Weaver - A soccer nut writes...

Confession of a world cup soccer fan

Joe Posnanski

Football

First published July 12 in the Kansas City Star.

In the beginning, God created the globe...

I believed in simple American things, that you always split aces in blackjack, that Pete Rose belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, that Joe Montana was a hundred times better than Dan Marino.
Don't ask me how it happened. A month ago, I was a normal American guy, just married, wearing Levis and a Kansas City Monarchs baseball cap. I believed in simple American things, that you always split aces in blackjack, that Pete Rose belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, that those Budweiser Lizards rule, that Joe Montana was a hundred times better than Dan Marino, no matter what the numbers say.
Saturday, I was telling a friend that it would be tough for France to stop Brazil's Ronaldo in today's World Cup final without defender Laurent Blanc, who received a red card in Wednesday's semifinal.
"Sure, they still have Marcel Desailly, who is world-class," I said. "And, of course, Lilian Thuram, but I think Blanc is a much better man marker than Frank LeBoeuf. Ronaldo should run free."
Hello, my name is Joe, and I'm a World Cup nut. Don't ask me how it happened. I didn't want it to happen. I did not like soccer much a month ago. Hey, I was an American guy. Like all American guys, we would sit in bars, cigar smoke swirling, and talk with the guys about Jordan and Tyson and Springsteen. We would laugh about how 20 years ago teachers warned us about the impending arrival of soccer and the metric system, and neither one had made it yet. We were American men.
So what happened? Don't know. My friends still hate soccer. But one day, I was flipping channels, like always, brushing past Rosie O'Donnell and Pop-Up Videos and those annoying announcers on CNN-SI, and there was some meaningless World Cup game on, Saudi Arabia vs. Denmark, maybe. I left it on, for laughs, for kicks.

The players barely get touched, and then they roll on the ground in anguish, some of the worst acting not done by Andie McDowell.
The television has been on the World Cup for the entire month. In a bar in the Canadian Rockies, we oohed and ahhed all afternoon watching the magic of a Moroccan named Mustapha Hadji. On Sunday of the U.S. Open in San Francisco, a bunch of us gathered around a tiny television set and watched an impotent U.S. offense try frantically to break through against Iran. In Denver, moments before the All-Star Game, we couldn't help but scream when Brazil's Claudio Taffarel twice stopped penalty shots and pushed Brazil to the final.
And I can't tell you exactly why I love this stuff. There aren't many goals scored. The players barely get touched, and then they roll on the ground in anguish, some of the worst acting not done by Andie McDowell. The referees hand out yellow and red cards like they're Hollywood agents. ("Hi! How ya doin'! Ali Mohamed Bujsaim! Here's my card!") There were teams, like Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and Denmark, that simply refused to attack, choosing instead to kick every ball out, turning games into C-Span coverage of congressional hearings.
But then, there was Brazil's Ronaldo dancing through, there was the Netherland's Dennis Bergkamp somehow knocking the ball out of the air and then somehow sliding it past the Argentine defender, there was the brilliance of Croatia's Davor Suker, the preposterous speed of England's 18-year-old Michael Owen, the remarkable moves made by Italy's Christian Vieri.
It's addictive. You start to figure out the styles a bit -- Holland plays a sort of West Coast offense, lots of little passes, while England plays all out, like the old Oakland Raiders -- and you start to get some of the names, and, you start picking things you love (Holland, those Nike soccer commercials) and things you hate (Germany, ABC announcer Seamus Malin), and you're hooked.
Today, 2 billion people will watch Brazil and France. It will be the most-watched sporting event perhaps ever, and it should be amazing to watch all those creative Brazilians, to watch Ronaldo (soccer's Jordan) try to take center stage, to watch France's rugged defense and the remarkable Zinedine Zidane (sort of a Larry Bird type), to watch 80,000 go nuts.
Then, for me, the spell should end. Right? Let's practice. Major League Soccer is still as boring as car manuals. Tried to watch the Chicago Fire play the Columbus Crew on television, and most of the game it seemed like nobody knew who was a teammate. Yep, let's get this World Cup final over. Maybe then my friends will talk to me again.

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This page updated August 15, 1998

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	I believed in simple American things, that you always split aces in blackjack, that Pete Rose belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, that Joe Montana was a hundred times better than Dan Marino.	Don't ask me how it happened. A month ago, I was a normal American guy, just married, wearing Levis and a Kansas City Monarchs baseball cap. I believed in simple American things, that you always split aces in blackjack, that Pete Rose belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, that those Budweiser Lizards rule, that Joe Montana was a hundred times better than Dan Marino, no matter what the numbers say. Saturday, I was telling a friend that it would be tough for France to stop Brazil's Ronaldo in today's World Cup final without defender Laurent Blanc, who received a red card in Wednesday's semifinal. "Sure, they still have Marcel Desailly, who is world-class," I said. "And, of course, Lilian Thuram, but I think Blanc is a much better man marker than Frank LeBoeuf. Ronaldo should run free." Hello, my name is Joe, and I'm a World Cup nut. Don't ask me how it happened. I didn't want it to happen. I did not like soccer much a month ago. Hey, I was an American guy. Like all American guys, we would sit in bars, cigar smoke swirling, and talk with the guys about Jordan and Tyson and Springsteen. We would laugh about how 20 years ago teachers warned us about the impending arrival of soccer and the metric system, and neither one had made it yet. We were American men. So what happened? Don't know. My friends still hate soccer. But one day, I was flipping channels, like always, brushing past Rosie O'Donnell and Pop-Up Videos and those annoying announcers on CNN-SI, and there was some meaningless World Cup game on, Saudi Arabia vs. Denmark, maybe. I left it on, for laughs, for kicks.
	The players barely get touched, and then they roll on the ground in anguish, some of the worst acting not done by Andie McDowell.	The television has been on the World Cup for the entire month. In a bar in the Canadian Rockies, we oohed and ahhed all afternoon watching the magic of a Moroccan named Mustapha Hadji. On Sunday of the U.S. Open in San Francisco, a bunch of us gathered around a tiny television set and watched an impotent U.S. offense try frantically to break through against Iran. In Denver, moments before the All-Star Game, we couldn't help but scream when Brazil's Claudio Taffarel twice stopped penalty shots and pushed Brazil to the final. And I can't tell you exactly why I love this stuff. There aren't many goals scored. The players barely get touched, and then they roll on the ground in anguish, some of the worst acting not done by Andie McDowell. The referees hand out yellow and red cards like they're Hollywood agents. ("Hi! How ya doin'! Ali Mohamed Bujsaim! Here's my card!") There were teams, like Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and Denmark, that simply refused to attack, choosing instead to kick every ball out, turning games into C-Span coverage of congressional hearings. But then, there was Brazil's Ronaldo dancing through, there was the Netherland's Dennis Bergkamp somehow knocking the ball out of the air and then somehow sliding it past the Argentine defender, there was the brilliance of Croatia's Davor Suker, the preposterous speed of England's 18-year-old Michael Owen, the remarkable moves made by Italy's Christian Vieri. It's addictive. You start to figure out the styles a bit -- Holland plays a sort of West Coast offense, lots of little passes, while England plays all out, like the old Oakland Raiders -- and you start to get some of the names, and, you start picking things you love (Holland, those Nike soccer commercials) and things you hate (Germany, ABC announcer Seamus Malin), and you're hooked. Today, 2 billion people will watch Brazil and France. It will be the most-watched sporting event perhaps ever, and it should be amazing to watch all those creative Brazilians, to watch Ronaldo (soccer's Jordan) try to take center stage, to watch France's rugged defense and the remarkable Zinedine Zidane (sort of a Larry Bird type), to watch 80,000 go nuts. Then, for me, the spell should end. Right? Let's practice. Major League Soccer is still as boring as car manuals. Tried to watch the Chicago Fire play the Columbus Crew on television, and most of the game it seemed like nobody knew who was a teammate. Yep, let's get this World Cup final over. Maybe then my friends will talk to me again.