The Beautiful Fever
As you will all figure out by the many references I'm bound to make, I like to wake up to ESPN Radio & ESPN2's morning show Mike & Mike in the Morning. For those uninitiated, it involves ex-Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman and ESPN NFL analyst Mike Golic arguing, joking, and otherwise just talking sports with the self-described metrosexual sportscaster, SportsCenter anchor Mike Greenberg. The combination is pure magic. Besides the joking that goes on, often involving recorded song, the show is thankfully heavy on that thing only sports fans can truly appreciate: overly technical analysis from ESPN's cadre of commentators. Anyway, you can learn more about Mike & Mike on your own time. This post is about soccer.Now, I've been a fan of soccer since the first grade, which is approximately when I learned what soccer was. When my parents moved us out to the suburbs, the better parks meant more organized sports to keep me busy after baseball season ended midway through the summer. There were two options: American football, which my mother deplored - no chance of her child playing that (never mind that I had the physique of a potential OL) - and European football, soccer. The choice was simple, and my family joined the ranks of the other minivan-driving soccer families. When the World Cup came to the States later in my elementary school career, I was pretty well hooked on the beautiful game. The founding of Major League Soccer cemented my love of the sport, and not even the last place finish of the US in the 1998 World Cup could diminish my enthusiasm.
Fast forward to 2006, just after the Americans' flat-footed dismantling at the hands (well, feet) of the Czech Republic, and I'm still hooked. Only now, it seems that others might be, as well. More and more, I hear people saying, "I'm not a big fan of soccer, but I'll watch some of the World Cup," or even more poignantly, "I don't watch a lot of soccer, but that goal was amazing!"
It even permeated my favorite morning show today, as both Mikes admitted to being hooked on World Cup 2006. Neither of them, it seems, can stop watching, be it at the gym (as Greeny specified, on the eliptical machine) or in the newsroom. I'm loving it. Finally, men of some sway in the world of American sport are catching the soccer fever, if only for one month of every 48.
posted by The AMT @ 9:36 PM
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