Sports Talk: 10 Reasons to watch the World Cup

As a correspondent sports writer for The Casey County News, I write an weekly editorial column for the publication. Published June 4 , 2014.  
I know we're a basketball-centric state and county, but guess what the rest of the sports world is getting pumped about right now--and I mean WORLD--THE WORLD CUP.
I admit, this was not always something I paid much mind to; however, 2010, the last World Cup, two things opened my eyes to what an event it truly is. First, I started dating my now husband in 2010 and he is a life-long soccer player. Obviously he cared and had me tuned in. Second, I visited Brazil the week leading up to pool play. I'll go into further detail on that later, but let's just say, I REALLY learned how much he rest of the world cares about the World Cup.

So, why should you care? Here are my top 10 reasons to tune in:

1. No other sport is more universal throughout the world. You know how learning to dribble a basketball is like learning to walk? In other countries, learning to dribble and kick a soccer ball is the same way. And what's more is that even the poorest of the poor countries and cultures have soccer, because it is SO extremely simple to set up and play. If you have a ball... you can mark off a goal and play just about anywhere. 

2. It's easy to understand. Yes, the field is HUGE, but the rules are simple and you can catch on in no time if you're watching. (Except maybe the offsides penalty... That one is kind of odd and took my husband drawing a diagram for me to understand, but otherwise, you're in the clear.)

3. These are some of the best athletes in any professional sport out there. Yes, you might compare basketball athletes, BUT when considering the make-up of a top-notch athlete (not specific skills in a particular sport) there three key differences in soccer and basketball: (a) The playing field is over 17x LARGER in soccer; (b) Soccer has 90 minutes of playing time, basketball has 40-50, depending on the league. (c) There are no timeouts in soccer. With that in mind... your soccer athletes need EVERYTHING when it comes to what makes up an athlete: speed, endurance, agility, creativity, coordination. If you aren't advanced in any one of hose, you won't be on the field. Watch the World Cup and you'll be watching incredible athletes.

4. Aside from the Olypmics, you cannot really compare any other international stage of competition to the World Cup. If anything, the US is the oddball who does NOT tune in to the degree of the rest of the world.

5. You'll get to watch the best of the best soccer. If you've never been into the sport or watched it before, this is where to start because it doesn't get any better than this.

6. All teams come in equal. There is no seeding in the World Cup. After the qualifying games, 32 teams are put into eight pools at complete random draws, and then two teams from each pool advance to the tournament (16 teams). USA is in a pool with Ghana, Germany and Portugal. (Tune into the pool play if you want to watch the US, friends...We drew a tough, tough pool.)

7. You can plan your schedule around watching a game...at least to some degree, compared to something like basketball or baseball. Without timeouts, a close game cannot be extended on and on--and on--like we see in basketball sometimes. While stoppage time is added to the clock to see that the ball is in play a full 90 minutes, athletes and coaches cannot control the time so easily.

8. You might miss something crazy like a Zidane Headbutt. Never heard of it? You know all of the crazy incidents you've watched over and over from your favorite sport? Yeah, soccer has those too... Just go Google "Zidane Headbutt"...

9. Watch for your kids. Casey County has never been a big soccer county. Finally, we have a girls' high school team. If your kids have interest in the sport--especially if they are young--encourage it. Don't shove them into another sport just because it's one you know. The World Cup is a great chance for you to learn and get excited about soccer and be happy your kid might want to play. Plus, you don't want them growing up thinking soccer is as obscure of a sport as curling.

10. Brazil is hosting. OK, so I don't know that watching on TV from Kentucky will give you the effect of what this means. As mentioned, I was in Brazil the week leading up to pool play in 2010 and my WORD! If you thought Kentucky got crazy during March Madness, you haven't seen anything. And Brazil wasn't even hosting that year! Their McDonald's actually created about 20 different sandwiches in honor of different countries competing in the world cup. Every other person you saw was sporting a yellow and green soccer jersey or waving a flag. If I could have managed a trip to visit my friend, Gui Buso (CCHS exchange student in 2003), this summer, I would have. (A baby and home construction got in the way... Maybe we can hope for the Rio Olympics in 2016...) Just imagine Kentucky hosting the Final Four... Brazil IS soccer.

Pool play starts on June 12. USA's first game is on Sunday, June 15 against Ghana. See the full schedule here.

Sports Talk: Sports Struggles in a Small Town

As a correspondent sports writer for The Casey County News, I write an weekly editorial column for the publication. Published July 31, 2013. 

I was delighted to see that the U.S. won its fifth Gold Cup title this past weekend after taking out Panama in the championship game. Currently Mexico is the only country topping the title count, with six.

Personally, I enjoy seeing our country moving forward in the soccer world. Soccer was never a big part of my athletic growing up years. Not only did I not play in any of my youth, but it wasn’t even a sport I was played in an intramural sense through school or I learned the rules to—like softball or volleyball. With Casey schools not having soccer,  I never attending any games until college, but having been to a game while visiting Brazil three years ago, there is no doubt the level of excitement the sport holds.

While I loved my Casey County school experience, as with anything in life, you give some and take some. There are a ton of sports out there that our school system does not and cannot offer for one reason or another. Some you can find only a county away; some you will only find in Louisville or Lexington; others you might not even find in the state.

It is a tricky dilemma to argue about—the lack of any particular sport in our area. During my time as a Casey County student I saw the school add girls’ volleyball and both tennis teams. Cross country was added as well after it became a sport I personally pursued. While this was a major accomplishment and advantage to me at the time—something I was very grateful to those who helped me—I admit it was an easier battle to win than trying to get the school to add a new team sport. (All I needed was my own two legs and some open fields for running—we’ve got plenty of those around here.)

Soccer seems like such a basic sport, so it’s almost like we are selling students short by not having a program. (I’m glad we have our youth programs.) At the same time, we are a small school system. There are only so many students total. Of those students, only so many of them have any interest in athletics. It’s a great thought to offer an array of sports, but the reality is that most students have to narrow down their extracurricular to a select two or three.  While we want to see options for sports, we also like to see successful programs in our sports, and the more we spread out our athletes and their focus and talents on any one or two, the harder building successful programs becomes.

It definitely is one of the tough parts about a smaller school system. With my husband having been a soccer player and a big fan of the sport, I do wish I had at least learned more about it in my youth, even if I’d never played on a team. (I never played softball or volleyball on a team, but I know the basic rules.) At least having a youth program gives our children the opportunity to discover this sport and find out if it is something they are passionate about or have natural talent.

The beauty of this day and age is even if your high school does not offer a particular sport or extracurricular, it’s likely you can find a travel team or area league to join.  Whether the high school ever offers soccer (or any other new sport) I understand is a tricky item to tackle for many reasons, but I think it’s more important to simply give kids at a young age the exposure to more sports or extracurricular so they have a chance to learn about them if they so desire.

Sports Talk: America's up and coming sport: Soccer

As a correspondent sports writer for The Casey County News, I write an weekly editorial column for the publication. Published July 11, 2012.

I am finding myself more and more ashamed of my ignorance of one of the world’s most popular sports: soccer, aka ‘football’. In addition to growing up in a nation where the sport was always shadowed by basketball, football and baseball, soccer was never available in our county athletics.

As an adult, I am realizing what I have been missing, and apparently much of this country is as well. A study conducted by ESPN/Luker polls in 2011 shows soccer to be the second most popular sport in the 12-24 age group, right behind football, with basketball at number three.

Without purposefully planning it, I found myself in Brazil during the kickoff of the 2010 World Cup when visiting a former Casey County High School exchange student, Gui Buso. Of course, now, I realize I should have planned the trip for 2014 (or need to plan another trip??) when the event will be hosted by Brazil.

Simply being in the country that prides themselves on the sport beyond all else was incredible.  Their McDonald’s menu was even redone with a specialty “World Cup Menu”—a sandwich for every nation. No, the U.S. was not represented… You could not go anywhere without seeing people in soccer jersey. A trip to the soccer museum in Sao Paulo was included on our itinerary.

I also had the pleasure of attending one of the last games played in the famous “Maracana” stadium in Rio de Janeiro before it went under construction for the 2014 World Cup.  (We were told at the time it was the last game to be played but I cannot find confirmation of that.) See full blog post report on the event here.

Home stadium of the Flamenco, the Maracana was once the world’s largest soccer stadium seating 200,000 people.  Several renovations have brought that number down over the years and its current construction results in just over 75,000 seats, but with much more comfort.

Despite the rainy evening and the, then, close to 85,000-seat stadium being far from full, the atmosphere did not lack enthusiasm. Drums, chants, cheers… I did not know a word but still found myself attempting to sing along.

Some argue soccer to be a ‘boring’ sport. I am quickly learning this is simply a lack of understanding the sport. My husband, an avid soccer player through his youth, can easily get sucked into a game.

He always points out that his biggest beef with basketball is the drawn-out endings with time-out after time-out, where 59-seconds turns into 30-minutes.  With soccer, the clock never stops and neither do the athletes. It’s 90-minutes of sweat and action. I just have yet to learn all of the words and terminology to quite keep up.

The recent report from ESPN/Luker reflecting the youth’s rising interest in this sport excites me and seeing that Casey County is following that trend definitely excites me.

Soccer had its first season in the middle school this past spring with team members spanning from eighth graders down to the elementary level. I had the pleasure of watching their first game of the season and despite coming up short of a win, it was incredible to see the vast improvement of these young athletes from the first to second half of the game. I can only imagine how far they had come by the close of their season.

Like any sport, soccer skills take time to develop; the good news is, it is an easy sport to dive into. I remember while in Brazil, Gui told me that soccer is to them what basketball is to us: as a toddler you begin learning to dribble a ball... but in Brazil it is dribbling with your feet instead of your hands.

If you never have in the past, learn something about soccer and give it a chance for your attention. I think you will find yourself loving it more than you might expect.

All The World's A Classroom

Sorry, Shakespeare but you had it wrong. Maybe the world is a stage but it is most definitely primarily a classroom.

Lucky for us, Gui was off work today and after letting us sleep in (and waking us up by singing the American National Anthem to us) he gave us a day out and about in Sao Paulo. Honestly, we were mainly driving but I don't think any of us minded. There was a lot to take in and endless questions to be asked.

We first went to the Soccer Museum which is housed at the home stadium of the Corinthians (pronounced "corin-chins" soccer club). The majority of the museum was in Portuguese but lucky for us we had our personal translator. For a girl who has never known much about soccer, it's quite amazing how much I have been surrounded by it in these past few days--terms, players, teams, historical moments.

Interesting, though, that Gui himself is not the typical hardcore soccer addict in Brazil. Basketball is more his passion (not that any Brazilian doesn't know his soccer), but melody and I picked up on a level of resentment towards soccer from Gui. Not because he does not enjoy it but because the weight that is put on a game in this culture. Everywhere we went today (and the entire time we have been here) we saw flags, signs, people in yellow, green and blue jerseys and shirts, food deals, paraphernalia in store windows. Melody commented on the national pride here and how cool it is but Gui corrected her quickly, saying you see none of this when it is not World Cup season. People live and breathe soccer but sometimes put it before the real necessities or what should be the priorities in life, he said. He told us he felt American's national pride is much stronger because it exists outside of the sports world and something I had never thought of, but he pointed out that he said part of that is probably because of the wars we have fought in. When noting the "pride" we were seeing everywhere we also asked of any major wars that had taken place in Brazil. We noted it is a good thing but Gui said he slightly disagreed. With having no history of fighting for what is theirs or to gain better rights or freedom, there is no appreciation for what they have; at least not like in America. It's something I never thought of--war as a strength in our history simply for what it does for the unity of the people and the appreciation of what is ours.

The day was full of these thought-provoking conversations as talk revolved around differences in languages and foods and traditions and cultures. The questions and observations back and forth never stopped. We got a close look at the favelas for the first time--the very poor areas of town where people nearly live on top of each other. We also got to see downtown Sao Paulo and many of the older buildings and museums.

Carla got to Gui's house in time for dinner and his parents cooked an awesome homemade traditional Brazilian meal and wow was it delicious. Amazing what all we have eaten here and this one--perhaps the best one yet--was free to us!

Five days in this country and there is no doubt in my mind I have learned more than I ever could have in a whole semester of class on Brazilian culture. It's amazing the amount of knowledge this world holds for us that we can so easily tap into if we simply use the resources we have at our fingertips--and for the most part, those "resources" I am referring to are our friends.

FUTBOL!

I suppose it was sort of silly of me not to even consider that one of the "musts" for visiting Brazil would be to attend a soccer game. It wouldn't be complete without it, right?

Gui and Carla didn't waste any time in getting that on our agenda. It was actually extremely convenient. There was a deal through our hostel to pay in advance and get the transportation and tickets to a Flamengo game. It was actually the very last game to be played in the HUGE 100,000 seating stadium (forgive me, I've forgotten the name at the moment) before its closing until the use for the 2014 World Cup. A little crazy when you consider that the 2010 World Cup has not even begun yet. (You wouldn't know that being here, though. Everything is decked in Brazil pride because of the big event. Even the McDonald's menu is special for the World Cup.)

I've never been to a professional soccer game before and this was definitely the way to start. We may have been up near the top of the stadium (but that whole portion was covered from the rain that was falling through parts of the game) but it was where all of the action was. You may see in my pictures that the stadium looks empty. This had much to do with, well, it's massive seating capacity but also that the opponents had no fans. But we were in the heart of the Flamengo pride. Drums beating, chanting and singing, flags waving. We may have lost but getting to experience the first goal of the game (not until the second half) was enough to satisfy me. I'm pretty sure Melody and I found ourselves singing along without completely knowing what were saying. You couldn't help but be swept away with the atmosphere.

One cultural thing to note about the sporting event experience: the crowd vendors. Like any arena, vendors walked around carrying food, drinks and snacks yelling out to the crowd and making their money. But never in the US have I ever noted them to be such avid recyclers! Mid there semi-annoying "pssssst" noises they'd make (it was their way of announcing their presence or something as they moved through the crowd) I noticed that the plastic tubs they carried sodas and waters in (no selling of alcohol in the stadium) that there were empty crushed cans as well. It actually looked dirty and that's why I asked Carla about it. She explained that cans are NEVER left anywhere because someone will so easily snatch them up to later trade in to make money. Funny, though, isn't it, that in the US we can also make money off of cans, but you sure don't seem people walking around picking up other people's trash that faithfully. Besides, I'm sure people would look at those plastic tubs with the melted ice water holding both full cans and empty crushed cans and not even want to purchase anything. It's just interesting to me the things that are the same, but treated differently.

Quite an eventful first day--felt like much more. We finished up the night by grabbing a small bite to eat across the street from our hostel and a drink. Exhaustion set in full force, though and bed time came somewhat early.