| International Incident
By Patryk Fournier June 21st, 2006 |
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Every four years the World Cup tournament has an ability to bring out a completely different side in people – a side that typically only comes out on vacation. Just think about it, both a vacation and the World Cup can motivate people to spark up out-of-the-ordinary conversations with random people. Both are instant bonding situations. Both can cause you to get hammered a little too early in the day. And both a vacation and the World Cup can give you the unwise motivation and instantly regrettable desire to try out a new hairstyle, whether its dreadlocks while in the Caribbean or frosting your tips and combing you hair into a faux-hawk. The other thing the World Cup brings out in people is rarely seen patriotism. Unlike other major sports events, the World Cup of Soccer is the one true international tournament that allows each corner of the world an equal opportunity to watch their nation compete. In Canada, hockey tournaments definitely reign supreme but for the most part these tourneys are limited to North America, Eastern European and Scandinavian countries. The Winter and Summer Olympics are certainly international in flavour but they don’t come close to generating the same kind of emotion as the World Cup does. The ultimate patriotism appendage for the tournament is the shirts/jerseys and there’s no shortage of stores supplying World Cup wear, although I have to take issue with Adidas’ line of ringer t-shirts. Adidas has printed up shirts for each of the major countries (England, Italy, Brazil, Germany) with a player name and number on the back. Due to contractual sponsorship agreements (i.e. Nike has them under contract) they can’t put some on the best players from each team on the shirts. For instance Italy’s shirt has Del Piero (a substitute) and Brazil’s has midfielder Kaka. Kaka is without a doubt one of the best young midfielders in the game but outside of future NBAer Rudy Gay there’s not a worse last name you want to have on the back of a jersey or shirt than Kaka. I was in Toronto earlier this month on the first weekend of the World Cup and outside of Germany I can’t think of a better place to enjoy this tournament than in the world’s most multi-cultural city. People all over the city are decked out in jerseys and eager to fire up conversations if they see you in a team jersey. The bars and pubs adjust their schedule to accommodate the futbol fanatics. A group of us ended up catching a morning England game at a sports bar that typically doesn’t open until noon. The bar created a special breakfast menu just to meet the demand. In addition, the cars are decorated with every imaginable international car flag. Over the course of one weekend I saw car flags for Ghana, Ukraine, Brazil, Italy, England, Spain, Portugal and Argentina… and that’s just the one’s I could remember. I love the concept of the international car flag. I the only problem I have is that the choice of flag can also lead to some conflict. For instance my parking spot neighbour is proudly displaying a Germany flag on their car. As a Polak, who was born in Poland and grew up listening to Poland’s tortured history the choice of my neighbour’s flag is a little more uncomfortable than the explanation Jose Theodore had to give to his baby’s momma after he was seen getting friendly with Paris Hilton at a post-Much Music awards party. To be honest I’m half expecting to find my parking spot claimed and occupied one morning. And the worse thing of all is I’ve lost all bragging rights with Poland’s 1-0 lose to Germany. As bad as it was seeing Poland lose with only a minute and a half left to play, the way the announcer described the action it couldn’t have conjured up worse historical memories. “The German attack is coming in waves against the Polish defense.” “The Poles look vulnerable to a German strike.” Are you kidding me? The beautiful game, you gotta love it. |
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