{"id":73345,"date":"2014-06-30T16:30:11","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T20:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=73345"},"modified":"2019-02-05T11:05:12","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T16:05:12","slug":"be-afraid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/30\/be-afraid\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Afraid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The political fear of soccer; how to shame a pathological diver.<\/em><\/p>\n

As Americans continue to watch the World Cup in their accumulating millions, the denizens of the political right are running scared. Ann Coulter, whose bark is worse than Su\u00e1rez\u2019s bite\u2014and whose delusions match Jos\u00e9 Mujica\u2019s, the President of Uruguay, who referred to FIFA\u2019s punishment of his country\u2019s star as a \u201cfascist ban\u201d\u2014weighed in a few days ago with a column listing the myriad ways in which soccer is un-American. It would be hard to find someone who knows less about soccer than Ann Coulter, but as Spinal Tap\u2019s Nigel Tufnel would say, that\u2019s nit-picking, isn\u2019t it? So: soccer doesn\u2019t reward \u201cindividual achievement.\u201d It\u2019s \u201cforeign,\u201d meaning French people, liberals, and fans of HBO\u2019s Girls<\/em> like it. And, perhaps worst of all, it\u2019s wussy: the \u201cprospect of personal humiliation or major injury\u201d essential to receiving the Coulter seal of approval as a real sport, like hockey or American football, is apparently missing in soccer.<\/p>\n

Peter Beinart, writing in the Atlantic<\/em><\/a>, has an interesting take on Coulter\u2019s silliness: She\u2019s right to be scared of the World Cup. Why? Because its burgeoning devotees look a lot like the people who elected Obama\u2014first generation immigrants and their children, Hispanics, young people, and, yeah, liberals, who like soccer because they get to play with rest of the world instead of apart from it. Ann the Fan prefers it when Americans aren\u2019t contaminated this way; better just to have a little local competition and call it the World Series.<\/p>\n

Fans of Team USA have bought more tickets than any group outside the host country to this year\u2019s tournament. And there they are in the stands, whooping it up, win or lose\u2014reveling, it seems, in being part of a truly international party. Will the enthusiasm last? The test will come, possibly as early as tomorrow, if the U.S. loses. Will the nation switch off? I don\u2019t think so. <\/p>\n

Arjen Robben, Holland\u2019s left-footed winger, is a brilliant player, one of the world\u2019s best, and he is also a self-acknowledged cheat. He likes to draw fouls and fool refs by taking dives. It\u2019s hard to discern when he\u2019s faking, because he also happens to get fouled a lot; he\u2019s fast and elusive and players from the other teams are not shy about kicking him up in the air. In yesterday\u2019s game against Mexico, he went to ground three times. On the last occasion, in the final minute of the game, he won a penalty, Klaas Jan Huntelaar scored from the spot, and Holland had its victory. Afterward, Robben had no problem admitting to an inconsequential earlier dive, but he wouldn\u2019t fess up to any late shenanigans. Clearly Mexico\u2019s captain Rafael M\u00e1rquez made contact, but Robben\u2019s subsequent leap was spectacular theater\u2014cirque de (Francois) Hollande.<\/p>\n

When he played for Tottenham Hotspur in the midnineties, Jurgen Klinsmann, the present coach of the U.S. team, was an infamous diver. At away games, fans would hold up handwritten numerical signs to score his Olympian efforts: 5.6, 4.9, 6.0. Perhaps that\u2019s how we need to shame Robben. Costa Ricans, get your numbers ready for Saturday.<\/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":"

The political fear of soccer; how to shame a pathological diver. As Americans continue to watch the World Cup in their accumulating millions, the denizens of the political right are running scared. Ann Coulter, whose bark is worse than Su\u00e1rez\u2019s bite\u2014and whose delusions match Jos\u00e9 Mujica\u2019s, the President of Uruguay, who referred to FIFA\u2019s punishment […]<\/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":[14463,14461,14462,86,145,89],"class_list":["post-73345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-cup-2014","tag-ann-coulter","tag-arjen-robben","tag-diving","tag-soccer","tag-usa","tag-world-cup"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBe Afraid, Be Very Afraid<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In today\u2019s World Cup recap, Jonathan Wilson on the political fear of soccer and how to shame a pathological diver.\" \/>\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\/30\/be-afraid\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Be Afraid by Jonathan Wilson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 30, 2014 \u2013 The political fear of soccer; how to shame a pathological diver. 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