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02 July 2014

Soccer, the World Cup and Ann Coulter...

I had the worst case of insomnia last night, and only that justifies the fact that I read this article. I don’t usually post about opinion articles, but this one I need to criticize. To be honest, I didn’t know about Ann Coulter until I read this, and was left without words. I have to admit that I am not a fan of football myself, but even I recognize the importance of the World Cup. I was really amazed when heard that the USA where more familiar with this sport and more actively following it! And then along comes Ann Coulter that simply dashes the world cup and soccer/football in general! And in such negative way…. Even when reading the article, what is incredible, is that she simply seems not understand anything about football, or even sports for that matter. She doesn’t recognize the positive sporting values that football transmits and requires. She begins with “Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer”, of course not; football is all about team playing and team spirit. Such important values to foster! She then rambles on about the ties and the difficulty to score… Well, to be honest it is difficult to score, but this happens when teams are equally matched, and this usually results in really good games to watch.

What really upsets me was that her overall notion of a proper sport should either have a “personal humiliation or major injury”. Someone should really explain Ann Coulter about sports! Does this mean that athletics, gymnastics, swimming, or other don´t count as sports? Because these rarely have major injuries or humiliations. Ann Coulter must have been bored out of her mind when watching the Olympics… 

It is understandable to follow and enjoy American football, what is completely ridiculous, incomprehensible to say the least, is to brag over major injuries. Ann Coulter only has a blast when someone leaves the field on an ambulance. Really, on her article she literally says so. This is not a happy event. For me, Ann Coulter has her sport values completely backwards. It is common knowledge nowadays that continuous exposure to head injuries (such as happens in American football) usually results in brain damage, with traumatic consequences to players. Is Ann Coulter cheering for this? Oh,  I am sure that only a proper “American” is happy about this. I so much prefer my “ribbon and a juice box”. 

Ann Coulter was troubled by the fact that we cannot use hands in football. However, the fact that you cannot use your feet when playing basketball presents no issues whatsoever.

And my astonishing continues. What is the main fault of soccer? Soccer is foreign. It´s like the “metric system”, its European. And by the way, the metric system is far too complex to Ann Coulter to understand. Convert cm into m is very difficult, hence she only uses cm… When someone comes to me and say “that measures 5 feet”, immediately one questions pops on my mind: “What shoe size do you wear?”. But I am not here to discuss the intricacies of the different measure systems.

At the moment, I would like to provide a brief history lesson to Ann Coulter. She seems to have completely forgotten where most modern Americans come from.  They come from European Colonialists. Dare I say that her great great great grandfather, might have been a British colonialist? Or even a Spanish colonialist?  He also might have been an eager soccer player. 

I am not going to comment about which game is a blockbuster or not. I am just going to mention a few curiosities, I don´t see anyone from outside the United States following the Super Bowl, not even the Sunday Night Football. However, the World Cup is being followed through the World. After all it is a World Cup for some reason... The World Cup is followed by Nations from the Middle East, nations from Africa, Nations from Europe, South America and North America... And that’s the great beauty of the World Cup, the fact that unites so many different nations in a single sport event. The Super Bowl does not generate this type of feeling, passion or emotion. Whole countries united in support of their national team. And even if their national team is out of the competition, they still continue to follow the event, in support of some other favourite team. My national team is out of the competition, now I support the home team, Brazil. And so many other people are doing the same, supporting different teams. I see beauty in this, and I am not a World Cup fan, not even a football fan. However, I am not a simple minded-person either.

 

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