LADIES LOVE OBSCURE RIVALRIES: WORLD CUP TEAMS vs. THEIR AMERICAN COUNTERPARTS

by Dan Raspatello, draspate@indiana.edu

I just got off the phone with my semi-heterosexual brother, and he reminded me that it was that time of the week where I have to save his almost-profitable business. As I hung up the phone I decided that I was going to write about the past week’s Scripps National Spelling Bee. Oh, the Spelling Bee. The one day of the year that Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering, and TI-83 calculators are put down and ESPN is flipped on in households across America for the first time all year. The Scripps National Spelling Bee is like the Super Bowl for every dorky, dweeby, unathletic, glasses-wearing, headgear-having child in America. On a side note, if you hear anybody at work talking about the spelling bee, immediately pick on them to remind them that their high school social hierarchy will haunt them for the rest of their lives. What the spelling bee does not show you is every time a participant misspells a word, they immediately take him/her off-stage where their respective town bully throws a ball at them, gives them a wedgy, a swirly, and reminds them who, in fact, “rules.�

As I was procrastinating writing this article, I decided to watch some Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman made a comment about the World Cup happening every 6 years. When I heard this, the wheels started turning, and I decided to ditch the “spelling bee� idea and write something a little more reader-friendly. Also, I would have felt like a bigger dick/creep than usual had I mocked a group of 13-year-olds who are considerably smarter then I am. I mean, when I was 13, I was barely smart enough to pop my own zits or figure out if it was hot or cold water you put your friend’s hand in when he was sleeping to make him pee himself (later in life I would find out binge drinking would do the trick well enough).

Anyways I decided that it isn’t that Americans don’t want to watch the World Cup, but instead that they know so little about soccer that we have to start with a simpler formula with which to entice them. This is kind of like trying to explain the rules of our football to a girl. Wait, bad example, they are just doing that to prove to their boyfriends that they can “hang with the guys,� and in fact don’t give two shits about football. I decided that ESPN is doing it all wrong. They keep throwing all these famous soccer players names at their viewers, and in-depth analyses that the common American can’t relate to. Thus, yours truly has come up with a series of comparisons that will help you slowly but surely begin to understand this summer’s World Cup. It’s the first one in four years! See? Baby steps. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither can your soccer knowledge. I have decided to take four key World Cup teams and compare them to an American sports team, an American athlete, and an American pop culture icon.

BRAZIL (the country that gave us Pele, who is still the only soccer player that 99% of Americans can name.)
Location: South America (not to be confused with “America�)
Language: Portuguese
Population: 167 Million.
Religion: Roman Catholic (majority). I wonder if they have that whole “creepy priest� thing happening, too?

American Sports Team Counterpart: The 1992 USA Basketball “Dream Team.� Just like the basketball team that made a laughing stock of the world competition almost 15 years ago, Brazil has the opportunity to do that in every World Cup. Another like-comparison can be found at recess when the 8th graders play the 5th graders or Sylvester Stallone vs. The Field in Over The Top. Just like America could have done in basketball at the Olympics in 1992, Brazil could field 3 or 4 teams that could make a run at the World Cup title this year.

American Sports Figure Counterpart: Danny Almonte (who, by the way is 19, and just married some lady like twice his age). His dominance in the Little League World Series at the ripe age of 14, and fully through puberty, had him striking-out prepubescent 12-year-olds with a 70mph fastball (Major League equivalence: unfuckinghittable from 46 feet). You guys might want to know why I didn’t choose Michael Jordan or Barry Bonds with steroids. The reason is because those two athletes lost sometimes, and occasionally showed signs of being equal to their competitors (despite Bonds’ impressive head-enlarging abilities). Brazil is like Danny Almonte because there is no other team/little-leaguer that could even compare. People can argue that Wade, Lebron, or Kobe may be equal to Jordan, or that Ruth, Pujols, or Mantle are better than Bonds. But nobody can ever argue that another 12-year-old was ever as dominant as a 14-year-old playing solely against 11 and 12-year-olds. Also kind of like that dickhead Sports Camp instructor that took out being cut from varsity on you and your 12-year-old friends during bombardment.

Pop Culture Icon Counterpart: This one was tough, but I decided to go with the Rolling Stones. Because the Rolling Stones are the only thing in popular culture that are cool to like if you are a 14-year-old girl or a 65-year-old man. Their “popularity dominance� over the past four decades can only be compared to Brazil’s dominance in the World Cup over its history (they have won 5 of the 17 World Cups, and 5 of the last 12).




ENGLAND (If the USA loses this is the team you are supposed to cheer for because they are helping us in Iraq, and they look the most like us.)
Location: United Kingdom/England, our mother country. However, they are Our Bitch, just like that spoiled kid who grew up down the block from you and got every toy ever made while you played truth or dare with the hot girls on a Nintendo-less park bench.
Language: American, but gayer sounding.
Population: 50 million people who all need braces.
Religion: Church of England (pretty much Protestant, but don’t tell the IRA that).

American Sports Team: New York Yankees. Just like the New York Yankees this is the team that is the most hyped and talked about in the world media. If a player on England or the Yankees takes a shit, the media immediately tells you how many times they wiped, and tries to figure out if the Red Sox or France can equal them in wipes. None of the knowledgeable analysts predicts them to win, but we cover their every move nonetheless. They are loaded with talent, but it is all of the over-pampered and over-hyped variety. When an English player gets injured, it gets more coverage then if the Bird Flu teamed with Aids.

American Sports Figure: Derek Jeter. I know Derek Jeter is Mr. November, but he hasn’t done anything for a while. Jeter reminds me of David Beckham not only because he is good, but because chicks think he’s hot, and he gets treated by the media like he is one of The Greats. Just like Jeter in baseball, I can think of over thirty soccer players that I would rather have on my team than Beckham. Nevertheless, it seems like they will always get even more coverage then the best players in the world in their respective sports. And just how Jeter is the Captain/Symbol of the Yankees, Beckham is the Captain/Symbol of England.

Pop Culture Icon: Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, like England, has all the talent in the world but found a way to ruin his imagine and thus his career. England is loaded with talent, but due to injury, poor coaching, or clashing egos they always manage to blow it on the main stage. So, when England loses to Paraguay in their opening game it will be analogous to when Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch and showed the whole world that he is a f#cking loon-job.




UNITED STATES (Keep in mind that soccer is the most popular sport that we are not that good at, so if we win it would be a bigger “f$ck you� to the world then when we refused to listen to the United Nations about invading Iraq.)
Location: The center of the universe.
Langauge: American, Ebonics, and Spanglish.
Population: 300 million freedom-loving Badasses.
Relgion: Protestant (majority). Roman-Catholics have a stronghold on pedophiles and alcoholics. Jews have a stronghold on Hollywood, and according to my Italian, Roman-Cahtolic father as he argues with his Jewish bride, “all the fucking money.�

American Sports Team: Oakland A’s. Just like the Oakland A’s, we are young, full of potential, and most of the world cannot name four players on our team. Nobody fears us on their schedule. Even though hardly anybody on our roster would make any of the other top-notch teams, we are still considered one of the best teams in the world (5th according to FIFA world rankings). Even though we probably will not win it all, we will shock everybody by making it deeper then we are supposed to, just like the A’s do every year.

American Sports Figure: Steve “Wojo� Wojciechowski, the Duke University, floor-slapping point guard of the late 1990’s. We lack the talent and legions of studs, but somehow we take the soccer equivalence of a “charge� at the right time, or make our one shot of the game when it matters most. Then next thing you know, you just lost to somebody who has less talent then a peg-legged hooker. If you don’t believe me, ask Portugal or Germany (who needed a missed hand ball on the goal line to beat us) about 2002.

Pop Culture Icon: Paul Giamatti. Even though he is a great actor no chicks want to do him, no guy wants to be him, and he could probably walk down your street and nobody would notice. Even though our soccer players are representing the USA to the rest of the world, just like the boys of Miracle, nobody really gives them the respect they deserve. Exactly like Paul Giamatti.



IRAN (These guys are in G-Dubbs’ Axis of Evil, and we are probably going to invade them next. Thus, this is the team that you need to get on board and hate or we will assume that you are a hippy, you hate freedom, or you are a terrorist, and we will throw you in a military jail and let a homely little blond chick sodomize and embarrass you.)

Location: Near Iraq or Afghanistan or other places where freedom is hated.
Language: One that women are not allowed to speak unless spoken to first.
Population: 70 million active members of Al-Qaeda.
Religion: Shi`ite Islam, which is fun because you can hold up signs at the game that say, “Iran is playing like Shi’ite.�

!!!!SPECIAL ALERT!!!!: I have taken top-secret, undisclosed orders commanding me to in no way compare Iran to America and its wonderful personalities and pastimes, as doing such would be anti-American.

So, uh, I guess this is it, your guide to the World Cup. Which starts on Friday. Like I said, by providing you zero actual knowledge of soccer or the World Cup tournament itself, I will have hopefully started slowly enough to tempt you into watching a little football. Sorry, the original kind. And when you are flipping the channel and England’s team is mentioned, you can turn to your friend, and say, “That is SO Tom Cruise.�