Dabbling in Treason

The US soccer team plays Spain on the 24th in a semifinal match for a place in the Confederations Cup Final in South Africa, a sort of preemptive warmup for the 2010 World Cup also being held there. One need not be preternaturally wise - or even a football aficionado - to posit that the US is heading into this as an underdog. With that I apologize to all underdogs, past and present. Likening them with the US team isn't even precise. If there were something less than an underdog, perhaps a small, less limber, less likely of a contender than said original underdog, that might fit. The under-est of the underdogs. Now I suppose I should be a good American and root for the US but the truth of the matter is I'm not. I simply cannot root for them. 

What they play is a brand of football so uninspiring, so fractured, and so poorly put together that not only would pouring my allegiance into them be fruitless but I'd feel it was misdirected - if I'm going to get excited about a side, or a match for the matter, I want to get excited about a squad that's going to be ecstatic to be out there representing their country, not roll over and allow themselves to be steamrolled by a Brazil squad without so much as making a peep. For myriad reasons, the US squad is dismal. Not once have I ever got the sense that, other than a few key members, they take it all that seriously, nor have the coaches ever had a clue about what they're doing and who they're filling the ranks with. 

Whereas with Spain that's never the case. Even in a match where they're on the unfortunate and rare outclassed side, they'll at least give an entertaining and hard-fought performance, one that doesn't leave me entirely ashamed of giving a damn about them. Even on an individual basis, I'd rather watch any one Spanish player with the ball all to himself than watch the entire US side fumble around waiting for something to happen rather than create a damn chance of their own. Not to mention my predilection and adoration towards Spain both as a country and a football squad run core-of-the-Earth deep and equally as fiery with ardor. So España it is. ¡Viva la Furia Roja!

If this knocks a few points off my patriotism measurement, well so be it. My unflattering comments here wouldn't be the first time I've let loose a brickbat against the contemporary states, athletics or otherwise. For the US squad's sake I hope Spain romps us. Maybe supreme embarrassment on an International stage will put things into perspective. 

And now after that brief restorative taste of fresh air it's time to take another deep breath, hold it, and submerge back into the work at hand.

"If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely."

DeLillo