2002 World Cup

Ok. It isn't really an secret that the World Cup is bigger in other countries (alright - every other country), but with U.S. Soccer making the cover of Sports Illustrated, the good old USA is finally getting it, right?

While we were gone the USA managed to upset Mexico and advance to the Sweet 16, err, Final 16. France had already lost, and England, Brazil, Senegal, Korea, Spain and Turkey all had big games to play. Nearly everywhere I went people asked me about how proud the country was for our team to have played so well. At this point we had won one game in the tournament. Not exactly the NFL play-offs, but it still seemed to be something pretty good considering we didn't score a single point in the last World Cup. An English-writer complained that the US wasn't paying enough attention to our team and tried to tie it into our global indiference to the outside world. Whatever.

France was a pretty big indication that the US is still pretty clueless about the World Cup. Here was a country that had lost and was already out of the Cup. In fact, France became the first defending champion to not score a single point, so I really thought they would just tune out the World Cup in disgust. Man, was I wrong! The plaze by La Defense was filled with thousands of people watching Korea play Italy. When favorite sun Senegal advanced, the Senegalese drove around the Arc de Triumph waving flags, screaming, etc. What was really amazing to me was that the French people cheered for the others and were incredibly supportive. This is some game.

London was pretty much the same thing. When England lost to Germany the nation seemed crushed. The newspapers and even the television stations ran lists of 'Reasons to be Cheerful'. They even had pyschologists on TV talking about how to not let it affect life. (Fat chance: the country had basically shut down for the day. I bet Christmas had more traffic on the highways than during the game.) The news coverage was basically 24 hours on this one game. Bobbie and I both remarked that the only thing we could compare it to was September 11th: everything revolved around this game. But once again, the English proved to be incredibly good sports and supported Turkey and Korea as they won their matches.

Korea's advancement to the quarter-finals was something I won't forget. By now I was curious so I watched the game in the hotel. After Korea's (controversial) win, I went out to take some pictures. As I was wandering, I happened to be in the middle of a big group of Korean revelers. I ended up wandering with them to Trafalgar square where they celebrated just hours after England had their hearts turn out. Try doing that in New York or Washington after an NFL game and you would be seen as gloating.

As this Korean 'mob' moved through downtown London, the people honked and cheered. It was a neat feeling.

I can't say that I see 'football' taking off in America the way it is overseas, but I do have a new understanding of how this world game is taken.