Thursday, June 05, 2014

Dave's Definitive Quadrennial World Cup Preview

Hola! Buon Giorno! Oi! Guten Tag! Can you believe four years have passed since the last World Cup? Can you believe there's a word for things that occur every four years?

You'll notice that "hello" and "marhaba" and "jambo" and"lei ho" were not included in the list of greetings. That was on purpose! No country from North America, Africa, Asia, or the Middle East has ever won the World Cup. So you should not concern yourself with those places (unless you like bribery . . . then you should head to Qatar).



Though I don't watch much professional soccer, my life is engulfed by the sport. I think about soccer. I read about soccer. I spend at least a half an hour a day daydreaming about drills and tactics. I also spend quite a bit of time talking to other soccer coaches. I play soccer on the weekends with people named Gio and Guillermo and Felipe. I run practices year round. I coach both high school and youth players.

Because of this, I also assume that other people are thinking about soccer all the time. This might be true, or it might be that people view me as a soccer guy (I have a lot of shirts with soccer balls on them) and if they have any association with soccer, then it comes up in conversation with me. This makes me think that soccer is the primary thing on most people's minds. So it was revealing (and a little mind-blowing) when I conducted some interviews about the World Cup. The main thing that I learned was that the general population (as represented by people hanging around the English Office and the high school kids in my classes) is NOT thinking about soccer. There's some actual information buried in this preview, but I'll warn you, getting to it isn't going to be pretty (except for the beefcake pics).

The following statement represents the opinions of several women I interviewed:

"You should put a picture of Ronaldo with his shirt off."



No problem.

My friend and colleague Stacey confided in me that she's "heard great things about Pele."

Chantal knew that there was a "theme song by Pit Bull."

Once I got the World Cup discussion rolling in the office, I overheard two English teachers discussing Halfthor Julius Bjornnsson.

"Halfthor Bjornnsson? What team does he play for? Croatia? The Netherlands?"

"Oh, he's not a soccer player. He plays "The Mountain" on Game of Thrones."

They put a piece of paper high on the wall in the English office that marks exactly how tall the Mountain is. This is what The Mountain looks like. He would be difficult to cover on a corner kick.


I asked them if they had any insight on the World Cup, and the nerdier of the two (no mean feat) looked at me and with great sincerity, said, "Luxembourg . . . Trinidad and Tobago . . . Ivory Coast . . . Lichtenstein." I agreed that those were countries in the world, but leveled with them that-- aside from Ivory Coast-- they were not represented in the World Cup.

Since the Caucasian nerds were useless, I decided to ask the more ethnically diverse folks. This didn't help much. Our token Jamaican woman said she was rooting for Brazil. The new teacher, who is half-Spanish, said she is "going for Spain." And the Greek guy with the fantastically ethnic name of Arghiris admitted that he knew nothing about soccer, but every four years he "pulls out the blue and white." That would be quadrennially.

Of all my students, only one spoke with confidence. He said he watched a lot of FIFA and the thing to remember was "don't waste your time rooting for America." A real patriot.

And then there is my friend Terry. You may remember him from several soccer expeditions.

While Terry can be annoyingly opinionated on many matters, there is one thing that he knows inside and out: the state capitals. Even the Dakotas. Terry occasionally comes off as being mildly autistic.

While Terry's comprehensive knowledge of geography is impressive and annoying, he also knows quite a bit about soccer. He is the boy's varsity coach at our school, he still plays (when he's not injured) and he is an avid fan. When it comes to soccer, you can trust him. Here's what he has to say:

The United States has a 40% chance of surviving their group. Their problem is defense, so they are going to have to score first and outscore teams.

The players to watch are Argentina's Sergio Aguero, Brazil's Neymar, and Uruguay's Luis Suarez.

Everyone believes the favorite is Germany and Terry is no exception, but his dark horse picks are Belgium and Ghana. Ghana is a bit young-- with an average age of 24-- but they have nine Premier League players

Belgium's team-- led by Eden Hazard-- is regarded as the "golden generation." This could be a good thing, but Terry also sees it as a kiss of death. He reminded me of 2002, when the U.S. upset the golden generation Portuguese team, and how the U.S. pulled the same stunt against the golden generation Columbian team in 1994.


That's all I've got. The important thing is that most people in America don't give a flying frack about soccer. And some people-- especially the ladies-- don't care much about how the ball bounces, they just like shirtless pictures of fit men. One of these ladies was despondent that Fabio Cannavaro retired and would not be playing for Italy. This is for her:



And finally, a student named Hector, who likes to write computer code and doesn't know anything about the World Cup, advised me that I should "include a lot of hashtags in your post." Okay, Hector.

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38 comments:

Greg said...

Terry? You mean Terry backstage? This guy?

http://i.onionstatic.com/avclub/5013/19/original/640.jpg

Danimal said...

Heading to one of the first World Cup games this Friday here in Jax. Get some. World Cup here we come! The game isn't sold out if you can believe that. So come on down and enjoy the World Cup.

rob said...

danimal, just had some fellowship with your boy chris kelican at a breakfast honoring loco's high school athletes. we agreed not to share stories about you in mixed company.

Danimal said...

not sure what you know about chris - standout wrestler in h.s. and at wvu. often involved in brush-ups, usually w/one ron s. by his side. at 5'6 and about 140, he embarrassed many a big man who thought they could handle him.
he did a complete 180 right after college. seriously - we were all j.v. compared to him and that's saying something.

Mark said...

Yesterday I learned a new addition to our twice/thrice weekly pickup basketball run played D1 Football. I was a bit surprised. He's a good athlete but certainly doesn't scream D1 Football player and certainly not starting WR on Oklahoma's 2000 BCS Championship team who has an impressive YouTube highlight video.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oglLKO1EzYI

rob said...

i've heard the legend of kelican, danimal. as an aside, we think we were at the same holiday party at the place you shared with walt and merrill in funchester. the same party at which i bent the metal rod that was inside my middle finger helping my tendon heal.

T.J. said...

Dave, just curious, is Hashtag Hector one of you better students, or one of your worst?

Danimal said...

givin someone the ole hacksaw were ya rob?

the place, since memorialized, was 440 north braddock street, known to most as "Fo-Fotey"

and Merrill sadly never lived there

zman said...

rob has a Tumblr page!

http://guyswithzooeyes.tumblr.com/

Shlara said...

Dave, thanks for the hot, shirtless soccer guys!

rob said...

overlooked in dave's piece is the really funny notion that there are english teachers who *aren't* nerdy.

Dave said...

hashtag hector is an awkward genius. he'll drop an allusion to hofstadter's "godel, escher, and bach" and then be all upset that i was the only one who got it.

and i've run through the list and rob is right, the english teachers are all nerdy to one degree or another (except for me!)

Dave said...

once, hashtage hector wrote an entire story as a computer flow chart.

he also wrote a "choose you own adventure" story, but every choice you led you to the same (horrible) ending.

T.J. said...

Hector might need to guest post on GTB

rob said...

what, we're not following the major league baseball draft the same way we do the nba draft?

Mark said...

Fuck. No.

rob said...

what, we're not following the major league baseball draft the same way we do the nba draft?

rob said...

nice work, blogger

rob said...

and you, mark. hit your line right on time. they don't call you the best in the business for nothing.

Mark said...

A neighbor who's a hairdresser came over to color my wife's hair. She sloppily work around the edges of my wife's hairline. So the wife is currently sitting around the house looking like Kool Keith as Black Elvis.

Mark said...

Nobody calls me that, Rob.

Chances anybody other than Zman has any idea what I mean with the Kool Keith/Black Elvis comment? What's less than zero?

Shlara said...

I get to blog the NBA Draft for my summer school class this year!

Will have to do double duty b/c I can't miss the GTB conversation that night.

KQ said...

Shlara you should just cut and paste the GTB conversation for your paper. You may not get an "A" but your prof will never forget you.

Mark said...

Both Wade and Ginobili are so much healthier than this time last year. We all win.

zman said...

"My Name Is D-Nice"?! Who'da thunk he'd be getting royalties an that song 20 years later?

TR said...

I think Hashtag Hector is made up, and is really Dave's way of turning Oscar Wao into a real person.

zman said...

For a brief and wondrous post.

TR said...

That corner three by LBJ following his offensive rebound was ridiculous.

Mark said...

I have a deep, irrational love for Boris Diaw's game. It makes me so mad that he only half cares and is fat.

Mark said...

The "LeBron should've fought through the cramps" angle of the 24 hour news cycle is going to be AWFUL.

rob said...

i see you zman.

and mark is so very right.

rob said...

leaky gut, kq? really?

Clarence said...

Lloyd Christmas getting some airtime in a Samsung commercial. Nice.

Shlara said...

broken A/C for Game 1 of NBA finals >>>> condensation on the floor at the old Cap Centre for Bullets vs Suns on a random Tues in 1995.

Dave said...

hey gheorghies!

Dave said...

hi gheorghies.

zman said...

Grantland's legally flawed coverage of the Beastie Boys v. Monster Energy matter concluded today with a brief article including the following quote from MCA's will:

“[I]n no event may my image or name or any music or any artistic property created by me be used for advertising purposes.”

Directly above that quote is an image of MCA, and next to that image of MCA is an advertisement for Subway.

Squeaky said...

Things like this make wish I lived in a big city.

New York G:TBers, see Spoon, the band, play free on Monday at 2pm for NPR All Songs Considered.

http://allsongsspoonnyc.splashthat.com/