That's right: soccer. Or football for the non-Americans. Or hell for anyone who simply wants not to deal with it at all. That would be me, by the way. Out of a strange sort of luck (or perhaps lack thereof) I've been in the hosting city of a soccer world cup three times so far. The first was when we moved to Palo Alto in the mid '90s, the second was when I was at Lewis and Clark in Portland during the '03 Women's cup, and the third is right here, in Germany while the male teams push eachother around and pretend they didn't and the fan effect is so widespread that classes are cancelled and, with doors and windows shut, my room shakes from the cheers and chants that resound through the city.
Truth be told, I may be unfairly biased. As the LC soccer team volunteered to usher at the Portland women's world cup, I was in the unlucky position (and what are the odds, of all the aisles) to get run over by two streakers protesting the Addidas sponsership. Literally run over. So... that was special.
Still, unlucky history aside, spectator sports bore me. I'm all for the sports themselves (minus American football and baseball, as they are just time-wasters), but the obsessive need to watch the games... it elevates these players to godlike celebrity status and that can't be healthy. Note, for instance, the difference between professional women's soccer and professional men's soccer (which of course has far more popularity). The men's league is riddled with cheap stunts: tacky fouls, dives, fakes, fights, what have you. What's the difference in the leagues, besides the hormones? The men get too much attention, and they regress to childish tactics because of it.
Then of course there is the disruption. Not only the obvious problems: Germany is overcrowded with fans, who are often loud, drunk, and obnoxious, packing the U-Bahns and making much racket... The locals and the students living in Studentenstadt are no better, bringing TVs outside into courtyards and congregating into loud, drunk, obnoxious groups for the duration of the game and then for a few hours into the early morning. Watching the darn game is one thing. Making a huge deal out of all of the 50-60-something games is simply absurd. If it were in private, giving me at least the ability to ignore the cultish phenomenon, that would be one thing. But its not, so I'm not happy. On top of this, some of my classes have been cancelled so that the prof (or students - often both) could go see the game instead. ARG!
Fully irritated and rather bitter, my only interest in the game became a wish for Germany to lose, so that the loudest group would lose spirit and shut the hell up. Coincidentally, this apparently happened in the Italy-Germany game... Two goals in two minutes sufficed to break the German spirit good and well... so happy 4th of July to me on that count, the next game was so quiet that, had Jay not left to go watch it, I wouldn't have known it had happened.
Glad for the quiet, I'm also feeling a little bit sad for Ralf, our program director, who took the loss rather hard and is demanding a program-wide (week-long) embargo on such items as pizza, ice cream, and coffee. Just doing my part to spread the word.
I'm sure Italy is regretting that win right now. Yup. They sure are.... any minute...
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