| Instances of Soccer |
[30 Jun 2006|12:15am] |
Sometime in 2005, one of our friends, a Nicaraguan named Jose Luis overflowing with brotherly love induced by a few bottles of beer made a revelation, "you know guys, the whole world will be in Germany in 2006." This seemingly casual info-bit effected an incredulous no-way-Jose look on everyone's faces. As far as we knew, the world in 2005 still considered USA the place to be, why should this venerable title befall on Germany in 2006? Jose Luis had only three words for our questioning stares – World Cup Soccer. Wha-tevah. And this being the US of A, we went back to our beers.
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The best soccer match I ever saw was on one of the rare English movies I had watched in my childhood. The movie, Escape to Victory. was a Saturday night surprise presented by our Hindi-plagued national TV network, Doordarshan. The film pitted allied POWs in a soccer match against the Nazis, with POWs winning a triumphantly nail-biting final and escaping to freedom. I had tears of joy and pain(due to nails bitten to stubs) by the end of it. Could any game be better than soccer if a trashy Hollywood movie with Sly Stallone as the goalie could move you to tears? (Yah, there was Pele in it too.)
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During our first year of stay in Anchorage, when I was sitting pretty (jobless) at home, one of my friends took pity on my boring uneventful existence and used to take me to her five year old's soccer practice on weekday afternoons. The endless green dotted to capacity with pint sized soccer players gave me the impression that all children under 10 in America played soccer. Once they move past childhood they come to their senses and realize that soccer is essentially a game played by ex-commies, unemployed Europeans, third-worlders and girls. (USA is almost the Brazil of women's soccer.)
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The only World Cups I ever managed to watch were Mexico-86 and Italia-90. As kids it was a rare privilege to be up late with adults and hear them compare Cryff or Beckenbauer with the young brood. As a build up to world cup viewing I had watched a smattering Santosh trophy and Federation Cup matches (soccer championships in India) sitting on temporary bamboo stands and cheering for the Bengal clubs. Kerala Police or FC Cochin(was not even formed, I think) were not big teams then, the trimurtis from Calcutta ruled the roost. (Do they still? I don't know.). Thus from very early on I had the training to cheer for 'foreign' teams as local teams never made it to the main tournament. The same with India in World Cup Soccer. India never got thru' to the World Cup except once in 1950 (I googled), but they declined to participate because FIFA would not allow the team to play barefoot. Hah! I guess the FIFA never recovered enough to ask us around a second time.
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When I used to watch soccer, it was played by 'uncles' who are now sitting on the sidelines, having traded their jerseys for coaches' caps (van Basten, Klinsmann). This time around it is played by kids, I must've missed my generation somewhere in between?! But age never posed any real problem in conveying my admiration to soccer stars. In '90 I was so much impressed by the performance of the substitute Argentine goalie Sergio Goycochea in the semifinals against Italy that I sent a congratulatory mail to his home address (conveniently provided by a Malayalam newspaper.) That’s one fan mail I wrote in my entire life to a celebrity of any kind, I stand guilty of being a teenager, once upon a time.
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Tomorrow - is it gonna be tequila or beer? I like Argentina. The stadium will favor Germany. And the referee always wins ('specially in this world cup.)
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