Who’s watching the World Cup?

Last updated on: June 16, 2014 at 12:26 pm by Jane the Actuary

Who’s watching the World Cup? 2014-06-16T12:26:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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I am by no means a sports fan of any kind. Sports-watching happens when my husband turns on the TV: for Notre Dame football games and for any German soccer games that happen to be televised and, now, for the World Cup. Also occasional tennis and golf.

Football, in my opinion, stands alone among sports, because it has a narrative: what down is it? Where are they on the field? Are they going to pass or punt? True, there are always the spectacular plays in which a player scores a touchdown from the other end of the field, but most of the time its a methodical slog from one end of the field to the other.

Soccer involves a great deal of skill, to be sure, and there are some moments that are quite impressive, but you can watch the ball go back and forth for great lengths of time without a score, and then, when a goal does happen, it’s seemingly out of nowhere.

(Hockey is much the same — but there’s a certain visual appeal to watching the players move about the rink. In soccer, there’s just running.)

It also seems to me that the experience that many young men have of football giving them discipline and keeping them on the straight and narrow may not just simply be the act of playing a sport, and being coached by a coach, but that the structure of a football game and the notion of learning and implementing plays may itself be beneficial for boys. So I do hope that the issue of football concussions is solved in some other manner (rule changes, better protective gear) than simply ending football as a sport.

(At the same time, I’m glad my boys don’t play football. Well, they’re not much for sports in general, actually.)

But here’s the thing about the World Cup: we were in Germany back in 2006, when they hosted, and it was a significant turning point for the Germans. Seriously — it was, from what I saw, and from what I read, really a change in terms of Germans embracing feeling “patriotic” and waving their flag, as opposed to being a bit embarrassed about it. Does the World Cup always produce good feelings? No, of course not. Is FIFA corrupt and is the Dubai-hosting an awful decision? You-betcha. But at least it’s something to be positive about. (Besides which, stores were allowed to open on Sundays and stay open late, ostensibly for the benefit of tourists, but it was a grand thing to be able to go grocery shopping after the kids were in bed rather than taking them along.)

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