Peek in at World Cup

I’m not going to tell you to watch the World Cup.

By this moment in your life, like any other red-blooded American, you’ve probably formed a hard-lined opinion on the sport of soccer.

Some of you refuse to call it soccer, instead opting for the more global term of football, or ‘futbol’ if you’re really into it and also bilingual. You’ve had this event marked on your calendar for the last four years. You have your custom scarf, Captain America costume and have cleared your schedule to watch each of the United States’ first three matches.

The rest of you are upset the World Cup and all those Euros are messing up your viewing schedule for the next month.

I understand. I’ve been there.

I’m not going to demand you watch anything that will take away all that time you could be doing something productive. This is prime hiking and fishing time we’re talking about. Think of the shape you could be in by avoiding the mid-day Sportscenter for a month. What a tan you’ll have.

But consider it. Maybe just a peek.

The rest of the world has to be seeing something that this spectacle can draw so much attention. It stops commerce in foreign countries, causes mass calamity and in one case has stopped a civil war. There has to be something there that can drive that.

That curiosity got me started.

I held that hard-lined anti-World Cup position as recently as last World Cup. In my mind, the U.S. wasn’t going to contend, so there was no point in watching. I imagined it was somewhat how Vanuatu feels about the Olympics. Sure, we’re in that one sport, but we’ll be out after three matches and I’ll be left watching Slovenia and the Cameroon battle for which country I could find on a map first.

Some of my soccer-playing roommates from college convinced me to at least give it a peek. I didn’t have to root for the English Premier League or understand formations, just watch. One match.

I missed the first game from the Americans. The score, though, was enough to pull me into the second. Normally I wouldn’t say that about a 1-1 tie, but a 1-1 tie against a swaggering would-be world superpower in England is a little different. Once again we could dip back into the coffers of American pride by upsetting the British.

Games against Slovenia and Algeria weren’t quite as intriguing to an outsider, but I could get behind a U.S. victory. That didn’t happen against Slovenia, though that 2-2 tie was certainly rife with drama, setting up a must-win for the U.S. in the final contest to advance.

The U.S., like the entire tournament, was tied through regulation and on the brink of an exit against Algeria. Then at the last possible moment, from nowhere, the U.S. ran the length of the field and scored to set off an insane celebration and hook me into this spectacle like everyone else.

Now, it’s not likely that scenario will play out again. The swaggering would-be world superpower in our group this time around is Germany, a team that has proven itself a favorite for the World Cup the last few years. Portugal has the best player in the world on its squad, Christiano Ronaldo, a goal-scoring robot with beautiful hair. Then there’s Ghana, the pesky team that just has happened to knock us out of the last two World Cup competitions.

But, then again, everyone likes an underdog. And everyone likes cheering USA! at annoyingly loud levels.

So, even if you don’t think there’s a chance for the U.S. to win and you’d rather save yourself the hassle, just take a peek.

You might like what you see.