Thursday, June 24, 2010

CRAZY FOR THE CUP!



Every four years the entire world [except the United States] shuts down to watch the world’s most widely viewed sporting event, the World Cup. With an estimated 715.1 million people watching the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany, according to FIFA.com. The US is slowly but surely coming around with the US team ranking in this year’s Cup. This year’s FIFA World Cup, being held in Africa, is a nail biter and the US team might be creating a newfound respect for soccer here in the states.

The USA team started off the tournament ranked number 13 out of 32 teams. Although, the first round has just concluded, the US ended up wining one game and tying two.

Why is it that every other country stops what they are doing to watch their team play a match in the World Cup, and the US can’t pause for a second? Is it because the USA team has never been a strong player in the tournament, or is it because Americans just don’t care about soccer? Is it because we have so many other sports going on from football and basketball to UFC fights that we just do not have the time or the energy for one more sport!


In my opinion, it has to do with us not being one of the top teams in the tournament. Americans tend to be fair weather fans, I mean look at the recent Lakers vs. Celtic games, all of a sudden people who I know didn’t watch basketball were getting to bars 2 hours early, just so they could get a “good seat” to watch the game. Really? But will the USA team ever be that good? We have some hope this year with captain Carlos Bocanegra and Landon Donavon who have been playing extremely well in the past few games. It is just up to the team as a whole to finish what they have started and continue to surprise the rest of the world.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand, the World Cup. As of now, the United States team has passed the first round. This is determined as follows:

a. the greatest number of points obtained in all group matches,

b. goal difference in all group matches

c. greatest number of goals scored in all group matches.

Although I am a team USA fan, I do want Portugal to make it far. What about you? Who do you want to see win?



over && out, Candice.


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