World Cup Preview (continued…)

3) Brazil

What’s that you say? They don’t score enough in soccer, it’s too long, too boring. Well, obviously, nobody who’s made any of these ridiculous claims has watched the Brazilian national team.

There’s a reason this team is compared to playing in a samba orchestra. When Brazil graces the field, they don’t just play, they make music. There’s a telepathy in their passing, a uniqueness in their dribbling, a creativity that is unmatched by any team in any other sport.

If you still don’t believe me, go to youtube.com and search Ronaldinho. The ensuing 4 minute video should make a believer out of even the most ADD American. While not every player on the Brazilian team is Ronaldinho, they’re cut from the same mold, and the end result is pure pleasure to watch.

The funny thing is that just looking at their results, Brazil should be the most hated team in soccer. They’re the New York Yankees of international football (I will occasionally refer to soccer as football due to the fact that football is the correct term). They’ve won 5 World Cups (next closest is Italy and Germany with 3), and they’re a threat to reach the finals in every single tournament. The truth is just the opposite, though. Everybody LOVES Brazil. Go to your nearest convenience store and ask the clerk who he’s rooting for in the World Cup. Assuming he’s not American or from a country that qualified for the World Cup, he’ll say Brazil. I guarantee it or you get your money back.

They all root for Brazil because the boys from Rio de Janeiro are just so damn fun to watch. If you’re willing to give soccer a try, watch Brazil. You won’t be disappointed.

2) African nations

Lets start with the fact that their names are just so freaking sweet. Antonio Lebo-Lebo, Arsenio Love, Joao Jamba. Smoothie flavors, or names of players on Angola. Honestly, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

On a much more serious and somber note, the African sides who qualified for the 2006 World Cup show the true global uniting power that football has. The Ivory Coast, in the midst of a vicious civil war for multiple years, finally called a cease-fire about a month ago… because their team qualified for the World Cup. The team, comprised of players from both the northern and southern regions of the country (the two feuding factions), have given a divided country something to rally upon as the entire country has stopped solely so they can support their team in this month’s World Cup.

More importantly, the team has set an example for their country to follow. If this team can survive with players from both the feuding regions, maybe the rest of the country can follow suit. A successful run by the Ivory Coast (and believe me, they have the talent to do it) can only help their country’s attempts at peace.

It’s not only the Ivory Coast that is using football as an attempt to improve things at home. Angola was torn apart by civil war for 3 decades until an unsteady peace was reached a few years ago. The team is trying to use this month’s World Cup as a step towards rebuilding their country by giving their people something to actually be proud of and, just maybe, earn a little bit of respect on the global scale. Their captain has been quoted as saying something to the extent of ‘we want the world to know that Angola is more than just war and oil’.

If you can’t root for countries like Angola and Ivory Coast, what can you root for?

1) United States

The other day, I read something that compared America’s soccer team to Gonzaga, but that comparison is clearly lacking in multiple ways. First off, at least to my knowledge, the US is clearly lacking the top shelf porn star edge that Adam Morrison brought to the Zags. More importantly though, America hasn’t earned the right to be compared to Gonzaga, yet…

I’m going to switch sports for a second, but I would say that the US soccer team is more closely paralleled to Connecticut football. First off, Connecticut football is practically irrelevant. When you think of Connecticut athletics, you immediately think of their basketball team with the football team more likely to be the punch line of a joke. It’s the same thing with US soccer. Nations around the world have scoffed at American soccer saying we only know how to play the other kind of football.

In 2003, however, football took a major step forward posting an impressive record of 9-3. A statement that, just maybe, Connecticut could build a respectable football program. Just one year earlier, the US soccer team made their historic quarterfinal run at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea/Japan. Both were impressive steps forward, but neither was enough to convince the skeptics that either Connecticut football or United States soccer had become a power to be taken seriously, permanently.

Starting just over 11 hours from when I write this, the US will have the chance to take that permanent step forward by proving that 2002 was no fluke. Emerging from a group with the Czech Republic and Italy will force even the most scornful foreigners (of which there are many) that US soccer has reached the next level.

After their promising 2003 campaign, Connecticut made a real mess of their chance culminating with a disastrous 5-6 finish last season supporting the claim that 2003 was a fluke. Will the US waste their chance like Connecticut with 2002 fading into obscurity? Or will they seize the moment and accomplish something that simply can’t be ignored? Something that gets even the common American sports fans attention. Something that puts soccer on the American sports map. If they do, even the comparison to Gonzaga won’t do them justice.