The winds are howling and the world’s shaking itself loose; at least it feels that way. The night scratches its back against our houses, the heat of the day falls away like a dream; and then the cycle reverses, unpredictably, tapping out weird rhythms of hot-cold that upset our animal patterns over the days of this tense spring. There is a feeling of unrest in the Land of the Free, a disquiet. The feeling is immanent and of the time. It has been here before and will be again.
Soccer seems to have a window during each of these periods of weird energy, a chance to make a greater impression upon the minds of Americans. And there’s more at stake now, at the end of the Energy Age. What images do we remember? Again and again, it’s the 1970 Cup, the glowing, phantasmagoric grace of that Brazil team—the first one broadcast in color—like an acid ring-pop of joga bonito.
“Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.” —HeineAnd now we feel it going dark. Who will be remembered? If you can see Pele in electric yellow in your mind even now … who will be remembered? If the Aztecs were right, this is the last World Cup ever. That would explain the wind, the weirdness. And here in the USA, high weirdness has always had its say. This could be the last one ever. Let’s say the USA win. Who would be remembered then? One month for glory. One month, a few systemic disasters, and suddenly you’re Viracocha. You’re Quetzalcoatl. You’re bringing the seeds of civilization to a people riven by superstition.
And who’s to say they couldn’t do it? I mean, besides everyone.
“Everyone” is just presumptuous. And if they did, if they did … the wings of butterflies, flapping so many miles away … the astonished shouts of Martin Tyler, enshrined ironically for all time as the Guy Who Called It When The USA Won It … this nation of new fans, seeing the game anew, and realizing their distance from it was exactly equal to their distance from living their lives in a vital, purposeful way, balancing desire and restraint, action and discussion, time and motion. A new America, born that moment.
Or the USA could crash out, and everyone could snort about sports redolent of communal effort. Q: You know what soccer needs? A: Slam dunks! President Palin cancels plans to host the 2022 Cup: “We don’t need Europeans over here spreading their diseases and Godlessness.” Landon Donovan, 45, kicking field goals for the Dallas Cowboys. Food-system collapse. Riots. Oppression.
Up to you, boys. Not trying to press. Just saying. Up to you.
Sean Spence lives in Flint, Michigan, with his wife Sarah, three step-daughters, and four cats.
Read More: Alienation and Dread, USA, World Cup
by Sean Spence · June 10, 2010
Read something earlier that reminded me that most people only get to witness about 20 World Cups in their lifetime. Depressing.
@Brett Was that the Aleksandar Hemon piece at TNR? I thought it was kind of a weird thing to be sad about given that this is only going to be the 19th World Cup.
@Brian Phillips Well when you put it that way…haha. I think people don’t really actively think about that though, and the World Cup is very much a fact of life — something that happens, always has, and hopefully always will.
Nice art! source? Cometh the hour, cometh the man. And who might that man be? Football is a team sport where individual talent can seize control at crucial moments, and I think the USA has one or two players who do that. I think that single ability is what makes Clint Dempsey the best American player ever, because we’ve never had anybody who can elevate above otherwise world class competition. Donovan plays at a very high level, but hasn’t produced a moment where you can honestly say “only one or two other players could have done that in that moment.” Dempsey has been doing that since college (my team plays Furman twice a year, and people still talk about him in hushed tones). England is the perfect team for this to happen to, though they have two players, in my mind Rooney and Gerrard, who always have an extra gear for the big matches (Lampard, as many in the English press note, tends to disappear for country).
So what do you guys think the US lineup will be Saturday? Will Jozy be deemed fit enough to start? Gooch too? Will we go with the two holding/def mids, Bradley and Rico, or might Edu or–gasp–a more offensive option be used instead of the latter (a pretty clear offensive liability)?
Whether or not Gooch starts I envision BB going obviously with Bradley and then conservative with Rico, aiming for these guys to clog the middle, cut off passing lanes and counter-attack opportunities, and generally muddle the English middies. We’ll hope to do as we did against Spain and Brazil (first half), and defend and counter, defend and counter. And take advantage of any set pieces.
Or do you guys think we’ll come out the aggressor? You know: surprise! That we might see a more offensive middie paired with Bradley, and then Altidore, if healthy, paired with Buddle’s muscle and finishing or Findley’s speed? Does the coaching staff have enough confidence in Gooch yet?
Do we see it as imperative that we score that first goal on England, or keep them from scoring as long as possible? (Obviously, there’s a clear answer to that, but it really comes down to philosophy.)
ok, sorry nerd hat on,
begin nerd rant/ it’s not the Aztecs (Mexica) who predict the end of days, it’s a Mayan prophecy, and this is also not an end of days thing, but rather a paradigm shift, life changing time that is coming, not the end of the world/end nerd rant
@luna The point about the Mayans is well-taken, although I would argue in my favor that the two cultures used a shared calendrical system. And I read about paradigms back in the day; I don’t remember those typically being accompanied by the prospect of planetwide destruction, as the Mayan and Aztecs procession-of-the-equinoxes myths do.
I’d love to read more about these calendrical systems if you have more information. Math, myths and puzzles? I’m so there.
@Sean from my Latin American history classes, our interpretation of the Mayan (today Peru) myth system is hopelessly corrupted by one: faulty Spanish interpretation, and two: the Tupac Amaru revolts, which changed a lot of the original cultural stuff. There had been a slow decay in the practice of the Mayan rituals, and the Tupac Amaru rebels coopted and changed a lot of the traditions (and the Spanish deliberately misinterpreted others)- changing the dialogue from a paradigm shift to an apocalyptic vision, and so on. The problem is, we can’t really reconstruct what the original religious systems and beliefs were and how they were practiced- we only have good primary sources (and the reliability of these is still highly questionable) for the whole Amaru catastrophe.