I did something today that I don’t normally do. I read one of the articles way in the back of the sport section. You know, the ones about the fringe sports? Well get this! Apparently, the U.S. has a soccer team! You know, the sport you see all those six year old kids playing while their mom’s stalk the sideline, trying to outdress each other? Yeah! That sport! Apparently, adults play it too!
I’m pretty new to the concept, so I’m not sure if the adults still have their moms on the sideline or not, but it seems that not only do we have an adult team that represents the United States, but they beat the best team in the world yesterday!
USA! USA! USA! Way to go!
It was a pretty big upset too. The team from Spain (they call it football over there for reasons that don’t make a bunch of sense since everyone knows that real football is played with your hands!) was on some world-record-setting stretch of consecutive victories and the US team only wound up in the semifinals by a bit of a fluke having to do with crazy tie-breaker rules. It seems that everyone knew the US was going to get a butt whoopin’, but you just never know what’s going to transpire once…hmmmm—what do they do in soccer? Drop the ball? It’s just a guess, but I’m going to go with it—they drop the ball! On any given day, one team can beat another!
Now, the US moves on to the final where they’ll play…some other country, I suppose, for the championship. And it has to be important, even ESPN had an article on it’s site about it! And not just a brief, 200-word article, they had a full, feature-length article and the person who wrote it even knew the names of the coach and some of the players! Can you imagine that?
I, for one, am happy for the team and more than that, I’m happy for all those six year old kids and their mom’s in their pink designer jogging suits with matching purses that have tiny dogs in them with matching bows tied in their fur. Now they can dream of something big like this! Now they can dream of someday playing in a big soccer…ummm…game? Match? What?
These little kids and their moms can now dream the kinds of dreams that kids playing little league baseball and pee wee football and biddy basketball have dreamed. They can dream of a world in which their sport is actually important, relevant and worthy of one article on the website of the most powerful sports conglomerate on Earth! They can dream of someday being famous enough to find their name mentioned on the back page in a tiny article of a major newspaper—and if it’s a slow sporting news day, people like me might even read it!
Who could have possibly foreseen that soccer could ever have reached such an important height, not only here in the US, but across the world? It’s simply amazing! It’s almost like a legitimate sport now! How cool is that?
Well I’m pretty darned happy about the whole thing. Kids should be able to dream. Soccer moms should be able to think that all the money they pay to have their kids play soccer can amount to more than just a fashion show for themselves. This seems like a great first step. Congratulations USA! Congratulations soccer!
5 comments:
Oh great.
Another sport I can suck at.
Personally, I don't like sports. All they do is teach children that running is more important than school studies. On top of that, they teach degradation. You want real competition? Become a politician fighting for the money to help fund your campaign. ~end eye rolling and sarcasm~
Soccer -- five minutes of excitement crammed into two hours.
soccer - really fun when you miss the ball and end up kicking boys in the junk instead. boo hoo, guess you should've worn a cup.
I've never been a fan of soccer. I don't mind watching little kids play it (especially the ones under 6 because they're hilarious and cute) but otherwise it bores me.
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