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.
