No kick from sham pain

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/06/2010 (5951 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Can someone please explain to me why I taped a soccer game between Slovenia and Algeria?

Seriously, a little help.

What exactly is Slovenia? Where precisely is Algeria? Doesn’t matter. I’ll sit there for two hours to watch them play a game, the nuances of which can often be more elusive than Kaka.

That’s right, I know all about Kaka, the artful Brazilian midfielder. Used to be I didn’t know Kaka, a fact of which I’ve often been reminded. But that’s another story entirely.

Maybe it’s the announcers, those silver-tongued British colourmen who tell you that one particular team is playing “with wit,” as though the striker were Oscar Wilde or something. And soccer players don’t just separate themselves from defenders, they “find purchase.”

The only fly in the announcer ointment is when they attempt, as they often do, to foretell of a dramatic event. “Could this be Germany’s moment?” they will say with pensive anticipation, as if some sort of life-altering, seminal happening is about to unfold.

But of course you soon discover that, no, this is probably not Germany’s moment at all. It’s just another shot that sails, like, 20 feet over the net, or the ball will ricochet off eight defenders and dribble to the goaltender’s feet.

After all, there are many games where one team will get only a couple shots on net. If they’re witty enough, they might get a goal or two. Yet these announcers somehow manage a lyrical cadence that has you believing momentous occasions are just around the next corner kick.

And in the process, you discover that Slovenia is a country of 2 million located in central Europe that gained independence in the early 1990s from the former Yugoslavia. It is the smallest nation competing in the World Cup.

Meanwhile Algeria is the second-largest country in Africa (next to Sudan) located on the Mediterranean, and the first language is Arabic.

You’re welcome.

If the geopolitical subplots of the World Cup don’t grab you, there’s always the seismic emotional shifts the tournament generates among the general populace of nations who make Canadian hockey fans look like tourists. We’re talking about places like Argentina and Germany and England, where one misstep is viewed as a natural disaster.

When English goalkeeper Robert Green committed a “school boy howler” that allowed the U.S. to reach a 1-1 draw last week, you’d think the guy was going to have his citizenship revoked. The photos that splashed across the world’s press the next day looked like the Zapruder film. “Hands of Clod” the headlines screamed.

(For the uninitiated, “Clod” is a play on words from the “Hand of God” goal scored by Diego Maradona against England in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final. It should not be confused with the hand goal scored by France’s Thierry Henry that, uncalled, eliminated poor Ireland from the 2010 World Cup. It’s also why the French should never be trusted. But I digress.)

Perhaps that’s why those British announcers sometimes call games as though they are describing a bomb disposal unit at work; because of the enormity and historic significance of games that can end without any goals scored at all.

In fact, there’s only one fatal flaw in the Beautiful Game, and it can be found on the twisted, grimacing faces of grown men who, if touched or impeded in any way, will drop to the grass with a theatrical display that would make the World’s Worst Actor mutter, “Geezus.”

Seriously, after watching a hockey playoffs where Chicago Blackhawks defenceman Duncan Keith spit out seven teeth (one was lodged in his throat) after taking a puck in the yap — and barely miss a shift — it’s hard to stomach seeing a soccer player writhing on the ground while a slo motion HD replay proves he wasn’t so much as grazed.

Yet no one seems to mind. Hey, we’re not saying soccer players are wussies. We’re saying they should never be confused with Meryl Streep is all.

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For some strange reason, however, I find it hard to look away. I’m guessing I’m not alone, either, that other Canadian non-soccer fans succumb to the same World Cup bug every four years — even though we wouldn’t watch the European Championship if it was played in our back yards.

And somewhere along the way, we learn that Messi could be the next Maradona, that the capital of Cote d’Ivoire is Yamoussoukro and that the Irish got screwed over again. Go figure.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to find enough purchase to set my PVR to tape Cameroon versus Denmark and Ghana versus Australia.

Why? Because it could be their moment, that’s why.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Randy Turner
Reporter

Randy Turner spent much of his journalistic career on the road. A lot of roads. Dirt roads, snow-packed roads, U.S. interstates and foreign highways. In other words, he got a lot of kilometres on the odometer, if you know what we mean.

   Read full biography