Fütbol: America’s great divide

Published 5:41 pm Sunday, July 8, 2018

Apparently this world we live in, particularly the wide, wide world of sports, is divided into two distinct factions.

<p class="p1">There are those — and, yes, they and we all know who they are — who can at least tolerate the World Cup silliness.

<p class="p1">The other faction, blessed from above, knows that flop football will never replace tackle football, nor is it even much of a cheap substitute.Soccer stockstock

<p class="p1">The former group can at least pretend to care about who wins between Sweden and merry ol’ England — Hail Britannia and all that stuff, although for the life of me I can’t remember Sweden ever doing anything to offend anybody.

<p class="p1">The latter group can’t comprehend it as anything more than a good excuse for a power nap. They think they probably should still be rooting against the Red Russians, although it’s been several years now since an honest-to-goodness missile crisis flared up.

<p class="p1">They see soccer — fütbol, if you prefer — as something played by toddlers wandering around an open field, mostly for the promise of a popsicle or a snow cone at the end of the exercise.

<p class="p1">It can build “character,” they admit, but only on the outside chance that flopping or using one’s hands only to protect one’s privates should ever be a factor in the real business world. 

<p class="p1">The former see it as the inevitable wave of the American sporting future, as they’ve been predicting for 30-40 years now (and you don’t want to be cornered at a dinner party for small talk with one).

<p class="p1">There are “travel teams” for it, they point out — and isn’t that the litmus test for whether it’s a real American sport?

<p class="p1">It’s coming, they say. You can’t stop it, nor can you hope to contain it.

<p class="p1">There’s been enough progress on that front, if it can be called that, that the soccer “fans” do seem to feel especially empowered during this World Cup thingamajig.

<p class="p1">True, we don’t seem to have many genuine “soccer hooligans” on this side of the pond and there are very few soccer-related assassinations, which probably keeps the rest of the world from taking us too seriously about it.

<p class="p1">But there are watch parties, out in public no less. The soccer loyalists see this is as proof positive.

<p class="p1">The rest — aka, the Neanderthals — feel for them, really they do. Mostly they keep hoping that it’s a phase, and that they’ll outgrow it and themselves someday write it off as one of those youthful indiscretions that they’ll learn from. Like bad haircuts and nose rings, someday they’ll be stock brokers or tax lawyers and look back in amusement while wondering what in the world they were thinking.

<p class="p1">That Soccer Resistance Movement likes to point out that our nation fought many wars on many shores against just such an intrusion as this.

<p class="p1">It was something, probably the Monroe Doctrine or maybe habeas corpus, that forced Europe to change the name of its activity to fütbol. It was a groundbreaking treaty (or something similar) and made the world a better place.

<p class="p1">But these are different times, scary times, unprecedented times, uneasy times.

<p class="p1">So, yes, at this critical juncture of our nation’s sports calender — aka, the Dog Days of Summer — America stands split in two, with neither side seemingly willing to give an inch one way or another.

<p class="p1">Families have been torn asunder, Facebook could implode any minute now. Twitter is working double shifts.

<p class="p1">It’s almost like a presidential election broke out in the middle of a lazy summer.

<p class="p1">Historians will say we have survived worse.

<p class="p1">Plus, it’s a temporary divide, particularly on our own shores where our innocent lads did not even qualify for the fool thing.

<p class="p1">Both factions will survive, probably lead productive lives.

<p class="p1">I have it on good authority that at some point the World Cup will indeed come to an end, although the details and exact ETA are somewhat fuzzy.

<p class="p1">Still, it could possibly last longer than the NBA playoffs.

<p class="p1">Which should not be construed as an endorsement.