Why I can’t stop watching World Cup
It’s like a world war without the blood
The last time I played soccer I was in ninth grade. I took a pass from the star athlete at our high school, and with the net wide open, I proceeded to kick the ball halfway to the nearest McDonald’s. “You suck!” he yelled.
I never played again.
So you might be surprised that I am heavily into the World Cup. I am surprised myself. I am definitely one of those people who lectures fellow Americans about how important soccer is in the rest of the world, and how we are just spoiled athletic Luddites spinning around in a sugar high of junk sports, how if we only studied soccer, the real football, we’d see how superior it was and what a metaphor for life it was and blah, blah, blah, puke.
Bull. Americans aren’t soccer crazy for four good reasons: the NFL, the NBA, the NHL and Major League Baseball. (And I’m not even mentioning college football or basketball, which are all but religion in parts of the country.)
So why this interest in the World Cup? I’ve never even been to one. The closest I came was a visit to Brazil, when my hosts took me to a soccer match between two local teams. The stadium was packed. The fans were chanting before the game started. As we walked to our seats, I saw a floor-toceiling metal grate between two sections. “What’s that?” I asked.
“It separates the rooting sides,” my host said. “So we don’t kill each other.”
Interesting, I thought. But still not a reason to watch the entire 90-minute game, let alone, as I find myself now doing, four to six hours of soccer a day.
I could chalk it up to Olympics Hypnosis, which, once every four years, turns Americans into crazed experts on things like figure skating or gymnastics During the Olympics, you’ll find us arguing over our morning coffee, “What’s wrong with that German judge?” or “Did you see that triple salchow? Oh my god!” We are passionate, if ill-informed, as we root, root, root for the gold.
Let’s be honest. We’re root, root, rooting for the home team. But we can’t do that in this World Cup. Because America isn’t in it. Our team crapped out during qualifying in October, with a final loss to — I’m not making this up — Trinidad and Tobago. So what is it that has me taping 8 a.m. games and avoiding ESPN until I watch them?
Part of it, for me, feels like peeking in on the outside world. I recall, on many trips to Europe, being in small restaurants where the staff ignored us because they were watching a fuzzy TV image of a big green patch and small bodies running. “What is so damn interesting?” I would ask my colleagues.
And now I feel I know. You’re watching the world at war — with no bloodshed (unless you screw up for Colombia, but that’s a different column). And it’s not just that the players wear their nation’s uniforms. It’s that they play with a style you can almost identify with that country. Brazil moves the ball with gravity-defying passes. Japan plays methodically. Costa Rica develops its attack slowly. England tries desperately but, until this week, suffered bad fortune.
So you get a peek at 32 approaches to the same game.There are also joys to the TV experience that slam dunk the NFL or NBA parallel. Once a World Cup game begins, you never break away until halftime. Not a single Chevy truck or Budweiser Clydesdale. And the clock runs. No timeouts. In two hours, the game is over. Always.
It’s true, there is a lot of whining. Soccer players like to go down with the slightest push and make a face like someone is removing their wisdom teeth through their eardrums. But have you watched LeBron James when a whistle doesn’t go his way? Same face.
All I know is, I’m enjoying this tournament more than I ever thought I would. Maybe it’s the time of year. Maybe it’s that the Tigers are Detroit’s only team going, and they’re just … going. Maybe I’m getting older and appreciating anything new. Or maybe I’m just flashing back. But when I see a Croatian player take a pass and have a free shot at the goal, and he kicks it a mile high over the net, I want to find my high school classmate and say, “Oh, yeah? What about that?”
Mitch Albom is a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press, where this column first appeared.