[kj] OT: WC

[Jiri]

About 75% of my American friends locally are following the World Cup 
very closely. (Compared to, say 2% of them give a crap about Killing 
Joke, though I've beat them over the head with it for years). I have so 
many email threads going right now among various groups of friends about 
the World Cup games that I'm getting nothing done at work (not that I 
expected any different from this month). I finally started copying 
everyone on my responses, trying to condense them (about 50 different 
people chiming in).

[But I can't talk about the WC matches on this list because you damn 
Europeans (haha) get to watch them live! -- whereas I'm recording them 
and remaining ignorant until I can watch them at home. But as a 
Czech-American, I was gutted and sick during that whole match! I knew 
the U.S. would be overmatched, but they looked lost and devoid of 
effort, too. Torn loyalties made me hope for a 2-2 tie.]

That said, most of these friends don't follow much international 
football between World Cups. But they care. This tourney is such a 
fantastic gathering from both a cultural and sporting perspective, it's 
hard not to be enchanted by it.

But yeah, despite the national team's growth in the last 16 years, don't 
expect a tipping point about the sport's growth here. Every young kid 
seems to play just for easy exercise, but their parents and media 
attention inevitably drive them to the "major" sports of 
football/basketball/baseball. However, the sport will inevitably 
continue to grow in this country because of the immigrant 
populations--who themselves are already largely responsible for the 
success of the domestic league. Media may not follow it, and "regular" 
white Americans might not understand it, but there's a host of 
immigrants and their descendents--U.S. citizens in the truest sense--who 
will one day have the economic critical mass to make the sport a factor. 
And Billy Bob American still won't understand why it's so.


Christof hamille wrote:

> It seems about every 10-15 years you hear of the soccer organizations 
> trying to peak interest in the US and it lasts for about 6 months to a 
> year at best and then it peters to the back burner again.  I would 
> venture tosay that hockey surpasses soccer in interest and that is a 
> struggling sport at times.
>
> Chris
>
>
>> From: iPat <pmdavies at gmail.com>
>> Reply-To: "A list about all things Killing Joke (the 
>> band!)"<gathering at misera.net>
>> To: "A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)" 
>> <gathering at misera.net>
>> Subject: Re: [kj] OT: WC
>> Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:37:13 +0100
>>
>> Not true
>> there are whole sections of the US with big interest in the game, 
>> including
>> the mexican, spanish, brazilian and european immigrants.
>>
>> your just shite!
>> hee hee hee
>>
>> lil old Togo beating South Korea 1 0 right now! go Togo go!
>>
>> On 6/13/06, Alex Smith <vassifer at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>  Well, the real truth of the matter is that the US doesn't give a damn
>>> about the World Cup.
>>>
>>> Alex in NYC
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  --
>>
>>> Pat Davies
>>> www.amag.org.uk
>>>
>
>
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>
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