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Written by Hank Whitsell
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Tuesday, 20 June 2006 |
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If you live in the United States, as I do, it might be hard for you to realize how big world cup soccer really is in most of the rest of the world. Here, we have football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and other sports all competing for attention, but in much of the rest of the world, world cup soccer is really the ultimate thing.
During the world cup final championship, passions can run so high that fans actually fight, or sometimes kill each other in the stadium. It might be easy to miss if you are not from a soccer crazy country, but the fact is that just sitting in the wrong side of a soccer stadium with the wrong colors, or the wrong world cup soccer jersey on your back, could be really dangerous in quite a few parts of the world today. That's why you may want to watch from the safety of your home theater
I never study world cup soccer rankings, or follow the game that is called football in the rest of the world that closely, but I can still truly say that I love to watch the game on tv. I go to an Irish bar downtown in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district and, over a few drinks, watch the game with some of the rowdiest and most fun soccer hooligans this side of Manchester.
Even if it is not world cup soccer on tv (sometimes it is just a club game, or a rugby match) it is almost a guarantee that the crowd will be really in to what is going on. Just being in a place with that kind of energy is almost all that I can handle.
But I am not just in to world cup soccer. I also like to play the game. I have a soccer team, and it is more fun than you can imagine. Without all of that rough and tumble physical activity, I am quite sure that I would go crazy on a daily basis. There are no two ways about it. Soccer is not my life, but it sure does improve my quality of life.
There is no question that, because of soccer, I am much happier and healthier than I would ever be otherwise. There are no two ways about it. It is fun to watch a world cup soccer match on the tv, but it is even more fun to play soccer with some good friends on a Saturday afternoon. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 30 June 2006 )
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