I’d like all of my soccer friends to know I’m trying. I really am.
I can see that you’re looking at me warily, waiting for the hammer to come down on the World Cup from the unworldly, Velveeta-eating, soccer-phobic Morrissey. But I offer you only a velvet-gloved hand, stretched out in international friendship.
I’m trying hard, though things didn’t start well Sunday when I turned on the Mexico-Iran match. It was halftime, and ABC’s Brent Musburger was wearing a pair of Adidas sneakers, apparently to let us know he’s covering “the beautiful game” and not college football. It was like watching American TV reporters in Iraq who wear all khaki, all the time. Yeah, we get that you’re covering a war.
This put me in an ornery mood, to the point where I briefly gave into the old me and wondered if Musburger eventually would go for it all by painting his face and kneecapping some German fans.
Anyway, the game was entertaining. Mexico won 3-1, its final goal scored on a sweet header by 5-foot-3-inch Antonio Naelson Matias, who wants to be called “Zinha,” after a tiny bird native to the region of Brazil in which he was raised. I’ll go along with it if he agrees to call me “Golden Eagle.” Fine, “Magpie” then.
ABC kept showing the Mexican coach, Ricardo La Volpe, puffing on a cigarette on the sidelines. Can you imagine the uproar if an NFL coach did that? There would be stories in newspapers about the closet smokers in the league, interviews with youth coaches about the unfortunate message that was being sent and diagrams showing the effects of second-hand smoke.
But it’s comforting to know that, when it comes down to it, La Volpe isn’t so different from American coaches.
“My job doesn’t depend on certain members of the press that criticize me and say things that aren’t true,” he said last week.
I’m not sure, but I believe the question he was asked was, “Nice day, isn’t it?”
The next match was Portugal vs. Angola. The Portuguese team features Cristiano Ronaldo, who is considered a young hunk in England, where he plays for Manchester United. Earlier this year, British tabloids reported that two well-known, unnamed soccer players were caught on film having a sexual encounter with another man.
That led to this posting on a gay Web site: “Please let it be Cristiano Ronaldo. If it is, I’ll never ask you for anything else, God. By the way, God, do you think I should get my hair highlighted?”
On Saturday, I watched Sweden play Trinidad and Tobago. I was channel surfing and stopped at a Spanish-language station that was showing the match. The score was 0-0 in the 42nd minute. After a few moments, after I remembered I don’t speak Spanish, I switched to ABC. The score was 0-0 in the 82nd minute. The other telecast had been on tape delay.
Now, my first instinct was to say I hadn’t missed a bloody thing. But my soccer friends have tried to convince me that the beauty of the game can be found just as easily away from where the ball is.
OK, fine. But then I found out that Trinidad and Tobago had played a man down most of the second half because of two yellow cards against one of its defenders. Forty-four minutes of the equivalent of a hockey power play, and heavily favored Sweden couldn’t score a goal! It’s stuff like this that really, really tests my hopes for conciliation with soccer.
ABC is smart enough to have microphones positioned near the stands to pick up the constant crowd noise. Part of the charm of international soccer is its fans. They stand most of the time. They sing songs. They dress up in crazy outfits.
We Americans toast their enthusiasm, which has always struck me as a bit hypocritical. We look at the men who wear dresses and pig snouts at Redskins games or at those creatures at Raiders games and immediately think, “This very likely is the highlight of their pathetic week.” But we look at soccer fans and think, “What spirit! What brotherhood!” Why do they get a break?
Because it’s soccer, and I’m trying to love this game, that’s why!
I have always answered the question, “Can hundreds of millions of people around the world be wrong?” with, “of course they can.” But as I said, I’m trying to see the game from where they’re standing.
Would it help if I wore Adidas?
———-
rmorrissey@tribune.com
