Soccer Recedes a Bit to Allow Wimbledon to Shine
LONDON – Here in England to cover Wimbledon, I stay in a modest attic apartment with a wonderful garden view in a gran
d home just a forehand or two from Wimbledon village.
In this and virtually every proper British home, one thing is clear: soccer is king. Then again soccer (or football as it is called here) is very much a secular religion throughout London and the Kingdom; that would be the United Kingdom, which is united in a defining love-hate adoration of the game. Whether one calls it the state religion or an insurgent faith, it doesn’t matter, for it is the dominant orthodoxy (along with the Royalty) that defines the national psyche.
Never mind that soccer should be certified as the most maddening game ever concocted. For almost two hours (which were filled with slow-moving, often artless, dribbles, divits, flips and skuffs, as well as the most ridiculous histrionics since your second grade play) there were no goals.
Coming off the scoring torrent of the NBA playoffs, the zero-zero reality in the England-Italy quarterfinals of the European Cup seemed like a whole lot of nothing.
Sure soccer analysts filled the on-field void with breathless takes on blown “one over the back” shots. There were complaints of reckless miss-hit crosses from ‘a West Ham reject,’ as well as claims that “there is one player who has to get his brains out of the garage.” All of this was in the endless speculation about the $47,000 hair transplant of the national star Wayne Rooney.
But not to worry. After 114 minutes of cautious running there was a score. Italy led 1-0.
Whoops, correction, the Italian striker was off-sides. So no goal. So everyone returned to the (“Go ahead and kiss your sister”) Twilight Zone of “score-less-ness,” the ultimate sports void.
“It’s a horrible situation,” moaned Russell, my personable, but just slightly depressed host.
Then loss flooded the land in the worst of ways: the shoot-out.
Except in real wars, England is rather “iffy” at shoot-outs, soccer’s final “cut to the chase” device used to resolve deadlocked confrontations. And in their after-midnight match from Kiev, the Brits were much the same as usual. They, at first, moved ahead in the shoot-out when hero-to-be Rooney decisively netted his shot. But, Britain soon squandered their lead and Italy scored a win which secured their place in the semis against dreaded Germany this Thursday.
Of course, there is nothing quite so delightful as Britain’s penchant for self-indulgent analyses of national sporting defeats. Self-loathing say howdy to Shakespearean tragedy and post-Victorian grit. Here the “well-played” ethos, the scuffy tradition of having a stiff upper lip and all those glorious British survival instincts muddle and mix.
So Russell spoke of how draining the whole experience was. “What a waste of almost two and a half hours,” he sighed around the kitchen table, “just to watch England lose.” The TV analyst informed us that the whole thing was simply, “an Italian job gone too far.” Others looked at the unvarnished British truth and conceded that, “At the beginning England was very average. In the middle England was very average. And at the end, England was very average.”
But in Britain, there are many clouds, and nobody does “silver linings’ better than these cheery, plucky island people. So we were told that ultimately, the English players were great champs, “who went away with smiles on their faces.” And, “If there is one positive at least from the loss, you know what, at least now we can’t lose to Germany on Thursday.”
