April 14, 2002
2:33 AM   Subscribe

Forget about Palestine, Afghanistan and Venuzuela, Britts are praying for Beckham's foot and Uri Geller is set to help. Meanwhile, Argentines forget their economic woes, but the Financial Times fears this could kick start a second Falklands War. Is sport this important in your country?
posted by Geo (18 comments total)
 
yep. he is like our number football player man!
posted by stevridie at 2:43 AM on April 14, 2002


This is just media frenzy. Most of people 'on the street' couldn't care less about Beckham's foot. We have a fine soccer team under Ericcson and they'll go kick some ass with Beckham or not. One man does not a team make.

That said, who cares if the Argentine media are covering it? Aren't they meant to be getting their population fired up for the World Cup? That's what the media does. Especially in Argentina, a country more fanatical about soccer than the UK.

This isn't likely to fuel a war any more than that ridiculous Simpsons' episode will fuel a Brazil-US war. (Isn't this all starting to sound like the Australian Simpsons' episode..?)

So now, get ready for a long summer while a bunch of hot-headed malcontents sit indoors all day getting excited about some blokes kicking a ball around.. some of us can actually go outside and enjoy the peace..
posted by wackybrit at 3:36 AM on April 14, 2002


You would think so sometimes. No all the time. And actually it isn't sport generally, but Football (US tanslation - Soccer) in particular, which generate pages and pages in newspapers and on the web. I was watching the main BBC news the other day, and in the top eight stories, three were about football, Beckham, ITV Digital, pubs opening early for the World Cup.

There is more to life. But for an awful lot of people in the population 'football' is the only interest they have in life, the only thing most men have to talk about. I've not gone to the pub with some my friends sometimes, because I'm not a fan, don't really want to be a fan and yet I know I'll end up sitting for three hours listening to a football discussion not really giving a !"£%$. If you want to know how passionate the British can be about 'The Beautiful Game', watch films like .Fever Pitch' or 'There's Only One Jimmy Grimble'*.

If you want an example of how messed up people's priorities are, there is man who gets on my commuter train every day, buys The Guardian, then discards everything but the Sport section.

*Actually, just 'Fever Pitch' -- I only plugged the last one because I'm in it as 'man in crowd at the end'. Yes, men will give up everything to be there when their team scores. Another way to look at it would be to listen to all the big speeches in 'Field of Dreams' and substitute every mention of Baseball for Soccer.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:50 AM on April 14, 2002


Uhhh, the English are praying for Beckham's foot. The rest couldn't give a monkey's.
posted by jackiemcghee at 4:02 AM on April 14, 2002


If football were anything like Rugby League there'd be several mass brawls in the first five minutes of the World Cup group game between England and Argentina, two random players from either side would sit it out for ten minutes and then it would all be over. Football drags things out and makes South American countries go to war. I prefer RL. The violence is on the pitch where it belongs.
posted by vbfg at 4:15 AM on April 14, 2002


My Welsh boyfriend could cetainly give a monkey's, jackiemcghee, although admittedly he's in the minority. I think you're being unfair to sport-obsessed men, feelinglistless. I despise sport (apart from the World Cup) and hate it when I'm the only girl in a crowd of men talking about some boring little league game, but these men don't just have sport in their lives. Or at least the ones I know don't. If I object I usually get them to talk about something more interesting. And I can perfecty understand someone liking the Guardian's sports section but hating the rest of the paper.
posted by Summer at 6:40 AM on April 14, 2002


If I object I usually get them to talk about something more interesting.

I objected once. Won't be doing it again. I have found that football drops from the agenda when girls and girlfriends are around. In my experience (and remember I'm from Liverpool and work in Manchester) people (I'm being polite here -- men) assume that there must be something wrong with you if you don't like football.

As for our friend on the train ... I was responding to the original post -- that people in the UK seem obsessed with sport over world events which could have greater historic repercussions.

In a way, perhaps it's easier have an opinion about football because there are few variables and less people involved -- a discussion about a game references lots of previous games. Whereas to talk about the crisis in the Middle East, you have to keep in mind hundreds of years of history.
posted by feelinglistless at 7:07 AM on April 14, 2002


beckham's foot?

posted by quonsar at 7:47 AM on April 14, 2002


the us doesn't seem that sports crazed, maybe because there are more sports, football (american), baseball, basketball are all pretty much in equal standing it seems. so even macho guys can say they don't know much about 1 or 2 of the three. i don't see many people talking about sports at all though. any other americans feel differently?
posted by rhyax at 9:26 AM on April 14, 2002


The media in Argentina (as in many other places) is always looking for its own benefit. Now, it's seems that what goes along with their interest is to hide the real problems behind that kind of news. Just to show you how much the people cares about it, take a look at argentinians' weblogs.
posted by Soveran at 10:46 AM on April 14, 2002


(trolling)

Did england even qualify this year??

I heard that they all got discouraged at the prospect of playing teams like Spain, or Camaroon, or France, or Italy, or the U.S. and decided to be replaced with the nonforeign portion of Leicester F.C.

Diego Maradona was the best player of all time.
posted by Settle at 12:13 PM on April 14, 2002


wackybrit - you must have forgotten that Beckham pretty much single-handedly carried Britain through the World Cup qualifiers.
posted by catatonic at 12:13 PM on April 14, 2002


ha ha good one I didn't think of that cat
posted by Settle at 12:21 PM on April 14, 2002


i still remember when everyone hated david beckham and mouthed that he couldn't play that he's just a face. still don't think anyone respects him.
posted by elle at 1:53 PM on April 14, 2002


Single-handedly carried *England*!!!!! No one can carry England and Scotland together, never mind all the others as well. Too heavy.
posted by vbfg at 6:09 AM on April 15, 2002


Pele, now he was a god. As for importance, remember the player (was it colombia?) who was shot to death after missing a goal in the World Cup. That's serious, right?
posted by bittennails at 6:23 AM on April 15, 2002


Beckham, is arguably the best football player to come out of the Brittish Isles ever. With him Englad stands a chance to do very well in this year's World Cup. Without him they're just average.
BTW the article mentioned in the above link can be found here. It is truly surreal.
posted by talos at 8:04 AM on April 15, 2002


Settle said: I heard that they all got discouraged at the prospect of playing teams like Spain, or Camaroon, or France, or Italy, or the U.S. and decided to be replaced with the nonforeign portion of Leicester F.C.

You didn't need to mark that as a troll. In fact, I'd be laughing at what you said if you didn't include the USA in there.. they have the worst soccer team ever. (Although the rumour is that the USA is now waking up to soccer and could be kicking everyones asses in ten year or so)
posted by wackybrit at 10:29 AM on April 15, 2002


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