Italy Wins the World Cup!!

2006 World Cup Experience in Central America

Alas, the 2006 World Cup is over and Italy triumphed over France. Italy´s victory was undoubtedly aided by Zidane´s lapse of focus on futbol and a sudden interest in wrestling. Nonetheless, Italy is champion...and on the bright side for us, the United States is the only team which did not loose to Italy. While the USA had a disappointing showing, I had more fun watching this World Cup than any other. Tiffany even got into it and insisted on watching the games in the later rounds. In a way you can’t help but enjoy the World Cup when you are in a country with such passion for futbol (or soccer as us norteamericanos know it).


We watched the first game, Costa vs. Germany at a bar in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. At game time every single person in town was in front of a TV. After Costa Rica scored its first goal I witnessed an insane celebration. Everyone was jumping up and down, screaming, celebrating...none of this is unusual, the crazy thing is it lasted for nearly five minutes. The duration of the frenzy was certainly assisted by the owner providing free beers to everyone able to rush the bar, fight the crowd, and get a hand on one. Despite Costa Rica’s loss, everyone remained ultimately positive about the team’s performance and the chance to advance. Unfortunately, as many other teams only had one strong game in the first round (see USA vs. Italy), Costa Rica’s was against Germany.

Of course watching the World Cup down here means all the commentary is in Espanol. While my Spanish has improved considerably, I still cannot follow the fast paced commentary word for word. However, I can pick up some things and the announcers in Costa Rica were excellent. They were actually having fun announcing rather the typical mindless banter you get when watching US sports commentators on TV.

We managed to catch many of the first round games, nearly all the round of 16, and all games in the later stages of the cup. Probably the most exciting game we watched was Germany vs. Argentina. We watched this in Antigua, Guatemala at Cine 2000. This bar has a large screen projector for the game and is setup with a lounge style atmosphere, tables and couches spread out all over. On game day the place was definitely over capacity, contributing to this were three groups of diehard fans; two groups for Germany (30 people) and one for Argentina (15 people), plus all the other more moderate fans in the crowd. We sat next to a group of 15 all with custom Team Germany jerseys, liters of beer, and a raucous attitude. The team chants started slow, but by the end of regular time the cheers and beer consumption reached a frenzied pitch. When all was said and done, Germany won in penalty kicks and the crazy group of fans next to us sprayed beer all over the bar in celebration.

OK, now a little on soccer (futbol) itself. I am not going to try and convince everyone this is the most exciting sport. However, the excitement of a goal in soccer is unmatched. In no other sport is scoring so difficult (hockey comes close and it is also a great game) so when a team finally does score it’s a huge deal (not like the 100+ pts in NBA). Despite what many may think, soccer is physically demanding both in endurance and the physical level of play. However, I noticed a couple things during this World Cup that made me realize why soccer gets a bad rap in the USA. First, acting/diving has got to go! I am so sick of players going down as if some unforeseen phantom suddenly took out their legs. Yellow card this behavior and it will stop. Second, if a player is hurt and goes down, the other team should not have any obligation to kick the ball out and stop play. Name any other sport where this occurs. Several times a team was making a quick counter attack and a defensive player goes down behind the action so the attacking team has to kick the ball out of bounds so the trainers can go spray water on the guy’s ankle, 30 seconds later he is up and running around...give me a break. If a player goes down, that is an advantage for the other team. If play needs to stop the ref should stop it or the team with the hurt player should get the ball back. I know "its good sportsmanship," but it just gives soccer the rap as being a wimpy sport, when it’s really not.

All in all though, this will be the most memorable World Cup for Tiffany and I. We had so much fun watching games with fans and talking with people about the games. In fact, I think we’ll be in South Africa in 2010.