When the world (I am not exaggerating) is going crazy over FIFA 2006 World Cup Soccer, I cannot even find one channel in Direct TV (satellite TV) that airs a game during primetime! I was floored! I had to search all one hundred and some channels and eventually, found one airing Germany vs Poland, in Spanish. Yep, I had to go to a Spanish speaking channel in order to watch a game.
Last night when I was happy to see that they were showing Czech Republic vs the U.S. at 9:00pm on ESPN, but when I went to that channel at 9:00, they were showing college baseball, still in 8th inning. I sighed and Dan said, "Be patient, it will be over soon." Well, he doesn't understand, soccer fans cannot wait for a slow-moving-nobody-cares-about-but-Americans game to be over, in order to watch World Cup soccer, you are talking about WORLD CUP SOCCER. The baseball game lasted another half an hour before they put the soccer game on. If this happens in any other parts of the world, the TV station if not swamped with angry soccer fans, would have their phone lines jammed already.
Today I was talking with a student who is going to be a missionary in Eastern Europe, he said, "If you are going to be a missionary outside of America, you better know soccer."
He was right, only Americans don't care about soccer. Even with the U.S. team making it into Group E this year, Americans are mostly ignorant about what is going on in Germany right now. I told Dan that I feel isolated. Tomorrow when I go to work, NO ONE will talk with me about how Germany scored during the last two minutes. How they hit the crossbar of the goal twice in one attack, how the Polish was playing with one less man because of a red card. NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE will talk about it. Rather, if I am in Hong Kong, I would be walking into an elevator at work and everyone will be talking about it. Strangers are not strangers anymore because of soccer.
I am glad that I will be watching the 2008 Beijing Olypmics in the Philippines, and hopefully, I will be watching the next 2010 World Cup Soccer in SCOTLAND! Hurry!
ya, the u.s. just isn't with it yet with "football"...but you really should talk with nate and faith around the corner - i think nate's watching all the games live now that they're raising support and have flexible schedules. hang in there!
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