behind any contest that can end in a scoreless tie. That smells too much like communism. If no one can score in the alloted time, then they can just keep playing until someone scores or someone collapses.
Lots of kids are playing, but we need a real farm system. College ball is not the answer and Bradenton is too small for our entire country. Each MLS club needs to develop a local farm system.
True. One fact I like to point out is that hockey and baseball are mostly free of college recruiting scandals, because they have real farm systems. Kids who just want to get paid to play go get played to play -- they don't go through the motions of being a student as too often happens in football and basketball. If a college career became the only way to get to a lucrative MLS career, I'd worry about soccer scholarships screwing up the sport.
Unfortunately, I don't see the economics working. MLS just doesn't have enough money to spend on developing talent, and there aren't the small-town audiences for minor league soccer like there are for baseball and hockey. Promising soccer players are more likely to play overseas (as happens, to a small extent, in European Basketball and the CFL) and MLS money isn't on a par with what they can make at the top levels over there.
Of course, if enough Americans play for Man. U. and Real Madrid for pay and come back to team USA in international competition, that would still strengthen our World Cup chances.
If they have enough time to practice together. What killed USA Basketball in the last Olympics was that we had a handful of superstar players, and the other folks had teams.
This perhaps sums up Australia's attitudes towards soccer too. (And they also call the sport soccer as well since they have a separate sport called Australian Rules Football). They do have a government/socialist type of solution of training young stars: provide government money to tertiary-like sports institutions (in a sense, they are like alternative universities) to train different sportsmen.
In this way they have groomed a few soccer stars, and in fact just as you pointed out, not a few have decided to represent the country of their birth or their dad. For instance, half of Croatia's squad have Australian connections, and Christian Vieri grew up in Sydney. The system also extends to other sportsmen like swimmers - remember Ian Thorpe?
Don't really think that poll tells us much.
You could read it to say that 71 percent of the British population don't support the "Palestinian cause" or that reall the vast majority of the population don't care one way or t'other...
Alternatively, if you manage to earn the first place - which would constitute a shock no doubt, you will face the second of group F. It could be Croatia or more likely Australia. It will be interesting to see US vs Australia.
The US ranks much higher than Australia, but Australia's first team has more players paying at the very top of soccer leagues. I have read posts from Australian soccer friends on some other boards, and they (in good-natured arguments) joke that their team is good enough to beat the US team.
Come on... there was a televised draw viewed by millions and you ended up in a tough group by lottery not by design...
Gosh I wish you were wrong but I'm afraid this might be one helleva tough trip for the US. It's just an unfortunate draw.
The Czechs and Italy. Damn. Wish they were playing the host country. I'd like to see them go up against Germany and beat them right there in Germany.
Ironically, if they don't make it out of the group, this is still the finest US team ever.
This is a great US team with a superb coach. The victory against Mexico has them crying now for years!
They will never get over losing to el gringo in the World Cup, trust me.
In an ironic twist, Mexico was the better team that day much like the US was against Germany, but Germany held on for the win.
Hate to break it to you but there is a minor league system.
It is here and we are it. We're now a minor league system for Europe.
And that's actually just starting to happen.
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