Goooooooooooooooooal!
Are you watching the World Cup?
Miami, being the cultural melting pot of people from places where soccer is a national obsession and team spirit is strong, is awash with people wearing team colors and cars with national flags flying from antennas in support of their team. Everywhere you go — restaurants, barber shops, any place with cable TV — the games are on, so it’s unavoidable. But I’m not going out of my way to watch it.
No, thank you.
No, simply am not interested.
You betcha. I’m hooked.
In this house we find we’re suddenly hypnotized by the ESPN coverage. We stumbled into it looking for the US Open. We got to ESPN by mistake just at the moment the American team scored in the first few seconds of the game. How could you not be thrilled? We both let out whoops, jumped up from our seats and just about waved the flag. We watched that entire wonderful match and then the next one. The good guys seem to be winning – Holland beat Spain, the previous world champs – and that made it all the more fun. The beautiful Dutch royals were in their box waving flags. The stands seemed to be a sea of orange. It was so damned exciting.
We’re having to study up on the tactics and scoring and the who’s who around the world. There are a couple of cheat sheets in SI we have fingered until they’re ragged. Moreover it’s all so BEAUTIFUL! ….the scenery in and around Rio, the colors of the players, the stands wearing the team colors and waving banners and flags of whatever country is on the field.
We may finally be seeing America join the rest of the world in soccer-mania. We certainly are.
I’m paying attention to scores, and where I see a game on. Not actively following it, though.