Mein Gott! I forgot to wear my cologne today!
So strident was the
hullabaloo over the event, that even I was there to gawk in the end, as my fellow Deutchlanders plucked victory
from that vast lawnscape known to the Third World (of which we are all members)
as futball.
An attempt by some
metrosexual at Esquire Magazine, that bottomless repository of advice on such male
essentials as how not to piss off your barber (Hello? He's a fucking barber!) and why pit bulls are
misunderstood (simple solution: exterminate the monstrous breed), to elucidate the geopolitical reasons soccer is
not the favored sport of America, world headquarters to sport-as-religion, fell
woefully wide of the mark.
The truth is that soccer is a
colossal bore. Charmingly referred to as the “beautiful game,” what it excels at is the innately comical. Denying humans the use of their only dexterous
appendages, it reminds me of a group of cosseted dogs squatting to take a communal dump.
While admittedly getting some kind of job done, there is something painfully
unnatural about the look of it.
Much has been made of
America’s exuberant acceptance of the game the rest of the world is positively
rabid over. But make no mistake - in the land where the news cycle lasts a day, futball will enjoy the same precipitous
fall from interest any Justin Bieber faux
pas would merit.
What was I talking about
again? Oh! The sporting world narrowly averted the most common of soccer maladies:
ninety-plus scoreless minutes plus two fifteen-minute scoreless overtime periods
plus Yahweh knows how many scoreless minutes tacked on so nobody watching has a fucking clue as to when it
will all come to an end. Seriously, I watched two professional teams try to decide whether they should continue playing or head for the shower rooms. There’s an audience-riveting formula for you. We
were only watching here in the North American Continent because LeBron hadn’t made his mind up about Cleveland.
And the Redskins don’t know what to call themselves. And Tiger. And other shit we can’t remember
anymore because it’s been like forever.
One thing the networks did
get right was cutting away to barrel-chested chiquitas looking for a solid shoulder to cry on. Works every time at the sports bar. Other things worked too,
actually. One was Germany’s entertaining evisceration of Brazil in the semi-finals.
It resembled what a real game should look like: visual intrigue driven by recognizable
strategy, with scoring coming at reasonable intervals. For the Brazilian proletariat recently
paupered to pay for the proceedings it seemed tragic, but this kind of anomaly can
display itself on any field whether participants are aged three or thirty. Demoralization
is pandemic, and here was a mismatch where the losing team folded because they were
met with insurmountable odds. For Brazil, it happened around five minutes into
the match when they found themselves down two goals to zip. In soccer, that’s
game over, mano.
The game’s myriad weaknesses are betrayed
by modern technology. Instant replay reveals to all what referees cannot or
refuse to see: the ruthless theatrics of players desperate to get somewhere
near a scoring opportunity after having all their reasonable skill sets denied them. What handy analogy exists for this? If Proust
were required to author a novel on a manual typewriter with his nose while having
any sentence revoked through a single misspelling, by an editor who doesn’t
speak the language. Add to these parameters the distraction of a potted James Joyce flailing about the desk,
claiming plagiarism at every paragraph.
There is a more insidious
side to this game. I’ve now heard the pundits yammer on about how the waxing of Team Brazil in no way diminished the wondrous job its nation did to bring this spectacle to the world. Indeed! It had robbed it’s own treasury and displaced
its citizenry, killing many of them in the process, while crushing public dissent with its only
well-funded institution – the military. Well played, Brazil!
