Tim Sprinkle

Can the World Cup Change How Americans See Soccer?

For the record, I've read both of the books mentioned in paragraph two of this post from The Atlantic, and I'm not ashamed of that. This writer, who appears to be plugging a book about growing up in middle-class New York, seems to have a pretty big chip on his shoulder, so the headline is better than the article.

During this World Cup, I know there will be kids like me from the Bronx—a soccer wasteland in 1980s; a wasteland period, to some—watching this strange new game and devouring it. Where is Valladolid? Vigo? Bilbao? Cameroon? El Salvador? Algeria? Why does Algeria wear green, Italy blue? Why is it Glasgow Celtic and not the Celtics? Where's this team Flamengo? Or Corinthians? Why is that skinny man with the beard named Socrates?

They'll be some curious 14-year-old or 12-year-old or 10-year-old (kids seem so much smarter these days) and maybe they'll start by bugging their parents for a Kaizer Chiefs jersey. Then, better still, they'll get the atlas off the shelf, or more likely online, and trace their finger on the computer screen and look for Polokwane and Bloemfontein and Tshwane. Maybe it will take them to the photography of David Goldblatt or to the music of Abdullah Ibrahim (no room for him at the concert last night I suppose), or of the late Lion of Soweto himself, Mahlathini. (Don't laugh, my first encounter with Joan Miro and Antoni Tapies were from 1982 World Cup posters.) Maybe they'll learn that the "word," long ago, was "Johannesburg!"