Soccer is Life

Did you follow any of the 2007 World Cup? Women’s soccer had its quadrennial tournament this year, but I can honestly say that I didn’t watch a single minute of a single game. In the summer of 2006, I tried to follow the USA squad (a mistake, since they were not very competitive) and, following their elimination, the team from Germany. I had been to Germany during spring break 2006 and saw all of the preparations for the nation’s hosting of the world’s most popular sport (that is, with the exception of the United States), and, during the course of the tournament, was actually encouraged to see so many Germans dressed in black, gold and red and waving their flag in support of their country’s team. It was a far cry from the message I got from an English teacher friend of mine from Darmstadt, who stated that he would never wear a German flag because flag-waving and national pride were inseparable in his mind from Hitler and the Nazis.

The soccer action on the field was less than impressive. I found it appalling at that level of competition for so many players to be “flopping” when it was obvious they were just grazed by the opposing player. They would struggle to their feet as if they had been hit by a truck, trying to deceive the referee into calling a more serious infraction than a simple foul. So I didn’t watch any of the women’s games, but Germany defeated Brazil 2-0 in the championship game, the culmination of a tournament run that saw them never scored upon. Germany’s women’s team has now played a record 619 consecutive minutes without a goal allowed. The United States defeated Norway 4-1 in the third place game, but the biggest drama unfolded shortly after the semifinal match in which Brazil trounced the Americans 4-0.

In order to provide experience in goal, Coach Ryan of the US decided to change keepers against Brazil, removing the younger Hope Solo in favor of 36-year-old Brianna Scurry. After the game, Solo could not restrain herself, and declared that her coach had made a mistake in not playing her against Brazil, and that she would have been able to stop the shots that Brianna had allowed to cross the goal line. Guess who was kicked off the team for detrimental conduct? Even if you disagree with your coach, to publicly question his decisions in the press is simply not good form. It leads to a breakdown of authority and a demoralization of the team, making it all the more difficult to achieve the goal of victory, a goal that is difficult enough when fighting one’s opponent, much less with one’s own team members.

Back to soccer. As I mentioned before, Germany was able to rally behind its men’s team in 2006 and actually show national pride in a way that has rarely been seen since the end of World War II. In an even more recent example of how the national sports team can have a profound effect on a country’s spirit, consider how the Asian soccer tournament this summer was won by Iraq. The phrase “nationalistic pride” is not usually uttered in the same breath with German or Iraq, but there it was, nonetheless.

In Iraq, the government today issued a statement that condemned a US Senate resolution authored by Joe Biden (D-Delaware) which essentially said that Iraq could never be unified and should be split in 3, with the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shia all becoming autonomous states. Iraq may be struggling with its own security and its own self-governing politics, but they are striving toward unity. In a quirky but somewhat interesting parallel, it is now reported that in Heidelberg, Germany, high school students are being offered “happiness classes” to help them perform better in school. (Video here) I suppose this could be a worthy topic of discussion in and of itself, but my perspective is that the German people have been basically told by their neighbors and those who defeated them in WWII that they must carry the burden of perpetual guilt for Hitler and the Holocaust. No one can be truly happy if they must carry a burden of guilt. Thank God we who believe in Jesus Christ have the full confidence that our guilt has been carried by our Savior, and that God has declared us “not guilty (that is, “justified”) through faith in Him.

So you have Germany and Iraq, nations who were dominated by mad dictators, striving for pride and unity, and finding that their “football” teams display exactly that national spirit. What do you think the national spirit of the USA is, if we look at our women’s soccer team and its problems? It is doubtful that it is to strive for national pride and unity. It seems that, like outspoken Miss Solo, we are full of people with 20-20 hindsight, who think our leader is an idiot, and who think that if they were in charge, results would be different. The resulting demoralization makes it difficult to defeat our enemies, when we have so much tension among ourselves.