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They say the longer you spend overseas, the harder it is to go home. Imperceptibly, you begin to forget, lose, or discard all of the cultural minutiae that flesh the bones of daily existence wherever it is that you came from. And incrementally, the gulf between present-you and remembered-you widens. The fixtures peopling your past reproduce, start drinking responsibly, go to bed early, take up golf, become Republicans, find religion, and start talking about health issues, property values, and investments as if they were riveting conversation. Concurrently, the mundane shifts. Excessive quantities of mayonnaise, four-fingered vodka tonics, not putting the tp in the toilet etc. become the norm. At times, you sense the drift, other times not. Very recently, I realized I was exhibiting some distinctly un-American behavior: interest in the World Cup.
As anyone reading this is likely from the US, a little background may help. The World Cup is a once-every-four-years international ‘football’ tournament. ‘Football’ is apparently a game the British invented sometime before the US Civil War and involves a round ball that players kick about for 90 minutes. It has nothing to do with Cowboys and Redskins. Who knew? Even more shocking, aside from a certain
country in North America, there is universal agreement that football is the most popular sport in the world. In addition to seriously undermining long-cherished US-centric delusions, this football revelation highlights the true failure of US global hegemony. Sure the world is hooked on Coca-Cola, Levis, and credit default swaps, but what about ‘real’ America? What lasting good is hegemony if millions wander through the dark night of their souls deprived of the beatific illumination of true Americana like NASCAR? Only hegemonic failure can explain the ad nauseum prattle about global warming, carbon caps, and other ‘scientific’ nonsense. But I digress. Despite being initial baffled, it seems the football ‘foreigners’ speak of is that weird marginalized pseudo-sport that real Americans call . . . (condescending chortle) . . . soccer.
As World Cup enthusiasm was building, I patiently explained that since we, the USA, suck at soccer, it cannot be considered a real sport. For the good American, it is intolerable and indeed reprehensible that in this so called sport it is possible to. . (gasp!) . . tie. Almost nothing is more offensive to the American palette. Our entire socio-economic-psycho-religio-cultural-culinary worldview is predicated on the idea that in everything,
there is a winner and there is a loser. Losers lose because they deserve to lose. Losing, generally speaking, is a character flaw. Conversely, winners win because they work harder, want it more, eat more Wheaties, blah blah Horatio Alger-Reagan mythology i.e. they win because they are winners not losers. In the US, this supremacy of the fittest ethos is logically infused with a healthy helping of divine intervention: God, or more often Jesus, wanted it that way. But a tie? Where the hell is that going to fit in? That is both a cultural and a metaphysical crisis. God doesn’t do ties and neither does the USA!
Exacerbating this original sin are a number of other unsavory characteristics: a lack of scoring, melodramatic flopping and writhing on the ground (which gets you something you didn’t earn; very un-American), and the unpardonable fact that the game is not neatly constructed to facilitate selling beer, car insurance, or Gillette razors. And, unlike golf on TV, it’s boring. No less than the great cultural luminary Glen Beck recently elucidated the American position: “We don’t want the World Cup. We don’t like the World Cup. We won’t enjoy the World Cup.” Quod.
Erat. Demonstrandum.
Nevertheless, I was unable to resist the siren song of delicious beer in the afternoon. By 2:00, it was standing room only for the US-England match. Although everything I know about football I learned when I was in third grade, it was pretty clear that England was kicking the snot out of the US. Then suddenly, God, who may save the Queen but blesses America, intervened. In what would be called the Great Green Gaffe, a shot that the rotund 10-year-old goalie on my soccer team (okay, it was me) could have stopped, bounced off the English goalie and into the net. Euphoria! A tie! In the bizarro world of football, a tie for the US (who sucks and is supposed to remember it) and England (who wasn’t supposed to suck, but apparently did) was a win for the US.
After having spectacularly ‘vanquished’ The Three Lions of England, the US still faced the rest of the menagerie in group C, the Green Dragons of Slovenia and the Desert Foxes of Algeria. In the next game, Slovenia dominated before the US came roaring back only to be spectacularly robbed of the winning goal by some super
shitty refereeing. The game ended 2-2; another riveting tie. After two ties, the scenario was one certain to stir the American psyche: win and advance; lose and go home; tie and . . . well, not really sure. For ninety minutes, a whole lot of ‘almost’ happened, but in the extra time with only minutes remaining, the US broke through with the excessively hyperbolic ‘shot heard round the world’.
Gooooooooooooooaaaaal! USA wins! The crowd went waka waka wild. The skies opened and the air reverberated with the clarion vuvuzela call of the heavenly host. In Santiago, the gringo bar thumped the ever increasing ironic medley of ‘We are the Champions’, ‘America F#$k Yea’, and ‘Born in the USA’. In South Africa, Bill Clinton gave a proud-to-be-an-American speech. Most astoundingly, in middle America, people cared.
(this is awesome)
In three games, lasting nearly five hours, the US led for a grand total of 2 minutes and some change. But now clearly, the Kraken had been awakened, and it was terrible to behold. Surely the Black Stars of Ghana, who had knocked the US out of the last World Cup, would crumble before its might. Revenge stirred the
breast of every patriot! In the homeland, the USA football bandwagon was running roughshod over Glen Beck’s xenophobic histrionics. Football had at last arrived!
Two days later, reality re-asserted itself and in utterly disappointing, deflating fashion, the US lost in overtime to Ghana. Good game and all that. Now, the 10,000 people in Kansas City (no shit) and hundreds of thousand across the country who had gathered to watch a football match would have to go back to not caring. So it goes. Fun while it lasted.
Meanwhile, in Chile, just making the World Cup had the locals delirious. Chile is, generally speaking, a law-abiding, color in the lines, follow the rules country. Things tend to go, and people tend to do, as expected. Football is no exception. In the first round, the Chilean team, la Roja, did exactly what everyone predicted: beat Honduras, beat Switzerland, and lost to Spain. Similarly, the red tide, the fans, did what they were supposed to do: pour into Plaza Italia, blow horns, wave flags, and chant and dance in fits of nationalist euphoria. Then after a couple hours of public merry-making, the carabineros (police) tear gassed those still hanging around expectantly
for the anticipated denouement. Around sunset, carabineros and revelers alike, having played out their prescribed roles, went home happy.
Chile had passed the first round. Green fields lay ahead. Unfortunately, the green here referred not to the land of plenty, or the promised land, but their next opponent, Brazil. The Samba Kings; five time winners of the World Cup; the ones referred to in the saying, "The English invented it, the Brazilians perfected it". Not good. The Chileans suffered no illusions: 2 + 2 is 4 and Chile doesn’t beat Brazil in football. Simple facts not opinions. Then again, monday was a saint day, so maybe God would be in the miracle mood. You never know, but don’t count on it. It’s Brazil.
Monday arrived. The country gathered. Brazil annihilated Chile. So it goes; fun while it lasted.
Now, so to speak, the chaff is winnowed from the wheat. The Asians and North Americans have been sent home. The Ghanians are still in the picture, but probably won’t be for long. The blue bloods, the Europeans and the South Americans, fill out the rest of the field. And though football may still languish in obscurity in the
US, the World Cup certainly shares one thing with sports in America: Cinderella may get invited to the dance, but she very rarely is around for the ball.
On Nueva de Bueras, it is hoped that perhaps, at long last, the Cepedas’ day has arrived. Vamos Espana.
p.s. special thanks to jon for getting tear gassed and taking pics of it.
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jim mullins
non-member comment
keep em coming
enjoyed the latest blog. keep em coming plz