Jessica McFarland

If you live in America, I realise that the subject of this post may not be immediately obvious. In fact, you may be thinking that this is about the Revolutionary War, or perhaps the War of 1812 (which was really against Britain, not Canada, if I’ve understood Simon Schama correctly).

In fact, it isn’t about anything with quite so high a loss of human life as an actual war. In fact, it just so happens that this Friday is the beginning of a little competition called the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Now, I don’t mention this for your benefit if you live in, say, most of the world. You already know. One living in, for a more concrete example, say, England, could hardly have missed the sudden proliferation of St. George’s Cross flags and the remake of the Tears for Fears song, as well as the re-writing of every television ad for absolutely everything anywhere to make it about football (Support the England team! Eat a Kit Kat!).

But if you live in America, you have no idea.

Americans have no idea because football is called soccer and played by small children on Saturday mornings in a field at the edge of town. Soccer is about barrels of orange drink and orange slices at half time and minivans and of course, soccer moms.

It is a childhood activity that one outgrows in favour of basketball, baseball, or the long, slow, boring torture of what Americans call football (but is actually just a platform for beer ads).

And that is how, in the summer of 1998, I found myself on a family trip to Germany, watching television and wondering what Three Lions had to do with football coming home. That is how we drove to Paris for one day (12 July, I’m not even kidding) and viewed the sights while wondering why there were so many people on the streets, and why so many of them were Brazilian, and why they were so excited about something.

Having lived abroad for a while, I now understand just what a big deal that was. I know people who would sacrifice organs and unborn children to be in South Africa right now, seeing World Cup matches in person or even just being close to them. And there I was, in Paris, on the day of the final, in the country of the final, just by pure luck. It’s completely unfair.

(Rest of the world, if you really didn’t believe that Americans could be so clueless, I think that now I’ve illustrated my point.)

Americans, although you don’t know about “soccer” and don’t watch it and don’t care (I speak generally of course), there is a US team (I don’t know who’s on it, of course I wouldn’t. I’m American). The first US match of this World Cup is also the first England match. England v. USA, this Saturday.

I plan to find a pub and watch it, even though I’m not really a sports person. It’s too epic not to pay attention, and it will be a good cultural experience.

I also plan to be very, very quiet and hope my accent doesn’t give me away as a member of the opposing side. Not that I particularly want the US to win. No one back home cares anyway.