But there is crying and moping in soccer. I got to see the World Cup finals off and on and not knowing a damned thing, I enjoyed it (I tend to watch just the Super Bowl in football and the World Series in baseball…. no, I’m not a real man). At the end, as the Italians were dancing, the French moped, understandably, but theatrically. Then over U2’s song at the end (how can you have a football game without a halftime extravaganza?) they showed tons of soccer players crying. You wouldn’t see that in American football or baseball or, for God’s sake, Nascar.
[...] Jeff Jarvis takes a curious shot at emotional soccer players. Related Posts [...]
Yeah baseball players rarely cry when the win the World Series BUT, footbal players quite often cry when they win the Superbowl, I’m a Patriots fan and a number of them cried at the 3 SB victories. Last year a number of Steelers cied.
Not meaning to be condescending, or to lecture, but you do understand that the World Cup is a much, much bigger competition than the Super Bowl or World Series?
I hate soccer–but I was really happy to see France lose.
I’ve got morons dancing in the streets around here. The cholos wanna know why they can’t kick the goombas in the gonads
Jeff, you are just plain wrong here, and not sure what the point is. Bret Farve on his great Monday night football game, John Elway on his forst (and last I beleive) Superbowl, Pete Rose when he broke ty cobb…and those are just the few thjat come to mind.
Emotion is a big part of all sports, and crying at both wins and lsses is very normal.
And?
The difference between an World Cup-winning Italian midfielder crying at his team’s victory and an American baseball player not apparently caring that his team lost the “World” Series is the difference between standing before an an audience of billions in a truly global competition, playing for your national pride, versus already being on the phone haggling for a better deal with another squad in another state you’ve never lived in.
jhz,
What you don’t realize is that Jeff was having “a bit of go” at the girlie game. You are humorless.
Many people in the US enjoyed the World Cup. Ratings were good and it truly seems as if we have turned the corner. And that should scare you. Because the last thing you want is for the US to take the “World†cup challenge seriously. American money, talent and enthusiasm is unbeatable and you know it. Just a friendly warning. The days of delicate flowers prancing around is over.
I used to keep a list of crying in baseball.
{playing for your national pride, versus already being on the phone haggling for a better deal with another squad in another state you’ve never lived in.}
What a joke!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/4442898.stm
Just randomly looking through the news of the past few years, you can find plenty of stories like this. I’m glad that we can have passionate fans and players and not have flaming things falling onto the fields.
Also, if soccer players had a grueling almost daily 162 game schedule, you might see a bit more interest in how much they’ll be paid, too
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/04/bc394149-1c2c-4cc9-87b4-8f697985174f.html
Prague, 14 April 2005 (RFE/RL) — For Italian soccer, it was supposed to be a night of celebration, with Milan’s two teams completing a historic match-up in the quarterfinals of the Champions League on 12 April.
Instead, it was a nightmare.
The referee called off the match in the 73rd minute after disgruntled Inter fans started throwing a barrage of flaming flares onto the pitch, with one of them hitting AC Milan goalkeeper Dida in the shoulder.
Well, quotes from a Madonna movie aside, there’s crying in American sports. Our athletes try to be stoic, but check out the losing bench after an NCAA basketball final. US spectators don’t mind crying if players give everything in a big game and lose. Or win. We just dislike whining. As for the World Cup, it was great. Once the best athletes in America stop going into football, baseball and basketball (which may be never), the US will be playing in the last game. If your point is the world’s athletes play with more emotion than US athletes because our athletes just play for money, you’d do well to check the salaries the Euros and South Americans make with Chelsea, Arsenal, Real Madrid and Man U.
From FoxSports.com:
There’s No Crying In NASCAR! — Charlotte 1994
Jeff Gordon spent the entire 1993 season playing the role of Kasey Kahne, coming oh-so close to his breakthrough first Cup win over and over again… but coming up short. When he finally did pull into Victory Lane at the end of the ‘94 Coca-Cola 600, he climbed up on the roof of the No. 24 Chevy and did something we had never seen before.
He cried like a baby.
“I still catch grief because of that,” says the man who has added 71 more wins since. “But it was truly how I felt, and I don’t regret it all. Trust me; I wasn’t the only one crying out of happiness that night.”
Damn euroweenies.
As for the “Euroweenies”, you’d probably get pretty emotional yourself after running for up to two hours with no commercial breaks and no time-outs. Basketball is the only professional sport which even comes close to the physical exertion that soccer requires, but whereas a basketball court is 94′ long, your average regulation soccer pitch is over three times that, and while basketball players get breaks between the quarters, six time outs per side, as well as additional television network breaks, in soccer you get halftime, a small break before overtime, and penalty shots immediately thereafter if the game cannot end in a tie. The only “time out” in soccer is when a player goes down, and even then play does not automatically come to a halt.
Euro-weenies, indeed!
Kat,
I don’t understand the point of your post. No one said that soccer players aren’t athletes who are as capitalistic as any American baseball, football, or basketball star, but these same players happily don their native country’s colors in order to compete internationally at the World Cup (and other tournaments) as well — mind you, this is in addition to their regular league schedules.
Contrast this with the myriad baseball players who turned their noses up at participating in the World Baseball Classic earlier this year… until they saw how much fun everyone who *did* commit to it was having, that is! It was a hoot to watch Barry Bonds scramble to try to get on the United States team halfway through the competition, only to have his Johnny-come-lately overtures rejected by coach Buck Martinez.
JE: inaugural year of the WBC, so maybe next year will be better, even though it comes at a bad time of the year for ballplayers. However, the World Cup is more akin to the Olympics – national pride, every four years. While I dislike the loss of amateurs only, few American pro players turned down the op to play for USA.
According to Lewinsky.com, Zidane was sticking up for his mother…
{but these same players happily don their native country’s colors in order to compete internationally at the World Cup (and other tournaments) as well — mind you, this is in addition to their regular league schedules.} So, are you suggesting that soccer players are more patriotic???? I see many NHL players ready to don their country’s colors to play in the world cup of hockey and in the Olympics–this is in addition to their regular league schedules.
.
I hate soccer – but loved this years, one of the best world cup I will remember seeing. Soooooooo many unexpected victories.
Kat,
I suggest nothing of the sort, merely that all silly generalizations about sports are just that. I am as much a soccer fan as I am of baseball, football, or candlepin bowling for that matter, so I tend to get irritated when people with little interest in a sport take ill-informed cheap shots at it simply for the sake of doing so (e.g., baseball is boring, football is for mouth-breathers, soccer is “un-American” and full of crybabies, candlepin bowling is inferior to tenpin because the balls and pins are smaller and thus less manly).
Except for golf. All silly generalizations about golf are absolutely true.
Whatever the country or sport, sports and patriotism tend to go hand in hand, as do athletics and the capitalistic spirit. Apparent exceptions to this rule — Cuba and baseball, for instance — only end up upholding it in the end. Where do all of those Cuban pitchers end up, after all?
Chico,
Actually the next WBC will be in 2009, and thereafter wil occur every four years (or so I’ve read). Here’s to hoping they’re able to pull it off!
Kat, why were you happy to see France lose ? Can you explain ? Or is it just another racist comment about French people ? So now I understand why you prefered Italy. They know about racism and discrimination in soccer. They love to make monkey noises when a non-white player is around. Without speaking about the match fixing scandal that involves 13 of the national players. Great people !!!!
Claude, I just picked Italy because they were better looking and because I have had it with France’s anti-Americanism. Freedom fries for me.
You, however, are being a racist in condemning all Italians as “great people” who make monkey noises. Is that what happened to make that numbskull do his headbutty thing?
Yeah, I wonder what it was that Matarazzi said to provoke Zidane to do such a thing(headbutt). The game was amazing before that incident took place…………….they won but yet crying.
But Vincent, i liked penalty kicks better than golden goals at least.