After 47 months of “slow news days” the 2010 FIFA World Cup has arrived. As the lucky member of the Tickle City Award Committee chosen to attend on its behalf, I was fortunate enough to experience the mania first-hand, and there is little else like it.
Some sports have crazy athletes such as boxing or professional wrestling. Many sporting events claim to have insane fans, including March Madness, Super Bowl Fever, or World Series Syphilitic Dementia. While these sports and events are spectacles, nothing compares to the absolute hysteria associated with the World Cup. The coach of Slovakia wanted to fight a reporter, a star French player, Nico Anelka, called their coach’s mother a whore, and in this committee member’s favorite incident the entire French team refused to practice and instead sat on their bus pouting.
Although there is incredible lunacy amongst the players and coaches, the ultimate example of World Cup Mania is the fans. Blowing the native South African vuvuzela in the color of their nation’s flags, these fans come out in droves to show their national pride. While undoubtedly exciting, the World Cup is a month of emotional ups and downs, with fans smiling, screaming, cheering, and for almost all of them, ultimately crying.
What makes this fanatacism so crazy is the combination of hope and hopelessness that resides in all fans. Every Englishman believes England are going to win the World Cup and yet that they will lose each and every match. The Italians, despite being eliminated, are still expecting to win. The Americans are firmly under the belief that Landon Donavan is the next Messi and that they will win the championship, but are fully aware that there is no chance they can beat the likes of Brazil and Argentina, Spain, or Germany consistently. Eventually, almost all fans end their World Cups in heartbreak, but in four years all that heartbreak will have been replaced by optimism wrapped in pessimism. World Cup Fan Mania, you are tickle city!
By Mark Rosenberg
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on June 24th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Great post, Mark. This isn’t really a response to what you wrote, but I started thinking a little bit about the French situation after reading your remark about the players pouting on the bus. A lot of blame has been assigned to the French players for their antics and early exit, but is the French Federation not equally deserving of blame? It is the Federation that retained the services of an objectively crazy manager who relies on astrology and who had completely lost the respect of all his players. The usual angle that the media have taken seems to be that the French players are a bunch of egomaniacs who embarrassed their country–probably not far from the truth. But, I think omitting the ineptitude of the Federation leaves us with only half the story.
on June 24th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I agree, Mr. Doskowitz. To have a team of superstars play with a lame-duck manager who had lost their faith, with good reason, was a terrible decision by the FFF. The players may not have handled it well, but it’s understandable that they were upset they were forced to go into a World Cup with a terrible manager who barely got them there. The players were not in doubt, only the manager was, and when Domenech refused to take input from the players they revolted.
I think the first match sums up their entire tournament: they came out wearing all white. They’d already surrendered.