According to a friend of mine, most people here in the United States think watching soccer is equivalent to watching grass grow. I'm pretty sure the rest of the world disagrees.
This is not a revelation. Every four years, we are reminded by clips on ESPN and news outlets that while we are absorbed with work, baseball season and summer barbeques, the rest of the world stops for the World Cup.
This time around, my husband and I joined the rest of the world and traveled to Germany for the first week of the tournament. To fully engross myself in World Cup fever, I brought The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, a compilation of essays by well-known writers about each of the 32 qualifying countries.
I read the essays out of order, beginning with Dave Eggers' piece on the United States, while on a flight from Detroit to Amsterdam. His essay reiterated the unpopularity of soccer in this country.
"But at about age 10, something happens to the children of the United States. Soccer is dropped, quickly and unceremoniously, by approximately 88 percent of all young people. The same kids who played at 5, 6, 7, move onto baseball, football, basketball, hockey, field hockey and, sadly, golf."
About 90 percent of the essay is lighthearted and humorous, including a funny bit about his gym teacher adamantly claiming soccer is for communists, but in the end, it turns political, questioning the worthiness of Americans to be embraced in the international soccer community.
"If you were soccer, the sport of kings, would you want the adulation of a people who elected Bush and Cheney, not once but twice?"
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This statement, while perhaps not one that would draw disagreements in the world today, does not flow with the rest of the essay and did little to ease my anxiety over anti-American sentiment we might run into during our trip. Maybe not the best essay to pick first, but the scarcity of U.S. soccer fans Eggers discusses was certainly apparent on our first day in Germany.
As we walked the streets and watched games in the cafés of Dortmund, a small town in western Germany, 20 minutes from the site of the next day's match between USA and the Czech Republic, the town was full of people, mostly men, clad in their countries' jerseys.
I kept my eye out for fellow U.S. fans, but didn't notice any, which is astonishing when you think that we have more than 100 million more people in the United States than the next most populous country in the tournament (Brazil).
The feeling of being the lone Americans—let alone Las Vegans—in Germany subsided when we stepped off the train in Gelsenkirchen for the game. Outside the station, we were engulfed in a sea of red, white and blue. Of course, those are also the colors of the Czech Republic, whose supporters vastly outnumbered the U.S. fans, but outside one café, we saw Uncle Sam, a lot of Uncle Sams and hundreds of U.S. soccer fans dressed in U.S. jerseys and soccer scarves, faces painted, bodies painted, American flags waving. They were singing, chanting and drinking, like soccer fans everywhere.
As we started to walk around, I was stopped by a Czech fan who wanted to take a picture together. I took a couple of pictures with other Czechs, each with our arms draped around each other and smiling, them wearing Czech jerseys, me in a U.S. scarf.
After a dismal 3-0 loss, I wondered if the Czech fans were so friendly because they knew their No. 2-ranked team would crush us—we are very new to soccer and won't be a real contender for 20 more years, I was told by a man in a CCCP shirt before the game—but as the week went on, that thought quickly dissolved.
Everywhere we went, fans from various countries took pictures with each other, waving their flags; they had beers with each other, talked about visiting each other's countries. It is, when you boil it down, a world party. Many come without tickets to games, just wanting to be there, cheering on their team, their country, from outside the stadium, in a German café or at the fan-fests set up in each city.
When teams aren't playing, many fans choose a team to support during other games. Even people from countries that don't have a team in the tournament come and adopt a team—many Norwegians were there cheering for Togo.
Granted, it's not all hugs and picture-taking. There's booing and jeering, but for the most part, it felt friendlier than a Yankees-Red Sox game. Watching the USA vs. Italy in the Olympic Park in Munich on a giant-screen television with thousands of fans, it was obvious every non-American there was supporting Italy, or perhaps simply rooting against the United States, but when I couldn't get back in the main area after going to the concession stand, supporters of Italy happily helped me over the fence when a security guard wasn't looking and handed my beers to me once I was on the other side.
Throughout the trip, I carried the book with me, reading it in the car from city to city, trying my best to read the essays of the countries that were playing that day.
Some of the essays eloquently capture the beauty of the game and the passion the players and fans have for it, comparing soccer to war, religion and sex. Many go beyond soccer, focusing on the political and social aspects of each country, and often its history and culture. Others, like the pieces on Portugal, Sweden and Paraguay, barely mention soccer at all, throwing in a paragraph about it at the beginning or end.
The best ones, though, are those that keep soccer in the forefront—such as Italy, Brazil, England and Spain—and share with the reader what the sport means to the author individually or to the country as a whole.
One of the most thought-provoking essays is the one on Germany, by Alexander Osang. He takes us through his tumultuous relationship with soccer, beginning from when he was a young boy in East Berlin to today and how Germany's 2006 World Cup team is a symbol of growth and the gradual cultural unity of his country.
Soccer as a source of national identity and pride is a common theme. A thoughtful essay on Croatia by Courtney Angela Brkic captures the joy and importance of Croatia beating Germany in the quarterfinals in the 1998 World Cup:
"Though Croatia's independence was recognized in 1992, it wasn't until the 1998 World Cup that Croatia earned widespread recognition for something besides warfare and hardship."
History also plays a big part in the essays and arguably seeps onto the field in World Cup matches. Cressida Leyshon says it best in her essay on Trinidad and Tobago:
"Something happens to me when sport becomes the clash of nations, rather than of teams. I can't help being moved by the idea that the whole world is watching, that within 11 men on a field you can see a nation's history."
After a week of taking in the World Cup firsthand, two sentences from The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup stuck out in my mind. One from Geoff Dyer's essay on Serbia and Montenegro:
"So, it's worth reiterating the old lesson of travel and of the World Cup: People are pretty much the same the world over."
And the other came in the foreword by the book's editor, Matt Weiland:
"The joy of being one of the couple of billion people watching 32 nations abide by 17 rules fills me with the conviction, perhaps ignorant, but like many ignorant convictions, fiercely held, that soccer can unite the world."
Well, if that's ignorance, count me in. And, maybe, in 20 years, when it was predicted to me that the United States will contend for the Cup, more Americans will catch on.
The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup
Edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey
HarperCollins, $14.95