The suspense has been building up for months. Even more. Hopes were building up as well. For years. Even here in Israel, the Soccer capital of the Middle East. Speculations were flying around. Who will make the national team, who will be the head coach, the assistant. What teams will the national team have to play in order to pass the pre-games and finally, after so many years, make it to the World Cup. Mondial 2010 in South Africa.
Men around the world (some women too I’m sure) were gathering in small groups, in large groups, at homes and in pubs, with beer or hard liquor, watching game after game. Rooting for their national teams, their favorite players. Cussing and making fun of the others, the enemies.
In Israel it was short lived. After a few press conferences in which the head coach made statements like “we have never been more prepared”, and “this year with the current line up of players, we are on our way to the World Cup for the first time since 1966″, followed by a few games in which Israel lost to countries that can’t even spell “Soccer”, we were out of the competition, the head coach our of a job, and countless Israeli men short of money and big on beer bellies. For Israel, this scenario has been spelling the World Cup for years. Big statements, small games. Big mouths, small results.
Not for me. I expected nothing and that’s precisely what I got. I haven’t watched a single game. I barely read the score on the news a couple of days later. Overhearing the big shots on the train, and their deep analysis of the game, the players, and the “disgraceful errors” made by the coach, the “amazing mistakes” ruled by the referee, I had all the information I needed.
And then, suddenly, June arrived. It was a surprise really. May hardly ended, and there it was, June, and the South African World Cup of 2010 was on its way. Israel wasn’t there. But in our defense I would state that many other countries didn’t make it to the World Cup. (Later I would learn that making it to the World Cup and actually showing up to the games are two different things. See the French team for example. They made their way to the World Cup, but never showed up to the games).
And there I was. Anticipating the whistle. The signal for the games to begin. The World Cup. What an amazing event. Only once every four years. What a wonderful show of human sportsmanship, teamwork, solidarity, strategy and tactics. I felt lucky to be alive, and to be the owner of a large screen LCD TV with full HD capabilities. Really large.
I sat on my American Comfort brown soft leather armchair, put my feet up in the air, took a handful of sunflower seeds, and made sure that the Heineken is within the reach of my hand. I was all set to be excited, to be entertained, to be in the game. And then I remembered. It hit me like a lightning in the middle of the summer. Like Mozart playing in the middle of a baseball game in the heart of Minnesota. In the winter. It’s boring.
I almost fell off the chair. What the hell was I thinking? Twenty millionaires, each ten wearing expensive colorful uniform, with two other wearing ski clothes standing in the goals. Another black and yellow guy standing in the middle of the huge grass court, pointing fingers like a senior manager in some hitech company and whistling all the time, and rain. The millionaires keep running around, chasing a ball, kicking each other particularly in the feet and then immediately denying the kick (which by the way they repeat, slowly, one time after the other almost every time), spitting and sweating, holding each other’s shirts, pants, feet and hair. Sometimes, not very often, one of them actually makes it all the way to the other side, and successfully enters the ball in to the other team’s goal. In which case the yellow guy usually comes close, and says something like “offside” or even simpler, just reaches to his invisible pocket and flashes a yellow or red card, followed by a big fight not only on the courts, but also by some older men wearing suits on both sides of the court.
The players run around and as soon as someone comes close they twist their faces and fall on the grass holding one organ or another. At first you think the game is over for the guy, and that the murderer will be indicted shortly. Then he runs again, slowly, and you see clearly that the other guy had nothing to do with it. Strange.
Ninety minutes later I realized that I wasted another two hours on watching a bunch of sweaty men running around a grass court. The funny thing is, that an hour later there’s another game, and I watch that one too. And another one.
Amazing this Soccer game. And then it hit me again. Soccer develops tolerance for boredom. If you are strong enough to watch the World Cup, you are probably strong enough to sustain almost anything. Long Live the Mondial. And may we live to see and sleep through many more.
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