How the mighty fall
I put off heading for my daily swim because Brazil was playing France. And like I´ve been telling anyone and everyone, Brazil was my team this year and they were going to win it all. It´s not so much that I had any basis for that viewpoint, before I started this trip I never actually watched an entire futbol match from start to end. And I don´t really know anything about any of these teams other than that Brazil has the most names I recognize from my few months of being a fan. But I really dug how crazy the Brazilians were for futbol when I was down there, even moreso than the Argentineans, although it was close.
And the thing is, if you happened to be in Latin America in the last two months and you started talking with just about any male and maybe something like 25% of the females, the World Cup would undoubtedly be one of the first 3 topics of conversation. And I came to learn that the secret to this conversation was having an opinion in which you had unwavering confidence and could state loudly and repeatedly with bare a minimum of words so as not to confuse yourself after several cervezas.
As I watched the match with the 4 other fanatics crowded around the TV set in our hostel our grunts and sighs became lounder and more anguished as the minutes ticked away. Argentina had lost to Germany the day before (I bet you´re still gloating aren´t you Patrick?) and we were now watching the unthinkable. Brazil, who was everyones favorites, including aparently the referees, was minutes away from sucumbing to the Frenchies.
In my travels I´ve met enough cool Germans to change my previously uneducated opinion of them. Sure they might all wear socks with their sandals but they´re generally good at giving directions and can do currency conversions like nobodies business. And overall they´ve been a swell bunch as far as I´m concerned, except for that one dude and the incident with Jonathan´s laptop and iPod in Buenos Aires, but never mind that. The French on the otherhand, well, I still refuse to be anything but sophmorically annoyed by those baguette swinging weenies.
But vanquish the Brazilians they did. And it seemed like everyone in the entire continent of South America let out a collective sigh at precisely the same time. We were all going to be forced to endure watching 4 European teams compete in the final rounds for the World Cup. As if being unable to watch their national heroes play for four years because they are all in European leagues anyways wasn´t insult enough, now it turns out when they did get a chance to play and represent their countries, they didn´t come through.
We had already watched the Japanese beat the Cubans in the World Baseball Classic a couple months earlier and this just seemed to ice the cake. No Latin America still can´t seem to catch a break. Just when you think somethings going to work out for them, it´s all ¨tout de suite¨ and eclairs. Oh well, at least they´re down to only one active Civil War, granted it´s been going on for something like 40 years, but it´s only a tiny little skirmish up in the corner of the South America.
I put off heading for my daily swim because Brazil was playing France. And like I´ve been telling anyone and everyone, Brazil was my team this year and they were going to win it all. It´s not so much that I had any basis for that viewpoint, before I started this trip I never actually watched an entire futbol match from start to end. And I don´t really know anything about any of these teams other than that Brazil has the most names I recognize from my few months of being a fan. But I really dug how crazy the Brazilians were for futbol when I was down there, even moreso than the Argentineans, although it was close.
And the thing is, if you happened to be in Latin America in the last two months and you started talking with just about any male and maybe something like 25% of the females, the World Cup would undoubtedly be one of the first 3 topics of conversation. And I came to learn that the secret to this conversation was having an opinion in which you had unwavering confidence and could state loudly and repeatedly with bare a minimum of words so as not to confuse yourself after several cervezas.
As I watched the match with the 4 other fanatics crowded around the TV set in our hostel our grunts and sighs became lounder and more anguished as the minutes ticked away. Argentina had lost to Germany the day before (I bet you´re still gloating aren´t you Patrick?) and we were now watching the unthinkable. Brazil, who was everyones favorites, including aparently the referees, was minutes away from sucumbing to the Frenchies.
In my travels I´ve met enough cool Germans to change my previously uneducated opinion of them. Sure they might all wear socks with their sandals but they´re generally good at giving directions and can do currency conversions like nobodies business. And overall they´ve been a swell bunch as far as I´m concerned, except for that one dude and the incident with Jonathan´s laptop and iPod in Buenos Aires, but never mind that. The French on the otherhand, well, I still refuse to be anything but sophmorically annoyed by those baguette swinging weenies.
But vanquish the Brazilians they did. And it seemed like everyone in the entire continent of South America let out a collective sigh at precisely the same time. We were all going to be forced to endure watching 4 European teams compete in the final rounds for the World Cup. As if being unable to watch their national heroes play for four years because they are all in European leagues anyways wasn´t insult enough, now it turns out when they did get a chance to play and represent their countries, they didn´t come through.
We had already watched the Japanese beat the Cubans in the World Baseball Classic a couple months earlier and this just seemed to ice the cake. No Latin America still can´t seem to catch a break. Just when you think somethings going to work out for them, it´s all ¨tout de suite¨ and eclairs. Oh well, at least they´re down to only one active Civil War, granted it´s been going on for something like 40 years, but it´s only a tiny little skirmish up in the corner of the South America.
No comments:
Post a Comment