So, now that my heart has divorced and disowned the English national soccer team, I am free to follow the 2010 World Cup without the ancient, aching anchor of anxiety being an England fan used to impose upon me.
Certainly, it will be intriguing to see how my heart responds to seeing my former passion in action – particularly when they open the tournament this Saturday in a brawl-for-it-all showdown with the upstart United States.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
I think some of you who read my “England, you’re fired!” piece the other day believe I have transferred my allegiance Stateside. I haven’t. I can’t – even though I would love to see the Yanks down the Brits, once and one time only. It would be a deeply significant upset, with all kinds of future implications, and it couldn’t come at a better time.
My search for a new team didn’t actually last very long. Part of being strapped to England is that you see other countries having much more fun that you are – playing ecstatic, lovely, daring, risky football, and to heck with the consequences.
It doesn’t surprise me in the least that, the second my heart was free, it floated almost instantly to Africa.
Africa and I go way back. I spent my grade one year in Ibadan, Nigeria, where my university-professor father was teaching for a time. I vividly remember the sounds and colours of the place – so hugely different from the then-cold and terribly, dourly Scottish mid-sixties Toronto I grew up in.
The heat of the high, overhead noonday sun. The clamour and colour of the local cloth market. Boiling thunderstorms that could materialize out of literally nothing in short, scant minutes at the height of the rainy season. And the guns. And the civil war. Not always the happiest of memories, though I’ve been blessed all my life my having seen such a different world when I was still so young.
I’ve flirted with cheering for Nigeria, but it doesn’t stick. Dazzling success in youth football seems to wreck on the harsher realities of the top-flight game. I adore the passion of African soccer. I just wish the Nigerians had a bit more fun playing it.
Cripes, Ben! This “fun” thing burns bright with you! What’s the big hairy deal about enjoying yourself?
Well, we only get so many World Cups in our lives. As a former England fan, I found myself feeling rising frustration every time the Three Lions strode the stage. Negative tactics, false pomposity, cruel and often self-imposed fate. When England wasn’t around, I felt freer and had a lot more fun.
Yes, England gave soccer to the world. But the world didn’t wait around, blithely taking England’s word for how the game should be played. Yes, the English Premier League is spectacular. But limit it to native sons, and it’s basically Belgium.
Any World Cup is an all-you-can-eat soccer smorgasbord. Why limit myself to bangers and mash, and toad in the hole?
Looking at the draw, there is one utterly spectacular group in World Cup 2010. Group G is a certainly Group of Death.
Just for starters, Brazil and Portugal – drawn together at last. There’s a passionate debate in Toronto about whether the city’s vast numbers of Portugal and Brazil fans are, in fact, the same people, simply flying the car flags of whichever of these two great soccer lands is still standing at the end. The debate enflames people on both sides. Have no doubt, when the two Latin giants clash on June 25 in Durban, that will be an epic day of horn-honking in Toronto – and we shall know at last, and for certain, who supports whom.
Now, just for yoks, let’s toss Cote D’Ivoire into that group. Only their second World Cup appearance, but what wonder, flash and dazzle rises off of these lads come game time. Yes, they just suffered a huge blow when their finest player, Didier Drogba, busted a wing just before takeoff. They also have disgraced former England (and Mexico) manager Sven-Goran Eriksson calling the shots on the sidelines. Sven has had a very strange career, due to both a compelling success rate and his curious ability to utterly lose his mind at any given strategic moment.
And then – to fill it out – howzabout North Korea? What’s a Group of Death without a crazed, megalomaniacal dictator and his mysterious, enslaved people? One of the real benefits of the World Cup, is that it is played by real people. National stereotypes abound, but there are so many vivid, different versions of humanity in any starting soccer side. In the rest of the world, we never get to see North Koreans operate. Now, for at least six hours in three soccer matches in the global spotlight, we do.
This group electrifies me. So I’ve decided to take a routing interest.
For at least the next couple of weeks, Onward! is passionately rooting for the Elephants of Ivory Coast.
And that’s without Drogba, and that’s with Eriksson. This was never about backing a side that has a better chance than England to actually win the freaking tournament. This was about finding a starting point, and throwing all the joy and passion I can muster into an entirely new footballing experience.
I know how it feels to be an England fan. I don’t want to be one anymore.
I’ll take the wild, expansive passion of Africa over the brooding, lingering misery I have endured for far too long. I will watch England, and closely chronicle whatever conflicts arise in my seeking, searching heart. And then I will turn around and savour Group G.
Cote D’Ivoire has a chance to survive, people! An African side, playing in Africa, should be a lot less stiff than we’ve seen them in so many off-continent World Cups. Brazil looks unassailable, but Portugal has that eternally dangerous tendency to get lulled off their game. If the Portuguese don’t come at the Elephants with their absolute A-game in Tuesday’s group opener, they could find themselves a long way from safety right out of the chute.
Yes, I’m jumping on a band wagon. One with a busted wheel and a strange, strange driver – but a bandwagon nonetheless.
An African World Cup is no time to be mired in the past. We’ll see what odd and delicious stories emerge from this strange new perspective I’m adopting.
May we all have a sensational tournament! Nothing else in all of life is anything like – this!
Onward!