Can you feel it, America?
Can you feel the delicious tension, the proverbial calm before the FIFA World Cup takes the nation by storm? Do you find it impossible to focus on your job and family, tantalized by the knowledge that Germany is about to lock horns with Costa Rica? Are you bracing yourself for the crack of thunder when Poland engages its mortal rival, Ecuador?
Yeah, me neither.
I want to be excited for the World Cup. I swear I do. I even feel a little guilty to be so estranged from something that makes other people so excited. It's similar to the guilt that led me to watch the film Crash and read half of a page of The DaVinci Code. In all the above cases, I'm afraid I just don't get it.
For decades, the soothsayers have told American sports fans to get ready. Soccer is getting more popular in this country, they told us. It's the international sport, they said, and it will conquer America, too. They grew in volume when Pele joined the (now long-defunct) New York Cosmos. They regrouped and sang another chorus when Brandi Chastain - she of the black sports bra - celebrated the U.S. victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup.
But millions of American parents in millions of SUVs shuttling millions of kids to soccer practices have only amounted to one conclusion: When those parents get back home, they turn on the baseball game.
Maybe it's the football game, basketball game, or (gulp!) NASCAR race. But whatever their preference, how many Americans can name two players on the United States squad? Do they know how many teams are competing (it's 32), or what country has the most titles to its credit? (It's Brazil, with five.) As far as this country goes, it appears that rumors of soccer's life have been greatly exaggerated.
The tragedy is not that we're ignoring a great sport (We may be, but that's beside the point). What the World Cup really has to teach Americans is a lesson in fan loyalty. You may find the game boring, you may never aspire to bend anything like Beckham, and you may think Landon Donovan recorded the song "Mellow Yellow." But you have to admit: Soccer fans are lifers. When a middle-aged Portuguese immigrant hangs his native country's flag on his porch and heads to the bar to watch a World Cup game, that guy means business. He was maniacal 30 years ago, and he'll be maniacal until he dies.
I was in Ireland while the 1998 World Cup was being played, and I routinely saw upwards of 25 people angling for position around a television the size of a toaster oven. It wasn't just a game to these guys.
Contrast that with the thousands of Yankee "fans" who miraculously sprouted up after the team began winning championships again in 1996. Sure, 14-year-old girls from Tacoma to Tallahassee were sporting Derek Jeter jerseys, but did they know who had played shorstop for the team 18 months prior? At this very moment, with the NBA finals approaching, brand-new Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat fans are being minted all over the country. Scratch them and you'll find plenty of Celtics, Knicks, and Sonics fans playing dress-up.
I teach high school English, and one of my students, Aaron, happens to be from London. For months, he's been taunting the other kids, predicting World Cup doom for all but the United Kingdom. Mind you, England hasn't won the thing since 1966, and the team hasn't been much of a force in recent years. But none of that matters, because to Aaron, it's a duty to root for his country's team. It's not a fad to flirt with until the next one comes along.
Sure, our sports teams can boast some fans like that. But they compose the minority. Most don't suffer through the lean years; they get a satellite dish and pick some team on the opposite coast to support. And if their favorite player on that team takes a fat contract to play somewhere else, they just buy the appropriate jersey and adjust loyalties. Put a hockey team in some warm-weather city and you'll give birth to some fans. But there's a low survival rate in that litter. Come back in three yars and gawk at the empty seats.
International soccer fans are in another class. They cheer for the land their parents called home. They wait for four years at a clip for their countrymen to make them proud. As rabid patriotism goes, this is a strain we can get behind. As sports fanaticism goes, it's a model we can respect.