Thank you all for your answers to my question What’s so special about the world cup?. Here is a summary of the comments:
- Geeks watch the world cup via telnet.
- When you watch a match, you don’t watch just two teams playing, you watch two nations.
- The World Cup gives the only possibility where the “poor†nation can win over the “rich†one.
- People forget their problems for a month.
- The World Cup/soccer is something that’s in my blood.
- There are few set plays or restrictions so every game, every moment of every game is a little different.
- It’s the 85 minutes of rubbish play that make the beautiful moments all the more beautiful.
- He couldn’t decide if he was a soccer nut or a geek.
- Anyone can pick up a round ball and kick it in a general direction.
- It has become extremely popular with everyone around the world mostly because of ease.
- I guess it’s one of the best examples of the KISS rule ever.
- The good thing about the World Cup is that the roads are less crowded, because people go home early!
Tagged world-cup | Comments Closed | Trackbacks Closed
Personally I am baffled by all sports, particularly team sports, particularly those involving a ball, and particularly cricket. How anyone can find that remotely entertaining or interesting in any way I will never understand.
But somehow the World Cup is special. It’s hard to say why, but I think having a team to support makes sports more interesting, and in this case it’s your national side (along with one or two outsiders you want to see do well, though not actually beat England of course). There is an element of national pride when it’s the national sport and something we as a nation are supposed to be good at. It’s a dream team, made up from all the players you’ve heard about in the news all year even if you don’t follow sport. It’s a short knock-out tournament, so it’s all over in a few weeks and you don’t have to follow a complicated league system all season. And it only happens once every four years, so you don’t have to get all excited every year like a proper fan, and the achievement of winning is even more special.
Does that help?
June 18th, 2006, at 11:57 pm #That was helpful William. Thanks. I agree with you, the World Cup is special and it only happens every 4 years. So, I won’t get too fussy about it. Enjoy it.
June 19th, 2006, at 7:06 pm #The main thing that makes sports interesting for me is emotions. Not only my own emotions but mainly the emotions that the players express and where they act upon. The normal competition isn’t that interresting for me but the worldcup is something I’m looking forward to for four years.
June 21st, 2006, at 7:41 am #“When you watch a match, you don’t watch just two teams playing, you watch two nations.”
True. I love hockey, but it’s hard to get excited when “the random group of millionaires” hosted in my city beat “the random group of millionaires” hosted in yours. Especially when you trade me one of your millionaires for one of mine.
They should give us fans something when “our” team wins. We should keep our ticket stubs, and get free prizes, or cash. Then we’d have a reason to care when our team won.
June 29th, 2006, at 11:47 am #Interesting facts:
Only 3.9 million Americans watched the 2002 World Cup final, out of 1.1 billion worldwide. By comparison, nearly 91 million viewers watched this year’s Super Bowl. Nearly 39 million watched the Academy Awards in March and 36 million tuned in for last month’s finale of “American Idol”.
Only 11 percent of Americans surveyed were “definitely” interested in the World Cup, compared with 45 percent of respondents world-wide.
56 percent of Americans did not even know that the 2006 World Cup was taking place in Germany.
Continue reading at World Cup a big yawn in football-hating U.S..
July 6th, 2006, at 8:46 am #