The World Cup in North America

I'm sitting here watching the Ghana v. USA match. It's 35 minutes into the first half, and Ghana has scored. You may think I'm cheering for the US, even though they're not advancing to the second round. Well, I'm not. Not because they're out of the running for the Cup, or because the coach scores very high on the "creepy" meter, or because I hate all things American---I don't. But if you go out into any random city here, most of the people you can talk to have no interest in the World Cup. Some don't even know what it is. Now, there are exceptions, such as the neighborhoods of immigrants or the sports bars. But most everyone else is more interested in the NBA finals. Of which I know nothing, not even which teams are playing. Or if it's over yet.

The rest of the world, however, considers the World Cup a bigger deal than even the Olympics. In a recent issue of National Geographic Magazine, only twenty-four countries in the WORLD are shown as having a sport other than soccer as the national favorite. Canada and the US were among them. Of course, hockey and American football take priority, but why? It seems to me that for the US, the need to be totally, completely unique and independent has shoved such petty things as comraderie and common interests aside. It appears that being disconnected is "patriotic" and "bold" and "real" and all the other stuff that is popular these days. It doesn't help that plenty of other countries hate our guts right now. The lack of interest is reflected on the TV screen. On English language channels, the World Cup gets about as much hype as, say, curling. Sure they play some games, but it's not reliable. Just now, on ABC, they're running some court show. On Univision, one of my local Spanish-language channels, 90% of commercials have something to do with soccer and they play three games a day, every day. I suppose I just feel that if the US won the Cup, it would send a message something like, "Hey, we're so cool we can beat you all even though we really don't care."

I would be cheering for Canada, but their team didn't make the cut. In fact, they haven't played in a Cup for the last two decades, even though they hosted the FIFA youth cup in 2002. I can't speak with any authority about it, but here's a link you should follow if you want more. It may take a while to load. It's a bit from a Canadian news show, called "The Hour," on how people feel about soccer north of the border. Jian Ghomeshi, the guy whose site I link to under my profile box, reports on soccer sentiment across Canada before the last World Cup. It's very interesting, so check it out.

The score is now 2-1 Ghana at halftime.