I thought for certain I was done with this blog when the World Cup ended, but as it turns out I've got one more entry to make.

The Times of London reports today that FIFA analysis shows that nearly 60 percent of the players who were treated on the pitch during matches were not injured.

From the Times:

Professor Jiri Dvorak, the chief medical officer of football’s world governing body, presented his findings from the tournament to a meeting of the Fifa referees committee yesterday and they reveal that more than half the players who were treated on the pitch during matches were not injured at all.

Although they suggest that cheating is endemic among the elite nations and pinpointed “tactical reasons” as the most likely cause of the players’ actions, there was no indication whether players or coaches were to blame.

“Fifty-eight per cent of the players who were treated on the pitch during the 2006 World Cup eventually turned out not to be injured,” a statement from the committee read.

So there you have it. Let's hope FIFA can figure out a way to cut down on this type of gamesmanship or the 2010 World Cup may be just as painful to watch as this year's model.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 07:17 PM | Permalink

It's been a few days since the tournament ended so it seems like a good time to look back at the World Cup, now that we can look at it with a bit more perspective. Granted, five days of perspective is not a large amount, but it's more than I had yesterday...

First off, who knew that the feel-good story of the World Cup would be Germany? Unlike Italy, Germany actually followed through on their promises of playing an attack-minded game. Their players raced up and down the field with zeal, taking the game to their opponents with enthusiasm. They scored four in the curtain raiser and a pair in the first 15 minutes against a shocked Sweden in the Round of 16. Their tournament was summed up by the play of Bastian Schweinsteiger in the third place game, who pounded the Portugal net with two brilliant long-range goals, displaying the kind of carefree confidence that the whole country enjoyed by the time the final rolled around. (Yes, the Rising Pig lived up to his name... by rising to the occasion)

Off the field, Germany amazed as well. While the phrase "German hospitality" must sound like an oxymoron to most people, it will recall fond memories for those of us who were lucky enough to be there. Our favorite city was Frankfurt, which is ironic because we received some odd looks from natives of Köln when we explained that Frankfurt was our next stop. The impression we got was that they felt Frankfurt was too modern and not "German" enough for their tastes. Maybe we were lucky to stay in the beautiful Sachsenhausen district, just across the river from the central city, but Frankfurt (or at least that part of it) felt very contemporary and friendly, even by California standards. It didn't hurt that we had some outstanding meals there, either, at Lokalbahnhof (where the salads were a joy, particularly after a week of pork saturation, and don't miss their delicious home-made noodles), the India Palace (thanks again for the mango liqueur—the Madras curry was mind-blowingly spicy but fabulous), and Erdapfel (we never would have guessed that a potato-themed restaurant could offer such culinary joy). There was also a West African restaurant in the noisy, old-style section of the Sachsenhausen that offered a great meal. Oh, and if anyone is listening and interested, we would highly recommend the Hotel Maingau—it's not fancy but it was everything we asked for, quiet and comfortable.

I've complained about the gamesmanship at this Cup but there were also some amazing moments. Germany provided a bunch, as mentioned above. The 24-pass goal engineered by Argentina against Serbia & Montenegro was breathtaking and is probably my favorite goal of the tournament. (Here's a version with Spanish commentary as well.) Maxi Rodriguez's stunning extra-time volley that pushed Argentina past Mexico is also amazing, and check out this version with commentary from Radio Argentina. As for great goals that weren't scored by Argentina, Thierry Henry's volley against Brazil comes to mind, and as a USA fan, Clint Dempsey's emphatic goal against Ghana was an overdue thrill.

When we were still in Germany, a friend of mine asked how I was enjoying my first World Cup on foreign soil. My answer surprised me a bit—I told him that I was having a good time but that in many ways, it's easier to watch the games at home. You don't have to endure long, sometimes hot train rides or, if you're not going to a game in person, trek down to the public viewing area or find a friendly bar; you just head for the TV and voila, 64 games in uncrowded comfort. Plus, it's a strange thing to travel thousands of miles to get somewhere and then spend four hours a day (or more...) watching TV. For someone like me who typically travels off-season to avoid crowds and high prices, I concluded, it doesn't make a lot of sense to do this. Besides, as someone who has hit his forties (or perhaps I should say my forties have hit me), the whole beer, soccer, and endless parties thing gets old surprisingly quickly. (Especially if it's taking place outside your hotel window at 3 am, as we experienced a bit in Köln.)

There's another side to it, though. We struck up more conversations with strangers in Germany in 10 days than we do at home in a year, and the general conviviality of the event meant that they were usually happy to talk to us, too. (Sometimes too happy, but you learn quickly to avoid the packs of English fans if you can see they've been drinking. It's pretty easy—if they've been awake for more than an hour, chances are they've had a beer.)

So, if you go to a World Cup, have your beers and party like the trophy is destined to be yours. But make sure you take the opportunity to say hello to the other people who've come from all around the Earth to be there. That's where the real magic of the World Cup lies.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 06:19 PM | Permalink

So, now we know the answer—it's Italy that takes home the trophy. I hope they enjoy it.

To me, though, this will be the World Cup that collapsed under its own weight. Maybe it was FIFA's last-minute recommendations to referees to card at will; maybe it was the players' willingness to engage in gamesmanship at every opportunity, enhanced by the knowledge that it was easier than ever to get an opponent booked; but this year's tournament for me will always be tainted by those willing to seek any advantage they could, even if it really had nothing to do with playing soccer.

The final proved itself to be a great microcosm of the whole tournament. There was gamesmanship on both sides, starting with an early dive that led to a penalty kick for France. Italy proved to be much better at it, as is their habit and inclination. (It's no coincidence that the largest clubs in SerIe A are facing an enormous match-fixing scandal; cheating is part and parcel of the game there.) I wonder if we will ever learn what Materazzi said to Zidane that led the French captain to retaliate with a head butt? It's a shame that a player with a legacy as great as Zidane's will be capped by that moment of idiocy, as he charged like a bull into Materazzi's chest. Tragic.

It is a sad fact that people are so frequently willing to bend their own rules and disregard common decency when tempted with a large enough prize. Some players on both teams today showed that they considered the World Cup a prize worthy of that all-too-human failing.

I don't expect to hear sound philosophical admonitions from shoe company ad agencies but perhaps Nike had it right: please, for the sake of the game, Play Beautiful. Today was not beautiful.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 02:43 PM | Permalink

So, France and Italy are all that are left standing and Sunday we find out who wins the World Cup this time around. Everyone has been impressed with France's play of late, particularly their performance against Brazil that limited the defending champs to only a few chances at goal.

Soccer is a subtle sport, though, and we've got a perfect example of that now. For all their dominant play of late, France hasn't scored a goal from the run of play for two matches. (Their last goal that didn't come off a PK or a free kick was Zidane's late insurance tally against Spain; Vieira's game-winner in that match also came off a free kick.)

Statistically, this has been the lowest-scoring World Cup since the 1990 edition and it certainly seems true from observation as well. Teams are stingy, preferring to sit back and defend rather than sending the hordes forward to crash the opponent's net. (Does this say something about the world's mood right now? Probably so—in times of uncertainty, people have a tendency to protect what's theirs rather than try to expand their creative realm.) It's likely that Sunday's final will continue the defensive trend, considering the results that both teams have put up so far. Neutral fans should hope for an early goal to open things up, but the game should be fascinating in any case.

I've avoided making predictions in the blog thus far but I have a sneaking suspicion it may be Italy's year. I'll be pulling for France, though, in hopes that they can send Zinedine Zidane into his retirement in the most dramatic way possible. I really don't want Italy to win but if they do, I'll be able to console myself with the idea that the only goal they conceded through six games was against the U.S.

That would be a sad consolation, however. Allez les Bleus!

Posted by Jay Hipps at 11:55 AM | Permalink

One of the truisms about the World Cup is that European teams tend to win the tournaments held in Europe while South American teams tend to win those held in the Americas.

With the increasing globalization of soccer (European coaches leading non-European teams, South Americans playing their club soccer in Europe, etc.), I thought the conventional wisdom might be tested this year in Germany.

Apparently not. We've got four teams left and they're all from the continent. (Although, to be fair, there is a twist this year: Brazilian Felipe Scolari is coaching Portugal.)

Posted by Jay Hipps at 02:27 PM | Permalink

I've discovered since my return to the U.S. that one of the best things about being out of the country for World Cup is that you don't have to endure the American announcers employed by ESPN who, despite their best efforts, come off as idiots. (Actually, that's more true of the lead duo, Dave O'Brien and Marcelo Balboa, than it is of JP Dellacamera and John Harkes. But I digress...)

I don't want to get into just why ESPN's coverage is so bad; that topic is being covered on blogs all over the place and even at Salon.com. I will instead offer a moment of brilliance from Univision's announcers today, just after Jens Lehmann stopped his second PK and sent Germany through to the semifinals:

¡El alemán! ¡Lehmann! ¡El alemán! ¡Lehmann!

In Spanish, "el alemán" is "the German" and the last two syllables of "alemán" are pronounced the same as "Lehmann," but with the accent on different syllables, so the whole thing was quite poetic. He continued on that theme by shouting, "Yes! Jens! Yes! Jens!"

Inspired.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Anytime there's failure in a high-profile setting, it doesn't take long for the knives to come out so that blame can be assigned and excuses carved into the chosen scapegoat.

For the U.S. National Team, there are already a number of strong contenders in the scapegoat derby. I've heard blame placed on the ref; on Bruce Arena; on the players; on FIFA, for seeding only eight teams instead of all 32; and on MLS, for not providing a competitive enough environment to develop young talent. I'm sure that there are more that I'm forgetting.

The sad fact of it is that if only a few small things had gone our way, we U.S. fans would have been cheering as the team went through to the second round. It's the nature of the World Cup, though, to make every moment, every unexpected bounce of the ball, something that we relive, analyze, and re-analyze endlessly in hopes of solving something that can't be solved. Things went our way in 2002 and they didn't in 2006.

That's not to say that the team's results were simply a matter of luck. As Obi-Wan Kenobi said in the first Star Wars film (er, fourth, I guess), 'In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.' I will stand on that same, seemingly invisible platform, and say that the U.S. didn't do enough to create its own luck in this tournament.

Continue reading "U.S.A. suffered from a failure of imagination" »

Posted by Jay Hipps at 08:54 AM | Permalink

"Sometimes the blood has got to run red." - Thomas Haden Church

That is a quote from the Jay Leno show tonight, June 21, the eve of the last Round Robin game for the USA in the group stage. An appropriate rallying cry for USA Soccer fans on a night full of nerves, butterflies, and anticipation.

1, 2, 3, 4
The numbers tell the story for for the US team in this year's World Cup.

Continue reading "Sometimes the blood has got to run RED" »

Posted by Miss Charlie at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

USA fans weren't waiting for the match to start to begin their vocal support of the team. It continued all night...

Finally—the team I recognize as mine showed up on Saturday night to challenge Italy. I fully expected to get at least one point out of this game and I suppose that was the best we could hope for under the circumstances—those circumstances being, of course, that the referee would send off three players in the game. It just goes to show that it's not only the players who can buckle under the pressure of a World Cup.

The match was also interesting from another perspective. One of the reasons I wanted to create this blog was to provide a snapshot of U.S. supporters, to show that people here get the sport and that our own soccer culture is growing. I also wanted to see where the bulk of U.S. supporters outside the groups I associate with were coming from, what they were like, and how they expressed their support. This match, in many ways, provided me with that snapshot.

An interesting thing happened before the game. A group of U.S. supporters started singing a melody I've only heard before at college gridiron games. I won't try to duplicate it here in text but I remember hearing it in Ann Arbor at Michigan games in the early 80's, a series of notes that repeated three times, leapt to a flourishing finish, and ended with an emphatic chant of "Let's go Blue!" I know lots of U.S. supporters who have been wracking their brains trying to come up with simple songs that we can do and here was one that everyone already knew and was uniquely American. That was the first time the light bulb went on that night.

The second was a chant that grew in response to gamesmanship from the Italian players and is one I also heard first at college football games in response to bad calls from the referee. It's simply "bullshit," shouted rhythmically over and over, and it was cathartic to be able to state plainly what Italy has been doing for years. That was light bulb number two.

Here's the thing: In many ways, we've spent years imitating things we've seen in England or other European countries, adapting songs slightly for our own uses. But these two chants last night were born and raised in the U.S., and I'm reasonably certain that a Uruguayan referee or a diving Italian midfielder has never had 20,000 people chanting "bullshit" at him before. It's loud, blunt, and a little rude, but what the hell? We're Americans. Our soccer culture is growing and last night, it took a big step.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 11:41 AM | Permalink

The public viewing area in Frankfurt provides a 144 square meter screen to fans on both the north and south banks of the Main river. (If you don't have a conversion program handy, that's over 1,550 square feet.)

There are lots of teams are getting good support here—some friends and I who attended South Korea/Togo on Tuesday estimated that 25,000 Korea fans made it into the Frankfurt stadium for that match—but there's nothing to compare with the enthusiasm that the host country is showing for their team. Two different places I visited for last night's Germany/Poland thriller show the depth of the German fans' support.

Continue reading "Frankfurt fiesta and the Rising Pig" »

Posted by Jay Hipps at 12:38 AM | Permalink

The Day After a loss is always hard - whether it is nursing the hangover from consuming bier or facing the harsh reality of your own feelings of anger, betrayal and disappointment. Such a day has it been for the American soccer fan.

After a public volley of criticisms and finger-pointing by Il Bruce and several members of the USA starting XI yesterday, Bruce Arena stood before the world's media and told them it was all his fault.

I ran the gamut of emotions on this one and spent the better part of my morning apologizing to my European co-workers for our horrible performance. They were kind, saying that we didn't play badly (ha!) and that the Czech's are number 2 in the world.

As lunch time approached our attention turned to the matches between France / Switzerland and Brazil / Croatia. Many of our office are from France so they, of course, chose to watch this match-up during their lunch hour.

However, the Brits, our one Mexican and I opted for a late lunch and a much needed dose of joga bonito. Brazil did not disappoint and played well enough to replace the bitter after taste of the USA loss with a sense of wonder.

Kaka, Ronaldhino, Roberto Carlos - the sound of their names alone evoke excitement.

Thank You Brazil!
My faith in the beautiful game has been restored!

Posted by Miss Charlie at 09:23 PM | Permalink

American fans pack the plaza outside Gelsenkirchen's main train station.

So what's the difference between FIFA's second-ranked team and their fifth-ranked team? Three. As in, three to nothing, the result that the USA had to choke down last night in Gelsenkirchen.

Continue reading "Not with a bang" »

Posted by Jay Hipps at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It is the USA's turn to take to the field today against the mighty Czech Republic. I am so glad today is finally here!

The big question over here in the states is "Where are you watching the US game?" Astoundingly, the answer is anywhere they have a TV and ESPN2 or Univision. Long lunches are de rigeur among soccer fans this month, and it is key to find the location nearest your workplace so that your entire time is spent watching the game and not driving around lost.

I will be watching from the stadium cub of my local soccer stadium - Pizza Hut Park. It was a fairly easy choice for me as I took the entire day off so that I could immerse myself in the beautiful game.

Continue reading "Watching Parties back in the States" »

Posted by Miss Charlie at 10:02 PM | Permalink

All right, I hear you saying, enough with the atmosphere—how about a first-hand report of a game? We at WAATF aim to please and, hey, we were lucky enough to acquire a pair of tickets to the Sweden/Trinidad and Tobago match held last night in Dortmund. So, here's the scoop.

Continue reading "Trinidad... Tobago!" »

Posted by Jay Hipps at 02:52 AM | Permalink

The last two days I got to experience the World Cup in the two different ways I plan on spending the next month.

During the week, I will be having to track the games on the computer while trying to be quite. On weekends, I will be at my local soccer bar with other supporters as I sip coffee and enjoy the action.

Needless to say, I prefer the latter.

I know that a lot of you who are unlucky to not to be in Germany are recording the matches to watch at night, while trying to avoid results. I am not like that. I just can't wait for six or so hours so I can catch the match. So, my plan has been to watch the match tracker of the games, then catching them at night when I get home, where three games will be waiting on my DVR.

The only problem I had was which match tracker to use? I decided to try the one on the FIFA World Cup website at first and found it to be pretty boring. Not a lot of details of the German-Costa Rica match but it did have a chat feature. In a smart move, they made sure that all comments on the chat were legit before they were posted, or else we would have a lot of spam and desperate guys looking for women in Brixton and Boseman.

I then decided to try out the Fox Soccer website. They had even less descriptions of the play, but there did have a cool little gadget where they showed, via animations, where the shots were taking place and the result. Still, I was not satisfied.

But, I then remembered the place where I always go to track the big European matches and they were doing the same for the World Cup. The Guardian's tracker is just a reporter recapping the match with a lot of snark while answering the best of the emails the writer gets during the match. I used them for the Ecuador-Poland match as the guy mocked the Polish midfield play while there was a long discussion on an Iranian supporter driving through London with his nation's flags flying around the vehicle and that the UK embassy in Teheran is located on Bobby Sands Street.

Of course, the hardest thing to do while doing this is to make sure you look like you are actually working. One of my bosses, who thinks I am a lazy guy (even though he doesn't give me anything to do), would flip if he saw me doing this. Knowing my luck, he would make me do some bizarre task as a punishment, like wash the tarp in his SUV (he actually has done this to me. By the way, if you know of a Chicago company that needs a guy who has writing and customer service skills, please email me at this address.)

When I got home on Friday, I watched both matches before going out to play in a pickup game at an indoor soccer center. The Germany win over Costa Rica was a fine start to the tournament, while Poland should be packing their bags, as they will be going home in another week.

This morning, I went down to my favorite soccer bar here in Chicago, The Globe Pub. Even thought the first match, England vs. Paraguay, was kicking off at 8:00am Chicago time, I had to get up at 5, since the bar said that they would be showing a rugby match between England and Australia and it was easy to assume the Brits who came in would stick around for the other form of football that morning.

So, after spending time shaking the cobwebs out of my head and getting the cat fed (who lets off one of the most evil sounds ever heard when he demands his food), I got on my bike and road in a cold shower down to the bar. Considering this is typical british weather, the atmosphere was pretty perfect for watching and England match.

When I got there, I had a minor shock. Turns out, the rugby match was taking place on Sunday morning. Too late to turn back, but there were a lot of spots open to sit down. So, for the next two hours, I spent the time drinking coffee to keep awake and talked with people I knew.

By the time the kickoff time came for the first match of the day, The place was packed with people to the point where they had people lined up half a block waiting to get in, a long wait it turned out since the bar was stuffed to capacity. In addition to the large contingent of England fans, there were some people that have Chicago Fire connections, including injured defender Jim Curtin, who lives around the corner from the pub, and former GM Peter Wilt, who is a frequent visitor to the bar.

Except for the own goal early in the match, the crowd was not all that loud and boisterous compared to past World Cups that I have watched at bars. Maybe it was the combination of the weather, the time of day or the fact that England played some piss poor soccer that kept the enthusiasm down. It was more like watching Wigan and Birmingham City playing instead of a World Cup match.

As time was running out, I had to leave the bar and go to a Starbucks temporarily so I could do a brief interview on a local internet show hosted by one of my friends. I talked about the World Cup for 10 minutes and pimped my website as well, before heading back for some breakfast while waiting for the second match.

There was still a decent crowd in the bar as Trinidad and Sweden kicked off, but everyone just assumed that the Swedes would romp to victory. That didn't happen as Shaka Hislop had the game of his life to secure a point for T&T in their World Cup debut.

After that match, I had to head home to get some housework done and watched the Argentian-Ivory Coast match. While the former world champions got the win, the Ivory Coast gave them quite a battle, a sign that Group C is going to be a dogfight before its all said and done. Should be interesting to see how Serbia and Holland turns out tomorrow.

Sunday is going to be a big day for us here in Chicago. Mexico will face Iran, and I will be in the bar again, rooting for the Iranians while hoping that nobody accuses me of hating America for doing that. Then its off to Bridgeview, as the Fire play their first ever match at Toyota Park.

The World Cup is on and as far as I am concerned, life is sweet right now.

Posted by Bill Quigley at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Please enjoy the brass band playing outside your hotel window.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 02:49 AM | Permalink

One of the worst things about World Cup is that it's really hard to follow it from work, especially if you aren't working from a sports bar.

So, for all you folks bemoaning your ability to take a 2 hour lunch after arriving to work 'a bit late', here are a few possible alternatives: (if you can get it through the firewall)

TVUPlayer.zip - download and install, then watch the games by clicking on the channel you want from the list of channels (ESPN2).

Or try ESPN 360

XM Satellite Radio will be broadcasting in the US. Your English voice will be Phil Schoen, and Spanish will be Andres Cantor. While FiFA has clamped down on no internet streaming of the games in English, there are several sites with non-stop discussion that is almost like commentary.

Check out Soccer Audio it is a site you will want to bookmark for future reference!

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Do you have any good links to share?
Post 'em in the comments!

Posted by Miss Charlie at 08:00 PM | Permalink

Greetings readers. The World Cup kicks off today and I thought it would be a good time to answer reader mail using a time honored (if completely irrelevant) metaphor like "mailbag."

Scott writes, "As things develop, indicate which upcoming games are of interest to you and why."

This is a very good question and one that gets to the root of what it is to be a soccer fan. To answer it, though, we need to put the World Cup in the proper context.

Continue reading "WAATF mailbag: Matches to Watch" »

Posted by Jay Hipps at 11:43 AM | Permalink

wOOt!

I work at a software development company and, like many high tech establishments, we have a great deal deal of cultural diversity. It helps that we have offices in England, France, Holland, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil.

Several times in the past week concerned project managers have come to me to get the WC schedule. They are concerned about the impact the WC will have on the availabilty of certain members of their teams. And the savvy project managers are also concerned about the outcome of the games and its affect on morale.

Meanwhile, many (but not all) of the Americans are somehow unaware. But working here has opened up whole new worlds to them - World Cup chatter is unavoidable in our office.

Only yesterday five or six of us were hanging around this one guy's desk - envious of his upcoming vacation plans because he is going to Germany for the World Cup - when the conversation turned to "Who do you think will win?" The usual suspects were mentioned: Brazil, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Brazil, Brazil, Italy, England (the Brit kept saying he was serious, Eng-er-land was taking the cup. )

To our surprise a couple of non-soccer types spoke up and started asking questions - how many teams, how often is World Cup, who is on the teams, how do they pick the teams, etc. One guy confessed that he didn't even know that the US played soccer until he started working with us. Then one of the managers asked how we all 'knew' Brazil was most likely to win, and was this the 1st World Cup the US will be in.

Just then one of the guys from Pakistan - land of Cricket - walked by. We stopped him and asked "Who's going to win the World Cup?" - Brazil was the unhesitating response. "Who are you cheering for?" Saudi Arabia.

The conversation quickly turned to discussions of where to watch the games. Then the plans for long lunches, and finally, could we set up a TV over by the developers area?

LINKS

Have you heard that broadcasts will be available in several languages right here in the US?
Checkout Dish Networks for details.

The Guardian - a UK review
http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2006/comment/story/0%2C%2C1786908%2C00.html

Brian Ching- US National Team Player - has a blog site.
http://blogs.chron.com/brianching

Rock The Crossbar blog -
http://rockthecrossbar.blogspot.com/

Chicago Sun has an article about Soccer transcending sport - preach on brother!
http://www.suntimes.com/output/telander/cst-spt-rick07.html

Stop the madness - England is getting all PC about flags
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006250446,00.html

Posted by Miss Charlie at 07:50 PM | Permalink

WAATF reader Sherri Weiss found this photo online of a giant USA jersey which was displayed next to the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford from May 27-30. It's 80 feet across and 71 feet tall. Well done, Nike—let's see that baby in Germany, too! You should be able to find the full story here.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 01:19 PM | Permalink

Brendan Hunt, as part of the duo Ralph and Rolf of the German Organizing Committee, onstage at Boom Chicago with a prop provided by yours truly.

One of the recommendations I received from literally everybody I talked to about what to do in Amsterdam was to check out Boom Chicago, an improv/comedy group that has roots in the same Chicago scene that created Second City and Chicago City Limits. When I saw that Boom Chicago was featuring a special show in their 300-seat theater called “Kick This: A World Cup Comedy with Balls” and that it featured two of my fellow Americans talking soccer, I knew I had to be there.

With the tournament opener less than 48 hours away, it was a great way to set the mood. The show features Brendan Hunt, an American performer who has a solid grasp of both the sport and world soccer culture, and Jon Rosenfeld, who plays an American who knows nothing about the game. (Rosenfeld is aided in his performance by the fact that, in reality, he knows nothing about the game.) The contrast in soccer awareness between the two provides a lot of laughs, as does their knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of the inhabitants of various European countries. Their performance also provided some insight into what must be a truism of Dutch comedy: It’s impossible to spend too much time making fun of Germans.

I won't go into the details of the show since seeing them do their act is undoubtedly more funny than hearing me retell it. If you're going to be in Amsterdam during the tournament, go see them—they've even got some performances lined up on game days for a powerful comedy/World Cup on the big screen combo. Hunt will also be doing a daily video blog during the tournament—there's a preview online here.

After the show, I had a chance to catch up with the two performers. Hunt really is a huge fan of the game and told me that he would be at the USA’s games in Germany, courtesy of tickets from former Ajacieden John O’Brien. Nice to have connections! If you see him, say hello—he'll be the one trying to teach the players' families some proper soccer songs so they don't have to chant "USA! USA!"

Below, Boom Chicago may have discovered a way to get men to hit the urinal every time.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So there we were in Amsterdam at the Adidas store on the Leidestraat. I was looking at some of their World Cup stuff—a Holland shirt with “TOTAL FOOTBALL” on the back had caught my eye—and the same rack had an England shirt with the words “Pickles—The Dog Who Saved the Cup” and a line drawing of a terrier with the World Cup trophy in his mouth. I was explaining to my wife that Pickles was the dog who found the trophy after it had been stolen and then abandoned before the ’66 cup.

Meanwhile, my wife pointed out a young clerk, whom I hadn’t noticed, who was repeatedly addressing me in Dutch. I turned to him and said hello in English and he quickly switched languages to ask if he could help me. “No thanks,” I said. “I’m just looking.”

He was momentarily stunned. “Wait—are you American? And you know the story of Pickles?” I said yes to both questions. “Are you a soccer fan?” He continued to seem stunned, which I guess made it a long moment.

I pulled the end of the Brucesliga scarf off from under my coat (thank you, Rick Brennan, for your fabulous creation) and assured him that yes, there are American soccer fans. We had a very pleasant conversation after that. He even knew that the US was in a group with the Czech Republic, Italy, and Ghana.

Sad to say, he’s been a bit of an anomaly over here. I spoke to a woman in England who was sure that the U.S. had absolutely no chance of doing anything in the tournament (that’s what Portugal thought in 2002, I told her), a man in Amsterdam who guessed that we had a lot of naturalized citizens on the team because not that many people play in the U.S. (none this time, thanks), and an otherwise pleasant Amsterdammer say that he thought it was mainly a girl’s sport in the U.S. (I had to remind him that John O’Brien, who did quite well for the U.S. in 2002 and was on the team again this year, played in this very town for Ajax). The last man and I now talk about soccer, so he's coming around, too.

I'm a bit surprised that more people weren't paying attention to our great run in 2002. Similarly, it seems that only the hard core fans know that we finished at the top in CONCACAF qualifying, ahead of Mexico (who seem to get much more respect over here). It will be interesting to see the attitude in Germany, where everyone will have been watching the 2002 quarterfinal. It seems so far, though, that the only way to win the respect of other footballing nations is to beat them in a big tournament. Let's hope we pull it off again this year.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 01:58 AM | Permalink

These items are not strictly World Cup related but I figure that someone will someday pop the right search words into Google and, voila, they will find some useful information here.

I’ll start with a London hotel tip. Hotels here are expensive. If you search through the normal channels, you’ll be looking at $150 a night, easy, and probably more than that. (The brutal exchange rate doesn’t make the situation any better.) My five nights at the London Hilton Kensington cost me a grand total of just under $400, though, including taxes and everything else.

How did I do it? I used two web sites: Priceline and BiddingforTravel.com. Priceline is, of course, William Shatner’s favorite travel site, where you name your own price for hotels, air fare, and other travel items. Bidding for Travel is a Priceline users’ forum where people compare notes, bidding strategies, and results. Start there to find out what prices other users have been able to get for hotels in the area you’re interested in and devise your bidding strategy. My winning bid for my stay in London was $66 a night, so obviously it’s possible to get some pretty amazing results.

Now then, onto other topics. London is one of the cultural wonders of the world and offers some truly memorable experiences if you find yourself in the right theater on the right night. My wife and I bagged a pair of these over our last two nights here.

Rock ‘n’ Roll is a new play by Tom Stoppard that is currently in a short run at a tiny theater—er, theatre—on Sloane Square prior to a larger opening elsewhere in London. Stoppard is probably best known to Americans as being the author of the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love, an Academy Award winner from a few years back, but he has written a number of plays over the years and the stage seems to be his true calling. I won’t try to write a synopsis of the play’s plot because I know that any attempt would reduce the play’s epic scope to a two-dimensional caricature. Suffice to say that this is one of Stoppard’s best works yet and his exploration of the relative contributions of musicians and political leaders to human progress is thought-provoking and insightful. The play is also very funny in spots, and Stoppard reminds me of Nick Hornby in this regard. Both are not afraid to include both hilarious and painfully serious moments in the same work, which makes both ends of that spectrum ring truer. Highly recommended.

Speaking of hilarity, long-time viewers of Comedy Central may remember a show called “Whose Line is it Anyway,” an improv comedy show that originally aired in Britain. Many of the performers from the show are still at it, performing twice weekly at The Comedy Store in London. This is not a case of reliving past glories, either— the Comedy Store Players are funnier than ever. Exactly who of the Players will be performing changes a bit from night to night, depending on their outside projects, but you’ll usually get either Josie Lawrence or Paul Merton in the mix. When we ordered our tickets for last night’s show way back in March, we knew that neither of those two would be there but we were hopeful that the “special guest” performer that was promised on their web site would really be special. Turns out he was— Eddie Izzard sat in with them last night. We’re still smiling.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 11:34 PM | Permalink

As we all make last minute preparations for the trip abroad this week, a reminder to take time to cherish the times in Germany. Make friends (some of the great supporters in the world will be there from Brazil, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Engerland and many others). Enjoy the culture, and represent your country with respect and honor.

As much as our football has come in 16 years since Italia 1990, so has it's support. Show the football world and everyone at home that supporters of US Soccer can have the passion of the great supporters from around the world. Sing your hearts out for 90 minutes, dress proudly in red , white, blue, bring flags, scarfs and banners and show respect to other footballing nations ( Mexico too? : ) Lets give the players and Bruce all the support we can and be a true 12th man. Remember how far we have come in this short time on the pitch and in the stands taking great pride in that and where we go from here.
Prost, Big_Dog
Fan of the beautiful game
Proud supporter of US Soccer

Posted by Grosser Hund at 07:48 PM | Permalink

(London, June 3) I had no sooner finished reporting that the English seemed inordinately quiet about their World Cup hopes than I found someone who felt strongly that this was their year and wasn’t afraid to tell people about it.

“If you don’t believe in your team, why bother?” he told me. His name was Mal and he was selling t-shirts emblazoned with his original designs at the Portobello Road market. In addition to shirts with positive messages picturing luminaries ranging from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the Dalai Lama, he’s got a special World Cup shirt that he’s selling now.

The artwork is taken from a famous photo of England’s 1966 squad celebrating their World Cup victory. He’s modified it so that it shows David Beckham holding the trophy and the teammates in the photo are now anonymous, with a question mark over their faces. There is a date—July 9, 2006, the date of this year’s final—and a single word: Believe.

He explained that he thought it was important to hope for good results, reasoning that you have to dream big dreams to achieve big results. He genuinely thinks that England can do it, although he realizes that it’s not a sure thing.

“If they don’t win, well, at least I’ve sold a few shirts. But if they do win,” he added, grinning, “I’m a genius.”

If you’d like to order a shirt direct from the artist, Mal can be reached via e-mail here. Having seen them in person, I can tell you that they’re high-quality—the shirts are from American Apparel and the artwork has been applied with a craftsman’s care.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Germany '06 will be the seventh World Cup that I will have seen in some part or the other in my lifetime. After looking at that first sentence I just grew a few more gray hairs.

It's pretty amazing to me how the World Cup and soccer in the US has grown between Espana '82 to today. We have gone from a failing league and limited english-language coverage 24 years ago to all matches in HD, a league that continues to improve each year and a press that is maybe catching onto the sport in this country.

I wish I could be in Germany, but its probably a good thing I'm not because as a beer snob, I would be in a near drunk state the entire time Ip was there as I tried every beer possible, meaning I wouldn't remember too much of the games. So, I will have to do like the rest of you guys are doing: watching the matches either at home or at the local bar or pub.

For my first post on WAATF, I would like to tap into the memories of each of the tournaments I have seen and how my love for the game has grown during that time.

Spain '82: I knew of the game already, but I was a casual fan at most at the time. The Chicago Sting were the reigning NASL champions (first Chicago sports title in my lifetime), but being I was stuck living in the far north suburbs and liviing with parents who thought my interest in soccer was another sign that I wanted to be English rather that American meant that I had to listen to Sting games on the radio.

I didn't see too many games in this tournament. Most of the matches I saw were on ABC's Wide World of Sports, which were providing weekend coverage of the tournament. At the time, my parents were running a flea market and I had the job of collecting the admission money, so I remember sitting at my little card table, bored to tears, watching Italy win the cup final.

Mexico '86: First World Cup where I made the effort to watch some of the matches. Most of them I watched on spanish-language TV (with all the name changes of those networks over the years, I can't even remember who did cover the World Cup that year. That was my introduction to Cantor's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAALLLL!, of England's bad luck on the world stage and the beginning of rooting against Mexico.

That year, NBC had the rights to the World Cup and they were showed several games on the weekend, with commercials regularly interrupting the coverage of the match. Imagine how spoiled we are now that we can enjoy a full match without one ad disrupting the flow.

I also lost my first soccer bet that year. A guy I worked with at Sears bet me on the Final and I went against Maradona and Argentina. Lost $20 bucks on the match.

Italy '90: Of course the interest level was big for me since the United States made the finals for the first time in 40 years. I was still living at home at the time and I got my parents to let me watch the US-Trinidad match on the lone TV that had cable in the house.

Soccer was still a bit of a mystery to me but I was starting to get to know a bit of the sport and some of the names on the US team. I saw some of the US friendlies on TV and started to know names like Harkes and Balboa, but the sport was still low on my radar, especially being a Chicago guy who was addicted to Michael Jordan and the Bulls, who were putting the final pieces in place to begin their dynasty run.

TBS was doing World Cup coverage this time for those who were spanish-challenged, so I was watching most of the games on that channel. I remember waking up late on the day the US played the Czechs and when I got the TV on, I saw the US was already down 1-0. It was pretty much a wake-up call for this newbie about how far US Soccer was going to need to go before they could even hope to win one game in the tournament.

USA '94: To me, this was my first real World Cup. It was the first one where I watched the tournament from beginning to end and it was the only one to date where I got to see matches in person.

When Chicago was announced as one of the venues for the tournament, I decided I wanted to volunteer, not because of the hope I could get into the games for free but to help build civic pride here in the city. I was accepted and assigned to food services. Not a glamorous job but the best perk was that we got finished early and could go into Soldier Field to watch the matches. That way I got to see the Bulgaria-Greece and Germany-Belgium matches in their entirety. Both games were packed with people but my biggest memory of those two matches were watching the small Bulgarian contingent celebrating their win while the Greeks, who were the majority in the stadium, were silent as they saw their side get destroyed in front of their eyes.

Of course, the opening day of the tournament was pushed to the background in the media as OJ Simpson went missing after having a warrant issued for his arrest in the murder of his ex-wife. I had taped the Germany-Boliva match and the game was interrupted by updates on what was going on with OJ. By the time the Bronco finally stopped and OJ surrendered that night, we added another checkmark to the reasons why the rest of the world thinks we are a weird lot.

France '98: By this time, I am on the way to becoming a soccer fanatic. The Fire were playing their inaugural season and I was going when I could. But, at the same time, my relationship with my fiancee was falling apart and by the time the tournament kicked off we had broken up.

Needless to say it was a miserable summer for me and Soccer was a good way to distract me from all the pain I was dealing with at the time. So, I dived right in and watched as much games as I could, either at my apartment or at the bar. It didn't totally distract me from what was going on in my life, but it offered me a way to forget my troubles for a couple of hours.

My two biggest memories of that tournament were the US loss to Iran (a great disappointment to all of us in the bar that day) and the final a couple of weeks later as France began their run as best team in the world with their dominating win over Brazil.

After that, soccer became permanent in my mindset and it was welded in there permanently when the Fire achieved the Double that fall. By that point, the game wasn't a way to get away from my problems, rather it was my new passion.

Japan/Korea '02: Four years on and I am running a soccer news site with almost no experience with high hopes that I could do this professionally someday. This was a year where I was trying to convince the Fire that I was legit and should get press box access, but they would only let me in the locker room after the games in Naperville. To be fair, they probably were right to do it. I had to serve a year in the stands, doing the best I could to cover the games, before I got into the press box the next year.

June, 2002 was the Month of No Sleep for myself. I was working nights at a publishing company, making edits to financial documents and being trained as a desktop publisher. On top of it, the job was on the other side of town, so I had a brutal commute home every night. By the time I got off work , I was pretty tired, but I would go either to a bar or home and watch the World Cup before getting a couple hours of sleep so I could go back to work.

It was the tournament of upsets, but to me it was the first evidence that the rest of the world was catching up with the traditional powers, thanks to the continuing process of globalization. Still, it was pretty insane to see South Korea make their run to the semi-finals, something that I doubt they can do again this year.

Of course, this was the month the US made their great run as well, kicked off with their win over Portugal. When the final whistle blew in that game, I was in tears as I felt that the US had made the breakthrough in the international game they needed. Of course, that was only the beginning of the roller coaster ride we fans of the Nats would go through, from the high of beating Mexico to the lows of losing to Poland and Germany. In the end, though, we were all proud of our boys and our future look pretty darn bright.

So, now we are less than a week before the start of this year's finals and I am ready for it. My DVR is set to record every match so I will have them waiting for me when I get home. My pub, The Globe, will show all the matches and will repeat them at night, so I can avoid the results at work and catch the matches either there or at home. On top of it, the US has their strongest team in history and I think they should make a good accounting of themselves, even if they can't survive the tough draw they were given.

I'm ready for some new memories and I hope to be telling them to the people I meet when I am in South Africa in four years, watching, hopefully, the US make it all the way to the finals of the tournament.

Posted by Bill Quigley at 06:15 AM | Permalink

While right now most US fans are either euphoric about the upcoming World Cup or sweating like dogs wondering if we can pull out a point or three against the Czechs, most US soccer fans have to put up with a lot of frustration about the general lack of support and recognition that the sport gets in the US. Around this time every four years, we hear a chorus from the old-school, baseball-centric, soccer-hating, US sports media about how no one in the US cares about soccer (who is that shithead anyway).

Posted by Mark Wheeler at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hi everyone,

I'm proud to be joining Jay on this expedition we're calling World Cup 2006. It's funny, I'm 4 days away from making my first World Cup trip and all I can think about are the mundane things. Are the cats fed? Did the bills go out? Did I check all the faucets? Is the refrigerator running? Oh it is? Crap, I better catch it. And, who dropped off all these cats anyway?

Which brings me to the serious point of my participation with this site, to ramble on and on from time to time about my experiences involving the competition. So let me give this the quick rundown then.

1. This is my first World Cup, live in person as I'm sure it will be for many. Let's all remember to have fun and represent our country in the best way possible. Be courteous to your fellow travelers, wherever they may have come from, and your hosts. Give max respect, you should get max respect.

2. This is a vacation. Try to keep that in mind if your bag gets lost or your drink order is messed up or your food isn't exactly what you wanted.

3. Make the noise that the folks back home would make if they were in the stadium, make some more for our compadres who are going over without tickets, make even more for our boys in the red, white and blue, and then make some more for yourself. As both Slade and Quiet Riot once said, come on feel the noise... or if you prefer, Chuck D, bring the noise.

My point is this, on your way to Germany and in your travels throughout, you're bound to encounter a few mishaps and inconveniences but try to always look on the bright side of life.

Posted by Bill Fetty at 02:05 PM | Permalink

England on display on Oxford Street, London.

Here in London, there is no mistaking that the start of the World Cup is just a week away. Plastic sheets stuck to car windows fly the cross of St. George, England’s flag, and everywhere you look there are ads referring to the World Cup, England, David Beckham, or something else to do with soccer. I’ve even seen some birthday cards with photos of the team on the front and a special message inside: “The England team and _____________ wish you a happy birthday.”

What no one wants to talk about, though, are England’s chances to win the tournament. It’s not that they don’t want to win it or even that they don’t think they can win it. It’s a little bit more complicated than that.

Some of you may know the type of fan who is sure that their activities have a direct influence on a team’s results. I know someone who took the same route to every Earthquakes game in 2005 and skipped every tailgate just so she wouldn’t jinx the team. (Yes, she skipped every tailgate. The truly obsessed have no qualms about personal sacrifice when it’s perceived to be for the good of the team.)

Well, as nearly as I can tell, everyone in England is this way. They just don’t want to talk about the very real possibility that they could win the World Cup this year. They may mutter that Wayne Rooney’s broken foot is a tough blow, and express hope that he might return, but I’ve met no one who has said, “We want to win the World Cup and this year, we think we can do it.”

It’s a delicate situation. The term “40 years of pain” has been used by several media outlets here to describe the period between this year’s tournament and England’s sole World Cup victory in 1966. It’s a case of once bitten, twice shy, except that it’s more like, “10 times bitten, please don’t ask me about what happens next.” If I may mix my sports metaphors a bit here, they are Charlie Brown and the World Cup is Lucy, kneeling, asking them if they’d like to give the football a kick.

I spoke to someone in a pub last night (readers, please note my commitment to getting you this story) and he wouldn’t come right out and say that he thought England could win, either. Instead, he told me that he didn’t think it was fair that every other team faced three opponents in group play but England was in a group with four other teams. (Four other teams? Yes—Sweden, Paraguay, Trinidad, and Tobago. I did not please him by pointing out that there was another group with a similar problem. Holland, for example, has to deal with Argentina, the Ivory Coast, Serbia, and Montenegro.)

I tried to cheer him up, though, with my assessment of the tournament. “Look, Greece won Euro 2004,” I said. “The most skilled team will not necessarily win. All you need is a solid team that catches the wave at the right time and you can ride it all the way to the cup. England is talented enough to do that.”

That message seemed to get through to him but it made a bigger impression on me. As those words left my lips, I realized that it applied to most of the teams in the tournament, including the U.S. All you need is to win two of your first three and get hot enough to go on a four-game winning streak. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I think the U.S. will win the World Cup. Besides, I, uh, wouldn’t want to say anthing that might jinx them…

Posted by Jay Hipps at 01:30 PM | Permalink

Like Japan, another nation where soccer has only shown dramatic growth recently, we fans in the U.S. take a lot of our cultural cues from Europe. Thanks in particular to Fox Soccer Channel's weekend showings of English Premier League games, Americans have been able to experience some of the flavor of seeing a match in a country with a long soccer tradition.

One of the things that has made the trip across the Atlantic is singing for your team. Most commonly, fans take a popular song, change the lyrics around a bit, and an anthem is born. At Arsenal, "Volare" became "Vieira," for midfielder Patrick Vieira. Liverpool fans adapted "You'll Never Walk Alone" after it was a hit by Gerry and the Pacemakers.

It is with this tradition in mind that we propose taking an English song and modifying it for American purposes. The song in this case is one from the early days of the Clash (that's Joe Strummer's band, not Eric Wynalda's team), "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." Why this song? The chorus is one line repeated twice, it's an easy melody to learn, and it's always sweet to take what was meant as a slam and turn it into your own source of amusement. That's why Arsenal fans in London sing "boring, boring Arsenal," once a poke directed at their defensive style, when their team is up 2-0 and making magic on the field.

So, without further ado, here's the sound bite. Substitute "Score a go-o-al for the USA" for the original lyrics and it's golden.

(Requires Quicktime—click here to download.)

Posted by Jay Hipps at 05:51 PM | Permalink

It's less than two weeks before the kickoff of the 2006 World Cup on June 9, when the hosts Germany open the tournament against our Central American neighbors, Costa Rica. If you're going to attend any matches in person, we hope you already have your reservations, but if not here's a tip. While U.S. travel sites like Orbitz and Hotels.com are great for some things, they can't match the selection of a German operator like HRS, the Hotel Reservation Service. Enter the city in which you'd like to stay or even the address of a specific site in that city and they'll return a list of available hotels in order of proximity to that site. And their selection of German hotels? Wunderbar.

Posted by Jay Hipps at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)