World Cup notes: Packed stadiums, price gouging and fans’ quest to Americanize the world’s favorite sport

Random World Cup notes written on a pizza box from the international soccer backwater that is Italy:

Soccer not manly enough?

*If arrogance was a World Cup soccer team, the U.S. would win every match, 5-0. The comments I’m reading online have made every visiting fan spit up their Denny’s burger.

One American wrote, “Soccer isn’t violent enough. There’s way too much whining which goes against the American DNA … Basically, what I’m saying is that soccer is a pretty wimpy sport.”

Excuse me, but how violent is baseball? Forget golf. Soccer players aren’t wimps. They’re lousy actors. They fake injuries and screams to draw fouls, which they rarely get.

*Fans thrilled at the packed stadiums and partying foreigners say the U.S. should hold every World Cup as it’s “obviously” the best World Cup in history. Excuse me, I was a sportswriter for 40 years and covered the 2006 World Cup in Germany. It was more affordable and had easier access than this hemispheric edition. Trains went everywhere every few minutes. No one had to drive an outrageously expensive rental car and leave a first-born male child as a deposit.

I didn’t hear a single complaint from sports writers and we’re bigger whiners than soccer players. 

Soccer or football?

*Some Americans can NOT accept soccer being called football elsewhere. After all, there is really only ONE true football and that’s the one where Americans break bones and suffer brain damage. Never mind the first rules of soccer were written in Cambridge, England, in 1848. American football rules were invented in the 1870s.

Soccer got its name in the U.S. after the Football Association formed to govern English football in 1863. British students often shortened words and added “er.” Thus, “Association” became “assoc” then “soccer” which became slang for English football.

Americans adopted that name to differentiate soccer from American football. The term football is nearly universal. It’s futbol in Spanish, fudbal in Bosnian, futebol in Portuguese, footbal in Farsi, etc.

Here in Italy, we call it calcio, from calciare, meaning “to kick.”

*Why are Americans saying the World Cup proves we’re the greatest country in the world because Europeans have fallen in love with ranch dressing? And free refills? And giant supermarkets with two whole aisles devoted to chips? We also have an obesity rate (Body Mass Index of 30 or higher) of 40 percent, the highest of any industrialized country.

*Some visiting European fans have said, “What we read about America in the media is a lie. What we see here is fantastic.” Thank you. We like it, too. Just don’t get injured or seriously ill. Two weeks ago here in Rome I had a cyst removed from my back. Cost: €100. Cost in the U.S: $500-$2,000.

*The biggest surprise to me isn’t that Cape Verde made the knockout stage or Lionel Messi, who’s about my age, is still one of the two or three best players in the world. It’s that every stadium is packed at prices that have set new standards in price gouging. Thanks, FIFA.

The average ticket price across all matches is $500, two to three times more than four years ago in Qatar. That rises to $1,000-$1,600 on the secondary market.

A friend in Maine who had been to four World Cups wanted to attend a knockout game in Foxborough, Mass. The cheapest ticket he could find was $3,200. That doesn’t count the $270 for parking. If he took public transportationfrom Boston, the half hour trip would be $150. He’s waiting for the 2030 World Cup in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

Offsides is offsetting

*Visitors are getting annoyed at Americans who have just discovered soccer and want to Americanize the rules. How about a shot clock, wrote on. Or eliminate offsides? Sure, just place a player in front of the opposing goal all game. 

One visiting fan sarcstically wrote on Twitter, “Soccer fans have understood offsides forever but finally, FINALLY, we have been enlightened by three week soccer fans about how the rule needs to change. Why didn’t you find us sooner.”

*Ties. Americans hate ties. They won’t accept them. It’s un-American. Can Americans accept that just because something is different doesn’t mean it’s better or worse? It’s just different.

The reason soccer has ties is because no world sport has a more grueling schedule than international soccer. Players’ off seasons last about an hour and a half. If they had overtime in every club game, they’d all be dead by 30.

Is the U.S. the new favorite?

*The frenzy in the U.S. as it won Group D was nothing short of hallucinations. The U.S. beat Paraguay and Australia. Thus, the U.S. is going to win the World Cup.

Then because soccer will explode in the U.S. and it has the best athletes, it will dominate the world stage forever more. I know. I wrote that once.

In 1979.

In my first job in suburban Seattle, I saw youth soccer participation had surpassed Little League. I interviewed area soccer coaches and they predicted the U.S. would soon become a world power.

It’s 47 years later, and the U.S. is still waiting for its first World Cup semifinal.

*The U.S. team frenzy has spilled into the media where some TV pundits have booted objectivity farther than a Cristiano Ronaldo free kick. This L.A. reporter not only wrapped herself in the U.S. flag during her live spot, she revealed a complete ignorance of geography that Europeans have always found embarrassing about Americans:

*Where’s Italy’s national team? While you’re reading this, they’re probably trying to decide whether to use No. 50 or 30 sunscreen on a beach in Ibiza. What happened? How did a four-time World Cup champion miss its third straight World Cup? 

I covered the subject in April after it lost at Bosnia and Herzegovina in March to get  eliminated. Here’s the link: https://johnhendersontravel.com/italy-reels-in-shame/

*What’s with the foreign fans whistling during the liquidation breaks in each half? They’re only three minutes. You’re that much of a traditionalist that you can’t let players who’ve played for 10 straight months take a break in the height of summer?

*I’ll stick to my original prediction: France. And entering the knockout stage, I’ll take France against the field.