Notes from a casual World Cup fan

The World Cup is in full swing. In the midst of the fever, I couldn’t help but recall a scene from The IT Crowd, a British sitcom set in a computer support department. In an episode called “Are We Not Men?”, Moss, played by Richard Ayoade, discovers a website that geeky individuals such as himself and Roy, Chris O’Dowd’s character, can turn to in order to appear more macho, particularly when it comes to sports.

The two test this out at a local pub and watch a football match with some of the establishment’s masculine patrons. The chicanery goes undetected. “Hooray, he’s kicked the ball. Now the ball’s over there. That man has the ball. That’s an interesting development. Maybe he’ll kick the ball. He has indeed,” Moss observes drily. “Apparently that deserves a round of applause.”

I imagine the situation to be the same in bars, offices and living rooms across the globe. People who usually don’t pay attention to football — or soccer or whatever — are suddenly fascinated by it. The World Cup always draws extra interest in the same manner that sports such as track, gymnastics or swimming enter our collective consciousness when the Olympics roll around. I don’t mind the fair-weather fandom since it brings people closer together and fosters a sense of pride as we cheer for every successful goal and curse, at times a bit too passionately, at missed opportunities.

‘First world Prestige’

In the BBC documentary Lineker in Brazil: The Beautiful Game, former England captain Gary lineker examines the world’s fascination with football and host country Brazil, which isn’t the sport’s birthplace but where, he qualifies, it blossomed.

Charles Miller, a sportsman born in São Paulo to a Scottish railway engineer father and a Brazilian mother of English descent, is considered to be the father of football in the South American nation. The Brazilian elite first took up the game in the 1880s and it shifted its shape as it moved down the social scale.

While Lineker points out that football was “introduced by the British, so it comes with first world prestige,” it’s amusing that England and a few other major European countries have exited the World Cup early. The Three Lions’ defeat to Uruguay inspired a slew of jokes online. The most biting, it seems, was this: “What’s the difference between a tea bag and England? A tea bag stays longer in a cup.”

Spain has performed as dismally, losing to the Netherlands and Chile. La Roja’s elimination revived talk of the so-called “World Cup curse.” It seems that every European team that won the World Cup since 1998 — France, then Italy — didn’t even get through the first round the next time. Now, Spain was sent packing, the earliest departure of the defending champions since Gli Azzurri bowed out on day six of the 1950 competition.

Peak athleticism

My longtime Tumblr friend Lisa acquired a taste for all things Euro after studying in Scandinavia. From her present perch, in Washington, DC, she emphasizes the obvious when explaining the World Cup’s appeal to females and, for the sake of equality, certain males. “Peak athleticism plus peak hotness plus shorts,” she says of her fantasy “World Cup boyfriends.” The Internet deems the national teams of Greece and Iran, along with Colombia’s James Rodriguez, to be particularly easy on the eyes.

Aside from the action, there appears to be another attraction for hot-blooded men — and, okay, hot-blooded women — glued to the beautiful game. World Cup cameramen are experts at zooming in on attractive blondes in the crowd. But the speed with which they do so has led the pan-European television sports network Eurosport, through its Twitter account, to question whether the practice is sexist. “Is World Cup cameramen’s obsession with picking out pretty girls in crowd acceptable? (sic)”

Making Headway

After US team captain Clint Dempsey scored a goal during the first minute of the club’s opening World Cup game against Ghana, a tense back-and-forth match between the US and Portugal had millions of Americans following the action on TV. Both have raised hopes that the beautiful game might finally make headway in one of its toughest markets.

Interest in European football has been advancing at a significant rate in America that a US senator has called on FIFA, the governing body behind the World Cup, to move the 2022 competition from Qatar to the country. In a letter addressed to the FIFA president, Sen. Bob Casey expressed concerns over corruption and labor abuses in the Middle Eastern nation. He also said that the US had 50 cities capable of hosting the event, which was the runner-up in the November 2010 bidding process.   

Whether the appeal is taken seriously or not remains to be seen. What matters is that perhaps soccer in the US, once a novelty, may be here to stay.

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