Culture · International affairs

What does the World Cup mean to you?

Eric Ringham Jun 11, 2010
18

Beginning today, hundreds of millions of people around the globe will be watching the World Cup soccer tournament. Today’s Question: What does the World Cup mean to you?

  • Alison

    Like the Super Bowl, World Series, and Stanley Cup – Nothing.

  • Mary

    In the past it meant the “Three Tenors” would perform a concert afterwards. But since Pavoratti died, and Domingo doesn’t sing as much anymore, I’m not looking foward to it.

  • Jim!!!

    Sounds like an excellent place to store oil

  • DNA

    The World Cup means nothing to me personally. I like tantra, hiking, movies, reading, youtubing, 20 questions, yoga, meditating…

    99.9% of the time sports bore me.

    Others seem to get excited. I enjoy others enthusiasm, but not into their fanaticism. I appreciate athletics to the degree it can help us develop our fullest potential, yet I prefer cooperation rather than competition.

    My wish is for everyone to play their best, have fun, learn a lot…and that all games end in a tie.

    “…The opposites exist for you alone

    Beyond your heads and tails

    Dances the unity

    All sounds harmonize

    All games end in a tie…”

    from How To Escape The Trap Of Beauty And Goodness by T. Leary

  • Mike Barnes

    It’s the once every so often time that Americans remember that soccer exists

  • J

    It means alot of fun watching the matches with a huge variety of people in town that you often don’t run into in daily life. You haven’t lived until you’ve watched the World Cup in a bar filled with Mexico fans!

    It also means a break from commercials for once,. Two 45 minute halves uninterrupted sounds great compared to the what, 20 minutes of action and 2 1/2 hours of advertisements and chit-chat during an Amercian Football game?

  • Steve

    Nothing.

  • Gary F

    Besides nothing?

    Lots and lots of drunken fans that take it way too seriously.

  • Amy

    The World Cup reminds me that “football” in the United States is not only inappropriately named, but US sports like it are stuck in the days of gladiator blood sports and have nothing to do with skill, athletic ability, or finesse.

  • Khatti

    It isn’t my dog, it isn’t my fight.

    But this question reminds me of something I heard on 60 Minutes years ago. Whichever correspondent was doing the story was talking to a South American journalist about installing an American style democracy in that particular country(I can’t remember which country it was). The South American journalist shrugged and said: “It’s like American football, no one here knows how to play it.”

  • Khatti

    Amy

    I’m sorry that I, and millions of Americans like me, are douches. Would you like me to beat myself with a flail, cut off part of my finger like the Yakusa do, or would a formal, written, apology–using my own blood as ink of course–be sufficient?

  • Noma

    It means a continued hope for South Africa

  • Mustafe

    The World Cup is a time of Unity, no matter what your country, race, religion is. It’s too bad that we have a time difference and can’t really enjoy watching most of the games during the weekdays, but again there is always DVR,TIVO. Anyway enjoy the beautiful game. USA vs. England, great gam tomorrow. Yes, it is true that we get a little break from commercials for 45 minutes each halves, unlike last night NBA game.

  • Joe

    The world cup means graduation. I graduated high school the last time there was a world cup. Now this time, I am graduating from college.

  • Susan WB

    It means my facebook and twitter feeds will be spammed by all my friends’ incessant cheering and jeering about games that I’m not watching… just like every other major sporting event.

  • EAL

    Fun game to play. Not an interesting TV game. The hype is overblown.

  • DLM

    I group up with American football, basketball and hockey and don’t know much as much about “futbol”, but to most of the world the World Cup is bigger than the Olympics. M y friends in Uruguay will be following closely. In Argentina, everyone is watching the national team-you can hear the cheers throughout every neighborhood when the national team scores. The crowds that follow the games in Europe are amazing. For me, it’s an international event that brings the world together for a few weeks of the summer.

  • Glenn Farwell

    I was fortunate to see the USA- England game.

    My Catholic Irish heritage was certainly tickeled when the garbage goal was scored!!!

    One could not have written a script any better!!!