World Cup: Hooked in My Sleep

It's time for World Cup mania. As a kid, I first bought into the global event through my love affair with GameBoy's World Cup '94, a game I played in the car en route to my first Notre Dame game. The crazy kicks that would fly all over the field or knock a goalie 20 feet in the air had me hooked. Turns out, the real game wasn't as exciting, but I couldn't turn down a chance to join a few other casual soccer fans in a viewing of Brazil and the world's finest athlete, Ronaldinho, taking on Croatia.

Yes, the world's finest athlete. I know there are a lot of natural soccer haters that bristle at that statement. What about LeBron James, they ask. What about Kobe Bryant or Albert Pujols, or any other athlete of the week? Imagine a league that combined the great athletes from the NFL, the NHL, the MLB, and the NBA — would we have that one great, dominant athlete? No, but soccer has that in Ronaldinho.

I'm firmly entrenched on the Ronaldinho bandwagon, as I only had my ticket punched a year ago after witnessing a few of his highlights. He was doing things with a soccer ball that couldn't be recreated in movies with the best of stuntmen. You can have a white guy that looks like Rob Schneider jump from one end of a basketball court to dunk in the other hoop and have LeBron can sink turn around 75-footers, but no one not named Ronaldinho could pull off some of those moves.

If it wasn't enough for me to tune in to watch the world's finest player, I had to test a theory. When I was talking to ESPN.com's sexiest female athlete of 2004, Heather Mitts, she said that after watching just one of his games, fans would be hooked. I figured the best way to test this method was with a running diary (in honor of the sport, I decided to count up along with the game clock).

3:04 — Ronaldinho touches the ball, immediately eliciting a group of "ohhhs" from the crowd. He dances around two defenders, and creates an early chance for Brazil. I could stop this thing here, I'm already sold on him as a player, you know I'm going to buy stock in whatever the Brazilian is selling (this is a good financial mantra to live by), but I continued on nevertheless. And even though the outcome is pretty much set, I'm still impressed by his game.

7:18 — Commentator: "How do you get 11 superstars to play together...? Do nothing." The way he set this up, I was expecting a punch line a little stronger than something you'd hear on "Last Comic Standing." Actually, "do nothing" is a great strategy to win that competition. While people get hurt for their terrible jokes, the goal of the "do nothing" approach is simply to let the others fall apart. It's like bidding $1 on the "Price is Right." Everyone knows the middle-aged housewife understands that the armoire costs more than $1, but she ends up winning as her overzealous competition takes the bidding to the thousands.

As far as the set up goes, I honestly thought he was going to pass a lame soccer joke. And I would've respected the hell out of him if he did. There seems to be a new trend starting in some areas of sports broadcasting where play-by-play announcers are completely removed from the broadcast.

One step better would be the announcers who simply crack jokes during the game. Not continuously, there would still be periods of silence, and the announcers would have to go all the way with this. It's not like slipping Dennis Miller into the broadcast booth. All hopes of a professional broadcast would have to be left at the door, but it has some potential. I recommend starting with New York Knicks games.

Of course, the "do nothing" strategy would be immensely entertaining in a place like New York. How much would the Knicks be affected by the "do nothing" approach? Could it be worse than last season? It's not like they will be better anytime soon, especially with Isiah Thomas calling the shots, so why not at least test the theory on them next year?

22:42 — I realized I'm supposed to be watching this soccer game. Brazil seems like a good team, but I only think that because it's been burned into my brain by those who know much more soccer than I do. I'm not one of those angry, uber-patriotic members of the media who adopt the whole "if I don't understand it or America doesn't win, it's less of a sport than stacking cups" mentality. I'm fully aware of the greatness of soccer and understand full well that I just don't understand the game enough to be truly captivated by it other than once every four years.

It's like catching up with the only relatives you really like at a family reunion.

This is probably the most brilliant piece of analysis I've heard while watching a sports broadcast. It seems so simple, yet is far too complex for any coach to try. They seem cooler than you remember, and it makes you wonder why you don't see them that much anymore. This leads to the resolve to change the situation and make more of an effort to see your new favorite relatives. Like a New Year's resolution, things simply don't come together and you go through the whole song and dance at the next reunion. (If anyone in my family is reading this, you are the favorite relatives I'm talking about.)

23:15 — One of the announcer's just revealed that Croatia's coach has a son on the team, and he's the one that gets all the attention. It's like youth sports all over again, only I think there's some potential in this. I'm going to call Vince McMahon and have him create the XSL, in which parental politics will play as big a role as the on-field action. Issues like "whose turn it is to bring the orange slices" will be some of the key storyline in the part reality show, part sport.

41:00 — Brazil scores. This is where soccer gets cool, as their entire bench erupts like they were a hapless mid-major that just knocked off a UConn team stacked with future pros with a half-court buzzer-beater.

45:00 — At halftime, I fell asleep.

56:00 — I wake up briefly, then fall right back asleep.

81:00 — I finally wake up, with the score the same and nothing really changing. I feel bad for falling asleep while I was trying to keep a running diary, because it wasn't really the game's fault. I worked an 18-hour day the day before, I was running on empty as it was, I don't know, I just feel like soccer didn't get a fair shot.

85:00 — It isn't a soccer game until a fan hits the field. Now it's soccer, as the fan was escorted off the field a few pockets of Croatian fans set off some flares and began to get antsy. This prompted the announcer to say "you don't see this in America," which got me thinking. I would like this to change, and if I had the resolve I would make sure that all thundersticks would be replaced with flares for the rest of the NBA Finals.

87:00 — My girlfriend shows up and asks whose winning the "football" game as if she's some sort of futbol aficionado. Sure, she played the sport for nearly 10 years. Then again, her career was ended in high school as she tore her quad in a game of "Red Light/Green Light" in practice. I think what I'm trying to say is you can't call soccer football unless you were born in a different country.

Believe it or not, Brazil held on with a 1-0 win, something you rarely see in the high-scoring sport of soccer. Still, you have to appreciate it for what it is. And hey, it's less boring than NASCAR.

The Sports Gospel According to Mark is sponsored by BetOnSports.com. All readers get a 10% signup bonus at BetOnSports by entering "Sports Gospel Promo" as the promo code. Mark Chalifoux is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Tuesday on SC. You can e-mail Mark at [email protected].