A WORLD Event

Watching the World Cup is unlike watching any other sporting event. You are not rooting for a team such as the Red Sox or Yankees but you are rooting for a country and your country’s flag. The Olympics is the only event that comes close to the fervor that one sees in fans of the World Cup.

Unfortunately for many Americans the excitement is passing them by because they think that the sport is a bore. They like action, scoring, hitting, and fighting. They will sit through a tedious and boring four hour baseball game where in between pitches you watch people spitting, scratching their crotch, and many getting drunk on beer, but will refuse to watch a football (soccer) match. They will watch on average over fifty ads per game because of all the down time when there is absolutely no action taking place.

Many Americans that ridicule the scoreless ties in soccer know very little about the sport. I watched three matches yesterday and the best of them all was a game between Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago. I was rooting for the little nation from the Carribean who many said had no chance against the Swedes. It was a match reflective of David vs. Goliath and in the end the little guy held his own against the giant. It was exciting watching the reaction of the few thousands of fans who flew from Trinidad to Germany to watch THEIR team. They celebrated a zero, zero tie because they held their opponents scoreless even with the disadvantage of playing one man short, ten against eleven for most of the entire second half.

I didn’t see any fans leaving their seats to go and get a couple of beers. I didn’t see any fans reach for their cell phones and phone their friends to tell them that they could be seen at a sporting event. What I did see was people constantly rooting and cheering for their team. What I did see was the pride that was demonstrated for their country. I did not see anyone sitting back. There was more action in a nil – nil game that took no more than two hours than in a recent four hour Red Sox game where Matt Clement pitched.

Fans watching the above mentioned soccer match must have burned over a thousand calories from the continuous jumping and shouting they did during the game. Many of the fans watching the Red Sox probably added a few thousand calories from all that they ate and drank during their exciting game.

When you watch the World Cup you are truly witnessing an event where 32 teams from throughout the world are competing unlike the World Series in baseball where only teams from North America compete. As great as America is they should realize that they are not the world and maybe think about changing the name.

I will follow and cheer for two teams in the World Cup, America and Italy and will have to decide on either one if the two should meet for the finals. I know that many say that Brazil is the team to beat but I think that both Italy and the USA stand a good chance to advance to at least the semi finals. The USA has a number of young talented players and it’s unfortunate that they don’t have the fan base that even a small country like Trinidad and Tobago has. Maybe their winning ways will attract some of the bored and uninterested segment of the population.

Looking over the roster of the 26 referees and 52 assistant referees chosen for the World Cup one can truly see how provincial many of the English speaking countries are. All referees outside of the US, England and Australia, speak at least one more language than their native tongue and many speak three of four. We’ve done a good job at forcing people in foreign countries to learn English at the same time that we are losing ground to the Spanish that is currently spoken here. I’d say that seventy-five percent of the referees can speak both English and Spanish where the English speaking referees only speak English.

Referees come from many parts of the world, from different cultures and backgrounds but are all united in the common world sport of football. There are many teachers in the group, along with lawyers, businessmen, a military policeman, electricians, clerks, a pilot and even a vascular surgeon.

One way to gather American interest for the tournament would be to institute bracket betting similar to the one used for the NCAA tournament.