Pittsburgh youth 1: “Dude, soccer is the ruinization of America’s youth.”
Pittsburgh youth 2:”Yeah. What a bunch of vag’s.”
Or is it?
USA Soccer isn't all bad and might be worth joining the bandwagon (Ian Walton/Getty Images).
With 85 minutes to play, sitting at my computer, I arrived at the conclusion: “Soccer is so frickin’ dueschey. Why doesn’t the supposed biggest event in the world have replay? How can you have the biggest event in the world and have a team cheated twice in three games? I’m done with frickin’ soccer.” Incidentally, I overreacted.
Following the loss of my sanity over Jozy Altidore choking (I think he choked, I don’t get soccer) and subsequently railing on ESPN the Magazine for profiling Clint Dempsey’s soccer prowess (“more like meth addiction prowess” – c’mon have you looked at him) I somehow have become soccer crazy, well at least for at least a few days. Landon Donovan’s goal, which basically involved him not choking (perhaps because he is not named after a girl), got me off of Ebay looking for Pittsburgh Pirates prospects memorabilia and got me on the bandwagon.
Soccer, in general, still isn’t more fun to watch than the Fox Reality network, but the World Cup is the perfect dosage for the rabid American sports fan like myself. Rooting for the Stars and Stripes is reasonable and watching the World Cup is respectable because it has the best bracket format in sports.
The US players, other than guys who are named after girls and look like they do heavy amounts of meth, seem like good men, not NFLers, so they bring some rooting interest and because I have a higher salary than a few of them, they really are acceptable. Also, in something new for fans of the United States, they are underdogs in the world. They are decent, but nothing special. So, every game is a chance for Americans to legitimately send out a big F-U to the rest of the world. More on that later.
I spent the day of the US-England match revolving around real football, so I missed the US lucking their balls off to get a draw, but these past two matches took me through the self-loathing sports fan gauntlet cycle. The self loathing sports fan gauntlet includes three stages: 1) we have a chance, 2) it’s over, we suck, I hate everybody, 3A)yeah, we did it, F you guys or 3B)when Lord when, whenz it gon’ be my time 4 (optional))yeah, we did it, F you guys. I went through all four today and find myself back at #1 as I try to find a way to turn Saturday into an opportunity to party. Last week against Slovenia (f’in Slovenia) I went to 3b and I got back to #1 for today because I am a self-loathing sports fan.
I’m all into the underdog concept, however, based on FIFA rankings, the US should be the favorite out of its pod (hell yeah, bringing bracketology to soccer) ranked #14, Uruguay is #16, Ghana #32, and South Korea is #47. But wait, there’s more. The Stars and Stripes are taking on Ghana, the only African team left, in South Africa. This is a road game for the Yanks and that makes my boys underdogs against Ghana (except for the whole “the US is better than Ghana thing”).
Meet my fists, "Loud and Belligerent."
For Saturday, I’m fan-scouting now by watching Ghana, they look like the And 1 mix tape of soccer playing against the Spurs. I had adopted the Black Stars as my 2nd team this year following Ireland getting cheated against France and Poland playing like it was World War II. Seriously, France’s best player admitted that he hand-balled (actually a soccer term) the decisive goal in their match vs. Ireland and if the call was made correctly then the Irish would have been in the cup. By the way, this was an ESPN story, not a Sobeball type thing.
I’m doing it all up for Saturday and going pure American. I will be drinking Coors while draped in red, white, and blue, and using credit cards to buy things I don’t need. Loud and belligerent will be the names of my fists. I will blame the BP oil spill on Ghana and then I will root for South Korea to beat Uruguay so I kind can associate Kim Jong Il with the country when we kick their arse next time.
Two wins would be as sweet as Apple Pie, adjustable rate mortgages, and comic book movie sequels. Then the Yanks get Canarinhos in the Final Four. That’s Brazil. It was nice while it lasted. Free kicks, pitches, and injury time oh my.
