World Cup

The following is part of a letter I wrote to my only friend who watches the World Cup, surprisingly he is not from the US....

Iain,

I just wanted to wish Scotland the best of luck in the world cup...hmmm, wait I don't see them there. It seems that the English won't let the scots have their own team. poor poor scots. Anyway, now that you are a US citizen are you rooting for the home team? I don't think this is the year for the US, which is a good thing, for as I have explained, I hope the US never wins the World Cup; it would just infuriate the world too much to have us win and we won't even care about it. It's just showing off, it's like it Michael Jordan winning a spelling bee, it's just not fair to the home-schooled Mormon kids who can’t get a date. (However, it is inevitable that US will win the World Cup eventually, their team is drastically improving, the young players are great, and they are one superstar (maybe Freddy Adu) from giving great young athletes a role model in soccer. Than again the US did win, maybe it would de-legitimize the whole thing and reduce the ridiculously unhealthy enthusiasm for a game (see more below))

Although I heard rumors that the US is threatening to invade any country that beats us, so that might help a little bit.

Than again, maybe the whole idea of the world cup is just a bad idea. Nationalism in all its forms is usually a bad thing, it separate people who should be coming together, it instills a sense of hate in 90% of the world, while loving only 10%. Would it be any different is all the black people played against all the white people, which sound much worse, but really it's the same. Taking sides simple because you happen to live someone is a bad idea. Would an English person ever say "hey, I don't really like the way our coach is a giant racist, and I don't like our defensive style of play; I much prefer the Italian risk-taking style and I hear they also help a lot of children's groups". No, all you'll ever hear "Go England, my dad loved England so I must, I live here so I have no choice, f@ck everyone else and if I see a French national jersey in one of my pubs I'll hooligan his arse".

For me, I’m cheering for Poland.

Comments

Glen Lipka said…
Then again. Not THAN again.

We watched some of the games. HD makes watching soccer less boring.

It seems odd that we lost to Ghana. Ghana has a population of 21 million. The US has 300 million.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html

Thats a ratio of 14:1. With 14X advantage in people, how is it possible that we do not have more talented soccer players?

Maybe it is that we put all our people in cities with no land for soccer. In Ghana, there is lots of land for soccer. I wonder how many kids in the US (even with the additional numbers) actually play soccer at all versus how many in Ghana.

Oh, it was funny when Stephen Colbert said, "You aint GHANA win!" He was wrong, but it was funny.
1:50 PM
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