Having grown up in Britain, I was surrounded by soccer (or football, as everyone but Americans knows it) all the time. The most important question in life, it seemed, was which football team you supported. And woe betide you if you answered that question incorrectly. I was never interested then; I'm not interested now; and I thank God I live in America where nobody else gives a damn, either!
So while millions of idiots all around the world will be tuning in for South Africa's turn to promote itself through pointless sports, I will remain blissfully ignorant of all that transpires. Why such antipathy towards a mere game, you ask?
The problem with football, apart from the basic issue that kicking/heading/chesting a ball is nothing to be particularly proud of, is the peculiar tendency it seems to have to create social division among otherwise peaceable peoples. The British are such a mild-mannered lot on the whole, endlessly patient when asked to wait hours in line, happily giving directions to strangers, drinking the most civilized beverage in the world (tea), and exporting parliamentary democracy to lesser mortals. Or are they?
For soccer shatters that myth into a million pieces. Before, during, and after a soccer match, the British become utter hooligans, surging through foreign streets in destructive hordes, urinating on park benches, gorging themselves on cheap lager that will be spewed up later for the rest of society to share. It is as if they have devolved into the Vikings that once pillaged the east coast, introducing a violent strain into the national genome that is usually suppressed. Unless there's a jolly good war going on, football is the only outlet through which this barbarism can express itself.
So God Save the Queen. And the hell with football.
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