{"id":72936,"date":"2014-06-20T13:22:13","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T17:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=72936"},"modified":"2019-02-05T12:39:52","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T17:39:52","slug":"kissing-and-biting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/20\/kissing-and-biting\/","title":{"rendered":"Kissing and Biting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italy puckers up; unhinged American exuberance; infamous teeth.<\/em><\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s Mario Balotelli, he of the \u201cwhy always me?\u201d undershirt, wants a kiss from the \u201cthe UK queen\u201d\u2014yes, that<\/em> one\u2014if he secures a victory against Costa Rica. The domino effect of that result would go like this: Italy will go on to beat Uruguay while England crushes Costa Rica by some outlandish score and, miracle of miracles, England qualifies for the next round on goal difference. From my brooding vantage\u2014looking out at the low dark clouds gathered over the sceptred isle this morning\u2014a little royal peck on the cheek doesn\u2019t seem too much to ask for Mario\u2019s compliance. He should go for more\u2014but maybe not from the queen.<\/p>\n

All sports aficionados are historiographers. Fans of, say, the Chicago Cubs or the Boston Red Sox before 2004 \u201cremember\u201d failures and disappointments that occurred decades before they were born. Sports talk and commentary worldwide is a litany of reference and record: great names from the past, statistics, moments of triumph and disaster. No game is an island.<\/p>\n

Does this explain why the USA\u2019s supporters in Brazil seem to have reached a level of euphoria unmatched by the fans of any other country? I mean, they\u2019re really going bonkers over there, and there\u2019s something entirely unhinged about it. What the crowd is unhinged from, of course, is the past, the dead Wrigley Field weight of history that tells you, \u201cDon\u2019t even think about it.\u201d <\/p>\n

As Henry James, author of \u201cThe Jolly Corner,\u201d which I\u2019m guessing is a soccer story, once wrote: \u201cIt takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.\u201d The USA soccer team has no tradition that anyone really recalls. Its forays into world soccer are each time fresh and new, although, given the way that interest in the game is mushrooming across the fifty states, this may well be the last year we\u2019ll be able to say that.<\/p>\n

If only that were the case in England, where the postmortem on yesterday\u2019s disastrous game with Uruguay is haunted by the ghost of losses past. \u201cSame old England \u2026\u201d is the Big Match Verdict of the daily tabloid the Sun<\/em>. Same old Luis Su\u00e1rez, too, unfortunately: the Liverpool and Uruguay striker, who had keyhole surgery on his knee only four weeks ago, returned to torment his opponents with one deft, superb header and the punishing winner after a terrible mistake by England\u2019s captain Steven Gerard: a brutal, ferocious right foot shot past Joe Hart, bulging the net.<\/p>\n

In England, nobody seems quite ready to let go of the facts that\u00a0Su\u00e1rez (1) has a large and distinctive set of teeth and (2) used them to bite the PSV Eindhoven midfielder Otman Bakkal back in 2010 and the Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovich just over a year ago. Today\u2019s newspaper headlines include OUR WORST BITEMARE<\/small> and IT HAD TO BE CHEW<\/small>. Even the upmarket lefty Guardian<\/em>, usually so sensitive to the lives of others, led its front page with ALL BITE ON THE NIGHT: SU\u00c1REZ SENDS ENGLAND TOWARDS WORLD CUP EXIT<\/small>.<\/p>\n

But what a glorious World Cup this is turning out to be: out of thirty-two teams, only Iran, Nigeria, Japan, and Greece have found ways to bore everyone to death. Meanwhile there are wonderful upstarts: the frequently slighted CONCAAF<\/small> teams, Mexico, USA, and Costa Rica; Chile playing with speed, skill and passion; an ever-improving Croatia; and now Uruguay, back in the ascendancy. Three of these countries\u2014you can figure out which\u2014have populations of less than five million. But maybe that\u2019s an advantage. Neither China nor India came close to making it through to Brazil.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Wilson\u2019s work has appeared in <\/em>The New Yorker, <\/em>Esquire, <\/em>The New York Times Magazine, and <\/em>Best American Short Stories, among other publications. He is the author of eight books, including <\/em>Kick and Run: Memoir with Soccer Ball. He lives in Massachusetts.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italy puckers up; unhinged American exuberance; infamous teeth. Italy\u2019s Mario Balotelli, he of the \u201cwhy always me?\u201d undershirt, wants a kiss from the \u201cthe UK queen\u201d\u2014yes, that one\u2014if he secures a victory against Costa Rica. The domino effect of that result would go like this: Italy will go on to beat Uruguay while England crushes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13859],"tags":[88,545,14362,10290,14361,86,145,89],"class_list":["post-72936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-cup-2014","tag-england","tag-italy","tag-luis-suarez","tag-mario-balotelli","tag-otman-bakkal","tag-soccer","tag-usa","tag-world-cup"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWorld Cup Recap for June 20, 2014<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Italy puckers up; unhinged American exuberance; infamous teeth.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/20\/kissing-and-biting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kissing and Biting by Jonathan Wilson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 20, 2014 \u2013 Italy puckers up; unhinged American exuberance; infamous teeth. 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