april futbol's day

tonight we went to the usa vs trinidad & tobago soccer match. usa won! yipee ki yay! we kicked their ass on the pitch but also in cheering. the best cheer is of course - «u-s-a! u-s-a!» how could they compete with that? «t-r-i-n-i-d-a-d & t-o-b-a-g-o»?? haha!!! looosers! here's their flag & the diver down flag. i guess you can see that ol' t&t is all about the scooobah. if we'd been playing underwater soccer, they'd'a kicked our ass, eh?

on the way home, we were listening to the local sports talk radio, and they were discussing both the soccer match and the ultimate cage fighting that was in town tonight. those two are not really the same type of sport at all, at all. not really convinced ultimate fighting is a sport. anyhootle, one of the radio dweebs goes «did you go to the soccer game?» and the other is like «no, i had enough orange wedges today.» and if you don't get the reference, he's referring to the habit of bringing orange slices as halftime or postgame snacks for youth soccer games. it's almost like you cannot have a youth soccer game without orange slices. it was funny how he said «wedges» b/c who says that?? but, my point is this -- people who really enjoy soccer think that the way to get more people to really enjoy soccer is to have them really understand soccer, which i'd agree with, but the way they think they will get more people to really understand soccer is to have more people play soccer, and i'm not convinced that's working. all these kiddos playing soccer all over the place, and most of them are coached by folks who don't know much about soccer, so you just have a bunch of kids chasing a ball around the field. they don't learn strategy. they don't learn to build the plays. they don't learn the ebb & flow of the game. all they know is that you run around, kick a ball, and eat some orange wedges. having more kids do this, and calling it soccer, isn't helping more people understand & love the sport. it's helping more people mock it.