{"id":184,"date":"2006-06-09T11:02:39","date_gmt":"2006-06-09T16:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=184"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:39:47","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:39:47","slug":"why-the-world-cup-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=184","title":{"rendered":"Why the World Cup Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"p1_Ronaldinho2.jpg\"On this the opening day of World Cup 2006<\/a>, my friend Jason Bybee at Already & Not Yet<\/a> asks a pertinent question: Does anybody care?<\/p>\n

Americans, with their provincial love of “home-grown” sports, high-scoring, slam-bam action and jiggly, twenty-something dancers in next-to-nothing outfits, for the most part have never developed a taste for the nuance and intricacy that enliven the soul of “The Beautiful Game.” Jason went on to ask, “What am I missing?”<\/p>\n

After counting to ten and taking a short walk, I returned to my keyboard and typed this reply:<\/p>\n

It’s an aquired taste, and when it comes to taste, most Americans don’t have very much.<\/p>\n

The rarity of the goals is what makes them special. Unless you have played or coached, it’s difficult to understand just how hard it is to score a goal against a well-organized defense and a smart, athletic keeper.<\/p>\n

Unless you have ever experienced the tantalizing frustration of near-goals, the ballet of a ball well-possessed from back to front to back and up top again, unless you have ever seen a sliver of space appear for an instant inside the 18, like heaven itself opening up before you, and unless you’ve witnessed the beauty of a well-struck ball slipping through the left upper 90 like a thread through the eye of a needle, and then the explosion, the pure release of raw energy that is a goal (some have compared it to…you know), then, my friend, you have not experienced true joy.<\/p>\n

It is the common language of the world. This week in Honduras, 6 American teenagers took on 6 Honduran youths in their own version of World Cup, played on a field made of donkey dung (USA won). There wasn’t a lot of Spanish or English being spoken, but they all understood each other quite well.<\/p>\n

This is boring? Compared to what? A game where we all sit around staring at nine guys with grass growing up between their toes waiting for something to happen?<\/p>\n

Ole.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why does the World Cup matter? Because “One Game Changes Everything.”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this the opening day of World Cup 2006, my friend Jason Bybee at Already & Not Yet asks a pertinent question: Does anybody care? Americans, with their provincial love of “home-grown” sports, high-scoring, slam-bam action…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,52,42,60,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bruce-arena","category-soccer","category-sports","category-us-national-team","category-world-cup-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9684,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/9684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}