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Don’t Have World Cup Fever? Try Watching the Games at a Bar

Posted June 10, 2010 by Ted Hesson

The 2010 FIFA World Cup has officially arrived—are you ready Long Island?!?!?

[Silence].

OK, fair enough.

Soccer, or Rest-of-the-World-Football, as it’s also called, has never been a big sell in the US, and Long Island isn’t an exception to that perpetual trend.

Newsday epitomized those thoughts this morning when, amid the typical World Cup mania, they ran a two-page spread entitled, “Introduction to beautiful game,” basically assuming that the vast majority of their readership has no interest in soccer or its cups, but might take more pleasure out of the game after learning what technically constitutes “offsides” and how to recognize a “sweeper” when one goes jaunting across your living room television.

Excited yet?

Sure, soccer is a fun game for the kids to play (when they’re little), and we all know a few devotees who seek out foreign-language soccer broadcasts at strange hours to satisfy their craving for low-scoring sports drama. But for the average White American Sports Fan like myself, soccer ranks just above cricket but a good deal below volleyball.

People do watch soccer, though. Billions of people, from what I understand.

Soccer is pretty much loved around the globe. I can attest for that (or you can look at a million other better-researched articles on the subject. Your call).

While living abroad in Spain and Costa Rica for short intervals, everyone seemed to watch the big soccer games, especially those that pitted country-against-country.

During that time, a few funny things happened to me. One, I drank a lot of beer. Two, I actually began to enjoy a sport that had been perpetually maligned by my elders and peers. “I mean, how can you call it a sport if you can’t use your hands?...And when are the commercial breaks?”

In Spain, though, I set aside time to watch games played by Real Madrid, a team that attracts newbie fans in the same infuriating way that the Yankees do in baseball. I even had a soft spot for the second-rate Atlético Madrid, who you could rightly compare to those luvable losers over in Flushing.

My new-found passion wasn’t long-lasting, and I pretty much forgot the sport existed after I came back to the states. Aside from some Playstation matches and a viewing of Bend It Like Beckham, I haven’t watched a soccer game in years.

So what was it that got me hooked for a few months?

It was more than the beer, I know that. It was also the hard liquor, too.

Really, I think it was the comradery of new friends, and the chance to experience a bit of their culture. Even though I didn’t paint my face team colors or don a team flag, Superman-style, I still cheered when the locals scored a goal, and cringed when they went “offsides” (BTW, offsides was pretty easy to figure out, Newsday).

But you don’t have to fly six hours to get the football jones. Believe it or not, lots of people follow the sport right here in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

For many immigrants who call Long Island home, soccer is also part of their cultural identity, their heritage. Just take a look at that same Newsday spread from this morning: there’s a list of more than a dozen bars, restaurants, and cafes where you can watch Wold Cup games with Long Islanders who root for country-teams like Portugal, Mexico, Turkey, France, Uruguay, and Australia, to name a few.

If soccer seems boring—I still get cold sweats when I hear the phrase “one nil”—then maybe it’s time to try watching games with the mindset of cultural experience. Eat what the fans eat, drink what the fans drink, sing the merry team songs that the fans sing.

Suddenly, it might seem more interesting.

For a schedule of upcoming World Cup games, click here.

And for all you soccer bandwagoners like me, check out this awesome World Cup video set to the Foo Fighters and GET PUMPED: