Photo via the Austin American-Statesman
Tuesday afternoon, I woke my 3.5-year-old daughter from a nap at her Brooklyn preschool, something I've never done before because sleeping children are beautiful children, but in this case the beautiful game won out. "Chop, chop, wakey-wakey, we have to go get a spot to watch soccer." I gave her the option of French Fries at local Irish bar Mullanes, or a pretzel with Nutella at Die StammKneipe, the Fort Greene German beer garden formerly known as Der Schwarze Kolner. HazelChocoNut paste won out.The place was already crowded, save for an empty corner in the back. We emptied her backpack, took out the noisemakers, a few Fancy Nancy books to read before kickoff, and her official USMNT taliswoman: an Elsa-from-Frozen doll (I never could convince her to stand and scream "Let it Goooaalllllllllll" for the soccer folk, sadly.). By gametime, there were two more little girls, and by extra time there was a bunch of kids ages ranging from a few weeks old to young teenager. When Julian Green drilled that goal the joint--like your joint no doubt--erupted. The girls screamed, shaking maracas and tambourines, and my daughter joined in on the USA! USA! USA! chant. Hell, even the tweener who hadn't looked up from his video game popped up for the replay. It was awesome, and it's what I'll always carry with me from the 2014 World Cup.I have treasured moments from each of the last four World Cups. In 2002, my brother Brian, buddy Leo, and I went to East Village footie staple Nevada Smith's at 4 a.m. for a wee, wee hours match from South Korea. They had blackout curtains and lots of drunken English blokes, and we eventually walked out stumbling and squinting in the brilliant early morning sun to forage for egg sandwiches. In 2010, a huge impromptu block party broke out near our apartment in front of Madiba, Brooklyn's South African joint nonpareil. The cops shut down the street, someone cranked Michael Jackson, and the party raged on for three solid weeks. I remember my then-pregnant wife surreptitiously sipping a MiIler Lite at some Greenpoint spot, making it last the entire match as the USMNT sent England scurrying home all red-faced like it was 1776 all over again.My peak World Cup experience came during the 2006 championship game, when the wife and I grabbed a table at a French spot in Greenwich Village, an unfussy moderately-priced downtown spot that just happened to have an Italian doppleganger across the street. Both joints (now closed, natch) opened their bay windows and fun-loving nationalism ensued, starting with patrons standing for their respective anthems. It. Was. On. A half-assed wager was made that the losers had to come out and congratulate the winners as they sipped victory beers. The highlight was the 180-degree ecstasy/agony tilt when Zidane headbutted that dude. Initial French joy/Italian pain flipped the second the red card came out. So much emotion, so much screaming, and so much good-natured shit-talking as everyone flooded the street, lightly toasted on champagne and summer.***This stroll down my memory lane is a roundabout way of saying the World Cup has become my favorite sporting event, by a longshot, which is odd in that I know very little of soccer. The only other thing that I get this jacked up for is NCAA basketball tourney—but only the first two weekends. It's the annual rite of diminishing returns. The Final Four is as big a victim of over-branded awfulness as the Super Bowl. And wouldn't it make sense to play basketball in arenas where people play basketball? Dome hoops are an abomination, and by the time "One Shining Moment" chimes in, the fun of the opening rounds are a distant memory. I watch a decent amount of college basketball though, and have been betting on March Madness since the days of Patrick Ewing. Before, oh, let's say June 1, I couldn't name ten players competing in Brazil.The World Cup has become, for me at least, as close to a fandom sure thing as it gets. I first got into the thing after moving back permanently to New York City in 1999. I started noticing how vital soccer was to so many of my fellow townies, and not just at Nevada Smith's, although that was ground nil. I've gotten more and more attached with each passing World Cup, because it's so much damn fun here. And where you are too, no doubt (especially if you're in Kansas City; slow-clap for your efforts.) I'm not provincial—I just bet we have more walkable Ivory Coast hangouts than you. Apart from the occasional terrorist act, it's the most unifying thing us Gothamites have. It fills the bars, restaurants, cafes, hookah joints, whatever, and it showcases the cultural stew in ways crappy parades never could. It's like the inverse of Monty Brogan's rant in 25th Hour. The uptown Brothers, the Sikhs in their decrepit cabs, the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests, the Wall St. brokers, the Russians in Brighton Beach--Okay probably not the black-hatted Hasids--but everyone else is pounding pints and digging on the Cup. Oh, did I mention I saw Spike Lee in his USMNT finery on the way to pick up my daughter?New York, and it's what-the-hell-everyone-is-doing-it-this-June approach to midday-boozing, made me fall in love with the event, but in 2014, I've become aware of how much more I'm into the game itself. And that scares me, I'm afraid soccer might ruin the World Cup.I'm a footie novice for sure, but this World Cup, I was at least aware of the idea of 3-3-3-1 or 2-2-3-1-1-1 (that's a thing, right?) formations, what a striker is suppose to do/why ours didn't, and I even said, out loud, that Tim Howard must have more saves than any goalie in US history. I crossed that Rubicon in which I totally get why a 0-0 tie can be riveting. That's the game as played though, as for the sport at-large, I still don't know jack. Or Luis. As in Suarez, whom I'd never heard of before the World Cup, and have now read approximately 78,000 words on Conde Dracula. I dig that part of the World Cup too, the deep dive into countries, competitors, conspiracies, and cuisines, filling my head with good-for-three-weeks knowledge to try and hold my own at the watering hole. What I don't know intrinsically, is all the bullshit fun-ruining that soccer encompasses.***I was out watching Game Four of the NBA Finals with a baseball writer friend, who said after Fat Boris Diaw's no-look behind-the-back to Tiago Splitter, "I love hoop. I am so glad I don't have to cover it." He was, of course, referring to the dirty business of journalism, but in some ways, the same holds true for serious fans. The NBA is my favorite league, I watch a lot of it, and apart from moments of pure Spurs offensive splendor, I was personally disheartened by the way the season ended. Think of how stupid that is, I felt that the grown-ass men I watch play basketball personally let me down because I was hoping for a classic NBA Finals. I wasn't angry and was over it by the time I got a slice, but that's what happens when you invest a ton of time, energy, and mental acumen in a sport, team, or league. And neither the Heat or Spurs are the team I ostensibly root for.This isn't about woe-is-me, levels of losing, most tortured fanbase, God hates [insert decaying Rust Belt city]. God has bigger things to worry about than malevolently dictating sporting events. (Sidenote, there is no God.) I'm not talking about wallowing in self-pity or reveling in sportsy melancholia, but one doesn't have to be a sports-radio-barfing, First-Taking, mouth-breathing jackanape to recognize that when it comes to fandom, knowledge isn't always king. I'm a Mets fan, but I feel much more like a court jester than a knight at the round table for being well-versed in the Wilpon family cum Bernie Madoff financial disaster. Being aware that they've got no scratch means understanding the payroll isn't going up means realizing that David Wright, arguably the best Met position player of all time, is going to waste these last few prime years of his career on basement-scraping ballclubs before he ages out and becomes some other team's crafty veteran. The more you don't know… I'm not an idiot, this isn't some naive desire to watch the tournament through rose-tinted sunglasses. I watched Jon Oliver's FIFA evisceration, soaked in Wright Thompson on the World Cup's role in Argentina's ruthless dirty war, and am rereading Bill Buford's Among The Thugs. I get it, it's an ugly corrupt world out there and the World Cup is lining a lot of wealthy tax-free pockets while people suffer for their privilege.Like Oliver said though, the World Cup is the only thing that gives life meaning, and I'll take that bargain every four years. The problem is, I'm chomping at the bit more than ever before to go full-time footie, and it seems like now is the perfect time to do so. A few hours after the U.S. loss, in a less…wobbly state, I had a Twitter conversation about where we stand in the big picture with Josh Dean, a soccer writer who's covering the World Cup for GQ and the most-learned USMNT buff I know. (Coincidentally, his wife and infant son ended up joining our Biergarten soccer klatch.) He said it might not have shown in Brazil, but the USMNT is "respectable," "rising fast," "mid-tier," and most importantly, "It's coming. Our kids will see it."This is a huge consideration. We have one, and only one, little girl. I'd like her to be into a sport so we can hang out on the couch in the name of daddy-daughter bonding, especially in payback for all the hours I've put into learning and singing the Mary Poppins soundtrack. Right now, she's into the Mets, mainly due to the Mr. & Mrs., helmet sundaes, and Sunday pre-game bouncy house/post-game run-the-bases. She likes going to games now, but I doubt she'll continue to be drawn to lifeless baseball in a dead stadium. Hell, the only reason I know Citi Field is capable of thrilling sold-out raucousness is because I went to an Ecuador/Chile friendly there.***At the moment, the Mets are killjoys and that's what a lot of my World Cup consternation comes down to. I realize this is basically a question of whether I should rent the same beach house every year, or save up and take the occasional more exotic vacation, and why should you care? But I think the idea of finding joy, pure unadulterated bliss, in the grind of everyday life, is something we're all yearning for. That, and cold cans of Raderberger at noon on a Tuesday. Sports, and sports fandom, is supposed to be fun, an ultimately pointless way to bring a little shot of euphoria into the workaday drudgery. It's ephemeral sure, but that doesn't mean the good times aren't real or valuable. Will bringing more soccer into my life make the joy it brings me a little less?I wish there was a way to be sure that taking the soccer plunge would strengthen and amplify my love of the World Cup. I wish I knew that introducing my daughter to all the USMNT players as they spread out around the globe would lead to an enriched experience for her. I wish that checking out the Red Bulls, or getting up to watch the EPL, or going through the entire Men With Blazers back catalogue would allow me to explain the game better to her thus guaranteeing she'll get as excited for the quadrennial footie party as daddy. And I wish I had the certainty that both of us becoming 365-a-day soccerheads means that after the World Cup 2022 gets shipped to America thanks to piles of migrant corpses that all she'll want for her twelfth birthday is two tickets to see the USMNT in person and a hot dog and a Yedlin jersey and an American Outlaws scarf and…Wishes in one hand, World Cup in the other. The beautiful game or the perfect thing?I'm ready to go all-in…I just might need four years to think about it.***Patrick Sauer writes as a hobby and stays-at-home-dads for a living. He can be found at The Classical, Biographile, SB Nation, Narratively, ESPN, and a bunch of magazines that no longer exist. Lenny Dykstra still owes him money. For more, go here or here or follow him @pjsauer.
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