The World Cup is over, and it seems sad we will have to wait four years to watch another one. It was a lot of fun to watch and talk about.
Sure there are league games featuring many of the same players to be viewed, but it’s not the same. (You can see live soccer Saturday at Finley Stadium as the Chattanooga Football Club plays its last home game). This World Cup has drawn the attention of more people around here than any in recent memory. Maybe it’s because the American team was good.
As Spain and the Netherlands battled it out for the right to call themselves world champions, several things jumped out at me.
First, where were all the beer commercials and the 10-minute features on the stars of the game? If we’ve learned nothing from sports in America, it’s that fans want to have the action on the field interrupted by tear-inducing featurettes on how some athlete has overcome adversity.
How much better would it have been if at the end of the Ghana and Uruguay match, right after Luis Suarez illegally used his hands to prevent the winning goal from occurring, producers had cut away to a touching story about Suarez’ childhood.
FIFA, the governing body that oversees the event, is really missing out on the opportunity to improve the sport by introducing TV timeouts.
I kid, of course. Part of the beauty of soccer is that there are no timeouts. Play continues no matter what. Unless you count all the flopping that took place during this cup. One wag around here said the other day that the image of the 2010 World Cup is that of a player lying on the ground, arms spread wide, mouth open and glaring at the official demanding a foul. I’m having T-shirts printed up as we speak.
Several fans the other night were laughing at the same thing and marveling at the athleticism of the players and their ability to start asking for the foul in midair.
“You could really see it in slow motion,” one said. “They get hit, and right away they are looking for the ref, throwing their hands up and asking for for the foul. Amazing.”
Another fan was also very impressed at the players’ ability to recover from hard tackles that had them rolling on the ground as if they’d been Tasered seconds earlier. Some folks are wondering if that magic spray the trainers used to miraculously heal apparent broken bones is available over the counter.
The real point in all of this is that people were watching and still talking about the games days after the finals.
* Neal Pascal is leaving WRCB-TV 3 to teach eighth-grade classes in Bradley County. WRCB has begun a nationwide search for a replacement.