Soccer, America, and fanatics

Yes, Cliff, I am guilty of blasphemy. (And, ahem, it'd be nice to get some comments from some of you.) :) The World Cup is over, and in a crazy, convoluted way...I'm kind of glad. I have my reasons.

First of all, there is the endurance angle - for the past month, I've either stayed up until 5 AM or
gone to bed in order to wake up at 5 AM. (As it's winter, the sun doesn't rise until around 7:15 AM, meaning that early mornings are dark, cold, and not nearly as enjoyable as spring or summer ones.) Coupled with a liver undoubtedly pickled from the vast amount of alcohol in the past month and you have a good case, on health grounds, for seeing the conclusion of the Cup. Thankfully, my return to the academic world has allowed me to keep such a ridiculous schedule with a minimum of professional consequences. Nonetheless, blood-shot, tired eyes and the obnoxious pub smoke odor aren't exactly ideal when meeting with one's advisor.

But this is really a reflection of being in the wrong time zone, something I hope to have resolved by the time South Africa 2010 rolls around, having had two consecutive middle-of-the-night World Cups. More fundamentally, there's something about having the entire world celebrating, tuning in, following, analyzing, and arguing about the game that you follow so religiously. It's YOUR game, after all. It's something like finding the great little band that you know will make it big: you want them to make it succeed, even as you know that the new "fans" aren't real is the same way that you are. You're happy, on some level, for their greater success, but you also know that it will never be quite the same once they've "made" it. Selfishly, indulgently, and hypocritically, you want it to remain just below mainstream public consciousness: well-known enough to allow your constant ravings to have some acknowledged understanding, but not popular enough to entice all the "others" to flock.

I know it's a bit of a stretch to compare the world's game to an aspiring no-name band, but I think the analogy holds - at least for those die-hards that happen to also be Americans.
The minority, survivalist mentality of the fanatical American fan creates a funny sort of proselytizing mania that, to be fair, probably does handicap the growth of the game amongst the population at large. Some of the most strident critics of American coverage of the Cup, and American efforts to grow the game in a manner consistent with American traditions and sensibilities, are not necessarily internationals, but homegrown, born-and-bred Americans. Reflecting back on a recent conversation, it's similar to the immigrant that adopts the habits of his or her adopted country in a way that a native-born person would never consider - be it tea-drinking in Britain, flag-waving in the US, vegemite in Australia, etc. Aware of your difference, sometimes painfully so, you are presented with the choice of either maintaining your distinctiveness or assimilating. Yes, I know, it's not necessarily a black and white choice: degrees are possible, with both America and Australia being examples of maintaining ethnic, cultural, historical heterogeneity while ALSO adopting the trappings of your new national identity. (And isn't a part of being American that you are from somewhere else, even as you identify and view yourself as "American"?)

When it comes to soccer, this is usually reflected in an affinity for European "football" (word choice being an easy indicator of fandom) that can surpass that of Europeans themselves. It's based around a fundamental insecurity, the inverse of the traditional (and thankfully dated) schoolkid taunt hurled at children playing "the foreigners' game". Lest we expose ourselves as "THOSE" Americans that revel in their ignorance of the game, we instead take on everything fully to the tilt. Unfortunately this is often reflected in a romanticization (and frequent glossing over) of some of the darker aspects of the European game. When the American soccer tragics speak warmly of the deep attachment felt by towns for their local teams, for instance, we paper over the fact that this attachment, metastisized, can (and has) lead to ugly, violent, thuggish hooliganism - not exactly the boys-will-be-boys, smile-and-have-a-laugh attitude towards it you occasionally hear in soccer cognisati circles.

That's about all for now. Some of you may have heard this rant/thought process already, but it's nice to get things written rather than lost to the confines of the pub in which they were discussed. In other news, DC United "spanked" Celtic 4-0 in a recent exhibition match. Well done, boys! Wish I could have been there to see it, but I'm sure that a few of you reading this made up for my absence.

Comments

[Ben Flood]

Just finished Foer's book about soccer. A very good read. I think it was you who first recommended it--thank you! In other news, the Blue Moon Diner will be reopening for breakfast this fall. Charlottesville rejoices...Keep up the posts.

[jwr]

dc united whupped celtic like they owned 'em! LOL!

hey, here is a funny bit.. a ronaldo "the diver" toy... too funny... gotta love the brits!

http://www.motherlondon.com/divingwinker/

[jwh]

i can't believe it put jwr... you know it's me... janice... LOL