Soccerriffic! or, Death By A Tragic Overdose On Doubled Consonants

So. This is it. The big one. The final battle of this strangely fascinating war--the final match between giants. Spain versus the Netherlands at one in the morning. I'm half contemplating not staying up to watch it, although my family will probably forgive me shortly after never.

Why? Because I don't really care, I guess. I mean I picked teams as favourites and I got all het up when they lost and I screamed during matches (see this post) and I stayed up late to watch the ludicrously timed ones and I went all weird and philosophical about this entire nest of worries (see this post) and I felt the need after the second week to strangle the person who ever thought up vuvuzelas--but, you see, I normally wouldn't. If you had talked to me two months earlier I'd have called you crazy for suggesting I'd do these kinds of things. After all, it's soccer. Just soccer. I thumbed my nose at sports fans and felt smug that I would never fall prey to such primitive idolatry.

And then June rolled by and South Africa put on its show, and it was like I had never not been a soccer fan. I did all those stupid things and then I wrote about them (equally stupid if you ask me) and now I'm going to feel bad about it for the next couple of months. Because I liked it. I liked the whole shebang, the dysfunctional tournament which was by turns glitzy and washed-up, smart and clueless, knuckle-bitingly intense and channel-flipping boring. I liked being part of something that the rest of the world was feeling too, the way it gives you a nice warm feeling when you stand up and start clapping and all the other folks in the theatre or the auditorium or the stadium do too. I'd go so far as to say that I liked the feeling of belonging with other people, except that makes me sound emo, and Chronos will start laughing uncontrollably again like she does whenever I embarrass myself.

Make that Ms Schadenfreude.

Oh gods, I've started on another rant. This was meant to be a short post! Okay, look, you know, this is not going to end well if I just keep bursting into a tirade every time I bring up the World Cup, so I will amputate this entry RIGHT HERE on the dotted line and sew it back together. (To use a not so inappropriate surgical metaph--dammit, forgot the anaesthesia again. Bit too late for that, then. Nurse! Hold down the patient while I get out the crucible tongs and the chainsaw!)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [cut here] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Well. That turned out better than I hoped. Patient survived, didn't he? Although I'm sorry about his vegetable state. Can't have everything, I suppose.

As an impartial observer I would like to wish the best of luck to both teams. May the one with the most goals scored fairly win. And if not, may the side with the more creative instances of fouling (I'm thinking nude streakers and something involving live chickens) take the Cup home and display it with pride.

~Mnemosyne

PS. Just kidding about the impartial bit, because Netherlands will win.
Spain can go suck it.

EDIT: Damn, they lost.

I rest my case.

"Please don't kill each other... please don't kill each other..."

I catch myself muttering this every so often. It's not a common occurrence, especially when compared to how many times I shout this out instead:

"Ohmigod, he's got the ball. Moron. They're gonna regret this."
-pause-
"Dammit he's circling! No, he has the ball! Round him off you fools! ROUND HIM OFF!"
-pause-
"HE'S GETTING CLOSER! KICK HIM IN THE SHIN!"
-pause-
"OH DAMN HE'S JUST PASSED THE HALFWAY LINE! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!"
-pause-
"YES YOU'VE GOT THE BALL NOW PASS IT TO SOMEBODY WHO ACTUALLY HAS A SHOT IN HELL OF SCORING!"
-pause-
"NO YOU MORON WHY DID YOU JUST PASS TO HIM, THE ENTIRE REST OF THE TEAM WAS OPEN AND YOU PASS TO HIM--"
-pause-
"YOU BLOODY IMBECILE! WHO PUT YOU ON THE TEAM?! I KNOW KINDERGARTNERS WHO CAN PLAY BETTER THAN YOU! I KNOW HARMONICAS THAT CAN PLAY BETTER THAN YOU! SHET, I KNOW NORTH KOREANS WHO CAN PLAY BETTER THAN YOU! YOU BELONG ON THE SUBSTITUTE BENCH IN HELL, YOU TURF-LICKING COWPAT!"
-pause-
"Feck, he scored."

~Mnemosyne

World Cup. Warning: may cause fever, dizziness, eyebags, rashes, double vision, tunnel vision, Kabelvision, nasal twanging, patriotic fervour, bad taste in soccer jerseys, loss of bowel control, and death

In general, I am not a sports fan. I don't understand much of the terminology (what the hell is a handicap?), or the rules (isn't it illegal to kick him there?), or the traditions (why do they line up with a bunch of little kids before starting a match?). I don't know many of the players, I get the teams mixed up, and I have decided on sheer impulse that the day I watch more than two minutes of a cricket match is the day I drink a mixture of lemonade and black powder and set myself on fire with a scented candle. So I guess you could say that sports and I don't have a terribly healthy relationship. In fact I could shoot it in the head and attend the funeral with no ill feeling.

But every four years, I suspend the apathy (or, in cricket's case, antipathy) towards the whole realm of physical fitness and get my game face on. Those are the years when the world drops its dramas, its follies, its trivial fits of military action, and tunes its TVs to whichever poor country is hosting the global tourney/bloodfest that is the FIFA World Cup. This year, it's South Africa. Make no mistake, I think it's a marvelous honour for a country so bitterly divided for so many years to be playing host to the one sports event (take that, Summer Olympics) that truly brings the seven continents together. But I can't love anything without feeling bitter about it. So that's my confession about it all--I love you, World Cup, I really do, but at the same time I think you're a hilarious scrobble of overblown patriotism, a colossal sinkhole of international funds... and a touchingly clumsy reminder of why humanity is not doomed after all.

Let's get this out of the way. The World Cup is stupid, stupid with a capital S except that makes me look dyslexic. It's volatile and it doesn't make sense, and there's much not to like. Crappy ball? Explained away as "too perfect". (Right.) Lacklustre teams? Oh, it's just the altitude. Spectacularly bad ref'ing? Nothing new there, but there have been some real horrible bombshells in the past month. And, dear God, let us not talk about the cost, because every single penny or cent or whatever currency it is you people hitch your lives to that goes into the execution of this global indulgence is money that won't be going towards saving lives, or bettering lives in any way save for some highly voluble entertainment. In short, there is much not to like about this institution, and from the way some people are going on it'd kill poverty and AIDS in one strike if we just wiped FIFA off the face of this Earth.

But I talked about hope, didn't I? The World Cup brings hope because it brings people together. It does what the Olympics tries so hard to do with the faintest of efforts: it bridges vast cultural divides and eradicates old taboos for every single moment of a 90-minute match. You can have a near-senile pensioner in the Cotswolds and a law student in Nanjing and a Hazara farmer's little daughter all cheering for the same team, the same eleven men in funny-coloured outfits running around with a terrible ball on the other side of the Earth.

I don't know of any other event that does the same thing. Not even the Olympics. And dare we dream that one day--

No. We daren't. Because this is real life. And just like that the dreaming is over and your favourite team is knocked out, your favourite player kicked in the shin or given a red card for ripping someone else's shirt into tiny little pieces. What on earth were we thinking, when we thought about peace? It's just a game, after all.

Maybe it's idealistic of me to hope that soccer can bring together a world that is already so frailly stitched together. But I would like to believe that it's possible. I'd like to believe that for an hour and a half we could suspend everything and unite. I'd like to believe it, but there's one thing in the way--the Cup itself. Because it simply doesn't make sense.

I don't know what can we make of this most secular of rituals that draws such religious fervour. I don't know what we can learn from this thing, this strange thing that burns with passion and fury and hatred--yes, hatred--and at the same time holds so close to our oh-so-human desires for peace. What can be said about this fragile microcosm of opposites, this living paradox, this wonderful angry horrible crazy incomprehensible tribute to just how much the world adores The Beautiful Game? What does it mean when we lose ourselves in the World Cup? What does it all mean?

I wish I could answer. I wish I could answer even one of these questions. But all I can do is stand on the sidelines and scream at the men who are too busy making history to listen to this little girl.

~Mnemosyne