World Cup Both Fun And Instructive

Soccer was the sport of my youth, from kindergarten through high school. I used to spend hours juggling the ball to see how long I could keep it in the air using feet, knees, head, and even shoulders. My buddy and I sometimes did this together, volleying the ball back and forth while keeping scrupulous count of how many touches we'd made. I'll never forget the day we got over 200 touches; toward the end, we were booting it the length of the street and eventually keeled over in laughter. I'll also never forget the last game I played within the city youth league, when I had just turned fifteen and would thereafter set my sights on the varsity squad for school. I was at the top of my game, a shark among minnows, and near the end I pivoted at midfield and blasted it toward the enemy goal without even looking. The goalie never had a chance.

My fond memories motivate me to watch the World Cup very closely every four years, and this recent one was incredible. Underdogs such as the United States, Colombia, and Costa Rica performed exceptionally well, whereas giants such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Brazil bit the dust. Although the traditional powerhouse Germany ultimately won, they clearly earned it and were the best team out there, plus the final match didn't come down to an unsporting shootout.

But of course, being who I am, I couldn't help but notice a deeper narrative at work here: for all its beauty, soccer is a dirty sport that reveals much about the people and nations who rabidly pursue it. Shirt-pulling, deliberate spiking, elbowing or smacking people's heads, biting(!), and the ubiquitous flopping that feigns injury in an effort to garner easy points. It was all on grotesque display, and what makes it especially offensive is that FIFA and the fans consider it an integral part of the game that shouldn't be rooted out with the simple solution of video review. This reflects an Old/Third World viewpoint that corruption is an indelible trait of human nature that should be entertained and endured, not resisted or transcended. America was founded by independent and uncompromising Protestants; enough of that heritage remains to give many Americans a bad taste in their mouths when witnessing grown men flop to the ground like rag dolls and cry out in the hope that the authority figure dispenses favor. It's probably no mistake that as the Protestant identity fades further away, and as America completes its transition to an Old/Third World mindset, the popularity of soccer only grows. (Indeed, many speculate that the American team has trouble advancing because it doesn't flop enough, which may very well change as America marches backward forward.)   

This also raises the important question of how we define manhood. The type on display at the World Cup is a man defined by his passion for victory at all costs, for whom questions of honor and dignity are best left to theologians. Such a man, whatever his athletic prowess, is nothing to admire and will always be a slave. As founding father Edmund Burke sagely noted:

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

A man who cannot control himself makes for a more pliant subject. It is no accident that governments (and women, I might add) prefer such a man for precisely this reason: as a slave to his passions, he is easier to manipulate and will readily serve his designated role as pack mule or cannon fodder. The man they fear and despise is the one who is capable of self-control, who values truth and honor more than victory or even life. He owns himself and cannot be bribed or threatened into submission. And he will fight a revolution if just, regardless of whether it means his death.

Is it pure coincidence that such a giant push is being made to enhance the popularity of soccer within the United States? I think not. The overriding agenda -- whether it's a conspiracy or just a syndrome -- is One World/Old World/Third World. While the game of soccer itself is merely a sporting contest, the big business of soccer is far more, and it makes it harder for me to enjoy watching. Perhaps that's why I limit it to once every four years.