If you’re like me, you’re kind of loving the world cup. The drama of nation pitted against nation and the modern-day gladiator feel of each match is too much to ignore. And it’s also hard to argue that the players competing this month in South Africa aren’t the greatest all-around athletes in the world. Anybody who has kicked a ball around for a few minutes knows how fit you have to be to even play, much less compete.
That said, many here in America (read white-twenty-somethings who once backpacked through Europe) praise soccer a bit too much as a unifying sport. While it’s true soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and it’s also true it has unifying qualities in the sense that it hilights the common ground interest in a common sport, it’s hardly a total unifier. In fact, an argument that soccer does more to polarize continents, nations, countries and even towns would be fairly easy to make. Entire riots take place after wins and losses.
In the end, soccer is just a sport, and it does what every other sport does, it illustrates what is in the heart of man: the desire to compete, to win, to excel, to unify as a team and so forth. In that sense, it is beautiful. Where soccer fails is where every other sport fails, and that is in the fanaticism of it’s fans. Citizens of towns and states and countries place their identities on the successes and failures of their clubs, sacrificing their perceived redemption on the altar of a match. Sadly, that’s no different than the dynamics of any other sport.
On the very positive side, a friend pointed out recently that soccer goes beyond the field, that it is an equalizer, that globally, the north performs as well as the south, that money, unlike most other sports, doesn’t necessarily dictate who wins. And this is true, and it is perhaps the most exciting dynamic about soccer. But this dynamic begs an obvious question: Should we be speaking against the structure that created the inequality, rather than working within the structure to equalize it in the first place? But of course that suggestion is a pipe dream. It’s a fallen world.
Robert Green of England after the infamous goal.
It’s this identity association that corrupts sports. In America’s opening game at the World Cup, Robert Green of England missed a routine stop that allowed America a goal. Listening to the commentators for the rest of the game told you how sad Robert Green’s life will be, perhaps until he is old. That game cost England more than a victory, it may have cost Green a comfortable life. Soccer fans can be rabid. After a match in which Benin goalkeeper Samiou Yessofou let a similar shot through, he was murdered by an angry fan. These guys aren’t kidding.
So am I excited about the World Cup? Absolutely. I’m more excited about it than March Madness, and just about anything else shy of the NFL playoffs. But do I think soccer is the shining sport? I don’t. I think it’s the same old same old with a different ball.
That said, Go America!
