We got up early on the day of the Korea/Uraguay – USA/Ghana game. We came prepared:

We watched the Korean game with about 10 Korean girls. The guys were elsewhere, watching the game on their own. The wailing was heartbreaking. They all left after Korea lost. We stuck around and watched the US game alone. It was less heartbreaking and more tiring, as the game went into another period.

After both our teams lost, we kind of lost interest in the World Cup. All the referee problems and bad management by FIFA have made it unpleasant to care. We still check out the scores and make predictions, but we haven’t watched a game since.

I was once told by an American man dating a Korean woman that the best time to visit her parents was during the World Cup. This is because he didn’t have to speak to her father, aside from being excited when the father’s teams did well, or disappointed when they did poorly.

I didn’t have that option.

Today marks Korea’s World Cup Team getting into the second tier of play. I watched the final game of this round with my girlfriend and five other Korean girls.

The screaming was incredible.

Soccer

I played soccer when I was young, though it was a much different animal from professional soccer. They know what they’re doing. It’s been fun learning and remembering all the rules. I can understand why many Americans don’t like soccer, and why many others really should. Let me enumerate it:

Bad

1. Ties. Even in tournament play, teams frequently tie. What’s worse, there are 0-0 ties.
2. Low scores. Most games only have 2 or three goals. And as I said, some have none. That’s a pretty slow way to fill an hour and a half.
3. Reaction over Tactics. Being a fan of (American) Football, the lack of a dominant strategic element is frustrating.

Good

1. The penalty system seems a lot more effective. Punishments seem to matter more than in many of America’s choice sports.
2. Time. The matches end pretty close to on time, and are shorter than a Football game.
3. It’s way more exciting than Baseball and Golf. That’s not conjecture, it’s fact.

I’ve watched a few Soccer games with Koreans. They always ask why we call Football “Football”, since we don’t use our feet. I always point out that we do use our feet. They never care. I always ask about some rule, which they don’t really seem to know, exactly. That’s all pretty benign.

The best part, by far, is their reactions. Even the girls I watched with today reacted more strongly than most hardcore football fans I’ve seen. Their energy is contagious. Seeing my normally quiet girlfriend scream at the TV and spew out rapid, incensed Korean was more fun than the game itself. Soccer is definitely an underrated sport in the US, and it’s a nice conversation starter with almost any Korean. The fact that most girls are into it is also refreshing.

But I wouldn’t play against Koreans in Soccer. They treat this stuff seriously.