Posted on 06/21/2002 8:40:16 PM PDT by Pokey78
And so the dream dies. The boys gave it their best, they played well, but it wasn't to be. They're out of the World Cup, to the bitter disappointment of their supporters.
I refer, of course, to the United States team, the first in World Cup history with more players than fans. Across America yesterday, all nine of them gathered in bars to watch the big match, only to find that the other patrons preferred to see the Golden Girls re-run dubbed into Spanish on Channel 173 or the last half of Bud Answers Your Plastering Queries on the Sheetrock Channel. Twiddling my own dial in New Hampshire, I couldn't find the game on anywhere except a French-language station from Quebec.
Is there any other sport where you can only follow the American team by watching foreign channels? No one was singing 'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go! - even though it's by an American composer! But that poor schmuck Sousa couldn't even make a living in the soccer business in America, forced to stick to his day-job as a conductor. In fact, all the great football songs are by Americans - Rodgers and Hammerstein (You'll Never Walk Alone) and Livingston and Evans, whose Que Sera, Sera has a British lyric of endearing directness:
Mi-illwall, Millwall/ Millwa-all, Millwall, Millwall/ Millwa-all, Millwall, Millwall/ Mi-illwall, Millwall. (Repeat until knife fight.)
But, aside from the music, the American contribution to soccer has been minimal, and American interest in it even, er, minimaller. Every four years, the same bien-pensants who urge the Administration to be more "multilateral" and to work through the UN also commend the virtues of the World Cup: the game is supposedly more poetic than American sports, as subtle and nuanced as French foreign policy. But Americans like their international competitions to be international in the sense of the current "international coalition against terror" at Kandahar airbase - that's to say, overwhelmingly American but with a few token Canadians. The World Series extends to the Toronto Blue Jays, but that's it.
But for the past couple of weeks, the World Cup has been going very oddly. I didn't notice it at first because, like 99.9999 per cent of the American population, I had no idea the World Cup was even on. But once the back-issues of The Daily Telegraph started arriving, I couldn't help noticing the cup's strange approximation of the world beyond footie. No sooner had the Saudi ambassador to London, Ghazi Algosaibi, hailed the heroism of "martyrdom operations" than his team heroically martyred themselves eight-nil. Either that or the entire team are Mossad Jew infiltrators.
Even more unnerving was the success of the American team. What more damning evidence could you have of the global reach of the hyperpower than for the World Cup to go to the one country that has absolutely zero interest in soccer? And, if the sleeping giant can sleepwalk its way to Number One football nation, who's to say it couldn't also sew up a Test series or two?
Would winning have changed anything? I like to think not. In defeat, magnanimity. In victory, complete and utter indifference. One fondly imagined the news bulletins: "At the White House, aides were alarmed when the President slumped to the floor and passed out during the early minutes of the match. Surgeons operated immediately to remove the pretzel only to find there wasn't one. 'I guess I just find it hard to stay awake during soccer,' Mr Bush later reassured the American people. 'I was fine once we switched over to the Antiques Roadshow.' However, the President added that he wanted 'to take this opportunity to congratulate our team on their incredible victory over the . . . er, evildoers.'
"At CNN, reporters fanned out across the country to ask Americans if they had World Cup fever. 'Well, I heard you got it from sharing drinking receptacles in sub-Saharan Africa,' said Sindy Vimmerstedt, 54, of Cleveland, 'so it's just as well we're going to Florida.' Many familiar football faces from Britain have found themselves in demand on US television. 'It's a game of two halves, Larry,' Bobby Charlton said on Larry King Live. 'Is it really?' said Larry. 'Well, you'd know better than I would. And are the helmets expensive?' Few Americans seemed familiar with even the most basic technical terms. At a Hollywood victory party, a BBC reporter asked Richard Gere if he was planning to get rat-arsed, but the colour drained from his cheeks and he had to be helped to a chair."
What an interesting philosophical question America's lack of interest in its national team raises: if a goal is scored in the forest and there's no one around to cheer it, is it still a go-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oalllllll? One can't but feel that, like those unmanned "drones" dropping bombs in Afghanistan, the unfanned team is an eerie glimpse of the future. My prediction is that, by 2006, France, Argentina, the Saudis and maybe even England will be attempting to mimic America's winning indifference streak. You'll Never Walk Alone - unless you're an American footballer at a homecoming ceremony.
I can understand why people hype a sport that they like more then I can understand why people waste their time trashing it. I've always hated basketball but I'm not on a mission to disparage it.
*laff*
Well, that's that. Baseball, anyone?
And congratulations to the US team that showed to the world that even when we don't givea s**t we're still better than they are.
And to any team from a continent named "America" (north or south) or a country named "South Korea", win it all!!
ROTFLMCO! The only thing I enjoyed about the World Cup was the utter rage they all felt because we did so well, and cared so little.
Do the letters ESPN mean anything to you, Mark?
The World Series extends to the Toronto Blue Jays, but that's it.
Hey, it's not our fault the Expos suck.
And these players fall down, whine and cry a whole lot. Sort of like Florida Democrats.
Soccer needs to change in order to be palatable to American tastes. For starters, they should wear sports bras. Secondly, they need to have a televised draft. Soccer needs somebody like Mel Kiper so we'll know who the good ones are. And a penalty box. More sports ought to have penalty boxes where a team must play shorthanded because somebody acted like a jerk. And there needs to be a steroid controversy. You gotta have one these days to be a truly legit sport.
And soccer needs more rioting in the stands. That's what the people pay their good money to see - a real spirited donnybrook to interrupt the tedium happening down on the pitch. Ticket takers should pass out quart bottles of MD20 to every soccer fan over 15 who enters. That should get a few of the hooligans started early. That's the one thing international fans ought to be exporting to Americans and, judging from Cleveland Brown fans, they are making inroads.
A quote for the ages. Perfect.
But congrats to the American team....... a great effort in a very silly game.
Very funny.......and true. I laughed so hard at your punch line.....how do you get cantaloupe out of a kewboard?
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