Friday, June 11, 2010

Fever Pitch

Here's the extent of my soccer knowledge:

- When a defensive player attempts to knock the ball away from the player in possession of the ball, it's called a challenge. If he's successful, you should definitely say to the TV in some sort of accent "Guuud chaaaaallaange."

- In order to beat the Nazi soccer team, your squad must only consist of Pele, Sylvester Stallone in net, Austin Powers' faaaasha, and a bunch of roster-filling random dudes. Damn I love the movie Victory.

- In FIFA '95 for Sega, if you wait for the goalie to free kick, take one of your forwards and time your jump perfectly in front of him, you can knock the ball directly into the net every time and score like 20 goals per game.




- Pele was good. Zidane was good until he head-butted someone. Beckham can "bend it." Alexei Lalas had a crazy hair/beard combo. Freddy Adu was awesome when he was 14, now he kinda sucks. I'm very sure there was an Italian in the 90's named Roberto Baggio, I'm mildly sure that he missed the net during a huge penalty kick in the '94 World Cup, and I'm 100% sure that for most of my life, I have called the garbage can 'Roberto Garbaggio' because of him.

Annnnnd that's about it.


But if you think I'm not jumping on the U.S. World Cup bandwagon and waving my flag and cheering and drinking like a regular soccer hooligan, then you be illin', son. That's what American sports are all about. If, during the Olympics, I can read 47 Facebook status updates from girls whose only idea of competition is being first in line for the new Twilight movie, then I can absolutely be a die-hard U.S. soccer fan. Starting......now.