Unless it’s a cat fight between two hot girls, pretty much any commercial you run over and over again is going to drive people nuts eventually. When there are a limited number of commercials to begin with (as in the broadcast of a soccer match), spots like the one pictured above reach the annoyance point much more quickly. I don’t even remember what wireless company ran it, but I do know this: they’re lazy to only do the one spot, and running it over and over and over again with that 24-villain-looking guy ensured I’ll never ever be a customer of theirs. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of it.
Anyway, here are 10 things we learned from the 2010 FIFA World Cup:
10: Michael Bradley can flat-out play. If you’re still one of those who thinks the only reason he’s playing for the US is because his dad is the coach, you’re a moron. He was arguably the team’s best field player throughout the World Cup (Landon Donovan was, obviously, Landon Donovan, and I would have given strong consideration to Steve Cherundolo as well) and busted ass at both ends and in the midfield. He’s a player, plain and simple.
9: You don’t want soccer to become mainstream. You really don’t. Because then you’ll have to put up with dumbass columns from sportswriters who know jackshit about the game but have column inches to fill and see time periods when people are thinking soccer and try to capitalize on it. How many times did your local sports radio guy - if he deigned to talk about the Cup at all - opine that the US should crush countries like Slovenia and Algeria because they have populations of 2 million and 34 million, respectively? As if population means anything in terms of soccer prowess? But these are the levels on which these people think. And for those who would (as columnists do) take the contrary position that nothing has really been accomplished and that the US should be high achievers every time out, I would say….
8. We’re not there yet. No, we’re not. We’re still improving. We are still capable of amazing moments and flabbergasting ones. Bob Bradley’s first eleven1 in the Round of 16 play their club ball for Everton, Stade Rennes, Borussia Moenchengladbach, Hannover 96, Eintracht Frankfurt, Fulham, Watford, Hull City, Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake. In more than a century of soccer on these shores, we’ve produced one guy who plays like Donovan and nobody I can think of who even plays as well as Uruguay’s Diego Forlan. Getting there. Not there yet. Not to be able to compete toe-to-toe consistently. Not only are we not getting all of our best athletes out of the population of 300 million plus, but our player development system still lags the rest of the world’s.
7. Soccer has to join the 21st Century. Or at least the latter stages of the 20th. As much as I appreciated the symmetry in Frank Lampard’s goal that wasn’t but was against Germany2, we can’t have that in the World Cup. We may be asking too much of our referees to see everything that happens on big fields with bigger, faster players with balls that jump all over the place3. But at least let’s get the “did the ball cross the goal line?” part right first, okay? When it happens as seldom as it does in our game, we need to get it right.
6. “The Beautiful Game” ain’t always beautiful. This may not be breaking news, but the thuggery4, negative play and conservative tactics emblematic of 2010 South Africa threatened to overshadow the joy of the outstanding teams and players of the tournament. Unfortunately, it’s effective (witness the teams that got to the final, while fun-to-watch Uruguay and Germany gave us a great third-place match), so it may not be going away soon. For all the joy and passion that the World Cup inspires, the biggest matches rarely provide us any more than the briefest glimpses of why we love the game so much.
5. South Africa actually pulled it off. I was on a train from Kaiserslautern to Karlsruhe after the USA tied Italy in 2006 and my dad, my son and I were crammed in near a guy from South Africa. We asked him how his country would do with the 2010 Cup. “There’s no way,” he said. And that was the prevailing thought, even as the countdown crept closer to the opening game. South Africa is too poor, they said. Too much crime. They’ll never get the stadiums done. Despite that, announced average World Cup attendance was 49,670 (fourth best all-time and 92% of capacity), I didn’t hear many reports of crime and the stadiums looked - by and large - tremendous. What they’ll do with them down is anybody’s guess, and South Africa still has major problems to address, but they pulled it off.
4. When ESPN puts its full resources behind something, it can kick ass at it. Unfortunately, they often use their powers for evil rather than good, but the investment they made in providing the wall-to-wall coverage and support programming a major event like the World Cup deserves, and in keeping that high level up for a month shows they can do it when they have something at stake. It almost makes you forget about what SportsCenter has become. Almost. That said….
3. The Brits were fine. But there was still no need for all of them. ESPN is going to look at the ratings and (largely positive) reviews and say “See? Told you having British voices on the telecasts would help.” But let’s be honest - it’s the World Cup. People watched when Roger Twibell called games and when Jack Edwards called games. The critics just had fewer negative things to say than they did when Dave O’Brien called the ‘06 Cup. (Note to ESPN: It wasn’t because O’Brien’s an American. It’s because he didn’t know the game, and fans will pounce on that weakness immediately.) Throwing JP Dellacamera, a loyal soldier, under the bus for the second straight World Cup was the wrong thing to do, no matter how good Ian Darke was (and he was terrific, a real find). We’ll have Martin Tyler once again in Brazil in four years, but why not replace Derrek Rae with JP? Tyler - though I admit he makes me yell at the TV far less than other announcers - is simply low-key to the point of boring, his voice never rising on a near-chance until and unless the ball actually goes into the net5. I have always liked Adrian Healey’s work, here and abroad, but-uh his bit of a speech impediment-uh6 wears on you when you hear him every day for two weeks. And Efan Ekoku - please. Where did they find this guy? I’d rather have Shaka Hislop - at least he understands the offside rule. And, to be fair, a month of John Harkes points out how little he actually adds in terms of analysis. The reason announcers matter is….
2. There’s an audience for this product in this country. This one isn’t exactly a revelation, but the ratings are either a testament to growing interest in the sport or ESPN’s relentless hype (or some of both). In any case, it is impossible to spout the tired mantra “No one cares about soccer in America.” Now, The Major League Soccer has some catching up to do, and the market sees a difference in the two products, but the sport itself - you can’t say things aren’t changing. Because…
1. This matters to us. To those of you who ignore the sport (at best) or openly mock it (at worst), we’re no longer asking you to get on board. We don’t care anymore. We’re done proselytizing. But when you look at scenes like this one, can you at least get that this is important to us? Can you at least just respect that? We know we’re not as numerous as fans of other sports. We know the game is low-scoring and that it appears to you as though nothing happens. We get that. The things that appeal to us don’t appeal to you. That’s fine. But could you at least do us a favor and shut the fuck up about it already? Just respect that a decent percentage of the people in this country do care and leave it that. Please?
1 - Even accounting for the fact that he didn’t start the right guys in that game, the point is that our players aren’t at that level yet.
2 - And let’s not kid ourselves - Germany was the better team in that game, and in almost every one they played.
3 - Not a euphemism.
4 - Even when rendered in LEGOs, it looks bad.
5 - His nearly-audible snickering while reading an MLS promo during one of the games was completely…well, English.
6 - Oddly enough, Tyler has the added “-uh” syllable on many words, too. Maybe it’s a King’s English thing.
