Copa del Mundo
Life just bounces
So don't you get worried at all
It's that time. I've been a futbol fan for a long, long time. The high school my brother and I attended was one of few in Chicago with no football, but a soccer team. Lord, Pele was still playing. Always very much enjoyed the World Cup. I was in Boston's North End in '82 when the Italians won and in '94, a tightly packed Brazilian bar in San Diego.
Soccer in the US is sort of like fusion as an energy source, always twenty years from being the great new thing. One day, if enough Mexicans get here that will be true for futbol as a sport, unlike fusion as an energy source. Traveling this world, you'll find futbol as close to a global sport as this little planet and its human inhabitants have. Twenty five years ago, I played a little pick-up game with a group of Tanzanians out in the bush of the Selous, now better named Nyerere Park.
Only been to one international game. A preliminary Africa Cup match between Libya and Swaziland, now Eswatini, in Mbabane. Early, the home team fell a goal behind. Then, right before end of half, the Swazis scored. Always remember the tension building, then collectively, orgasmically released as the ball went into the net. Near the end of the match, the Libyans scored what appeared the winning goal, only to be waved off by what was clearly a bad off-side call. The refs had to be led off the field by the police, not protected from the crowd but from the Libyan players. It was a hoot.
In 22 World Cups, the Europeans have won twelve, the Americas ten. Brazil at the top with five. No Asian or African team yet to hoist the cup. Saying the US has a chance is almost as bad, though not quite, as saying England does. Unfortunately, two of my favorite teams, the perpetually Cup tragic Mexicans and Bafana Bafana, the South African boys, square off this afternoon in the opening match in Mexico City. The always solid Czechs and S. Koreans make up the rest of their group, so a loss by either will hurt any chance of getting through.
Yes, there's the great irony that the US, in the process of blowing up another country, is this year's host. Though not so ironic, in a land of such eminent corruption, FIFA matches it dollar for dollar.
Nonetheless, it truly is a World Cup. For the next few weeks you can watch some beautiful matches of a beautiful and in the end what can be quite brutal game that we all can appreciate no matter race, gender, or creed. Enjoy, it's only once every four years.
Only one Fall song is never enough, especially when there's the great futbol song, Sparta FC, performed by a most excellent lineup of the infamous Mancunian, a Greek wife, and three Los Angelenos, talk about your ironies:
We are the Fall from the long, long days of your past