thomas leverett weblog

World Cup fever

Like many Americans, I've become very interested in the World Cup- the whole fascinating tournament of great soccer between great teams like Argentina, Spain, and Brazil, and upstart teams such as Togo, Trinidad, and Cote d'Ivoire - places we should know more about but often don't. Today I watched the highlights of a game between Iran and Angola (provided by FIFA) in which both goals of a 1-1 tie were scored by awesome headers...Wow!

The picture is called "Rooney" and is by CharlesFred (click on it for license), who like many other fans has provided pictures to the FIFA site, letting us go there, virtually, and experience the face-painting, etc.

I've saddled my class with this article about Beckham but they know much more about this stuff than I do- though I have to say, I think I scored, since he's attractive to both boys and girls, England is/are still in the running, and there's a lot to the article. Beckham happens to be where the subject of the class (media, paparazzi, image) and our true interests (World Cup) come together.


Finally- here's one for the home team - go USA! (playing tomorrow)...beat Ghana! My other class keeps reminding me of the agony of a misguided war, the price of being the world's self-appointed blah blah blah, but hey, this is just pure fun (or mostly, anyway, and I'm referring to the soccer), and a place where we are but humble visitors, with only still a thread of a chance, like most of my students' teams, Saudi, Ecuador, Korea, and Japan, or some of my other favorites, Cote d'Ivoire, Trinidad, Costa Rica, Mexico....and I have to say, if the (long-awaited) internationalization of the US heartland includes more access to live international events like this, I'm all for it. I have hope- I think Americans are finally showing a willingness to at least find out a little about some of these places- they are, slowly but surely, looking outward- if only because these "footballers" play such good soccer!

Flag picture by Scott Schonauer, Stars & Stripes

posted by tom @ 9:02 PM