the World Cup cometh

We live in a curious age. For most of us, the first experience we have of cultural events like concerts, theater, and so on, is a television experience. The same applies for sporting events. An orchestra concluding a mighty symphony, a singer dancing wildly in front of screaming fans, the Olympic games – all these are experienced in a lesser reality (don’t try to make me jealous with tales of your high-tech home theater system – it still isn’t real). We get so used to these events as TV events that we come to expect, for example, that Olympic games are always held at 2 am and filmed in some exotic far-off land. We expect that the choice of sport to watch is always decided by someone else. The real thing might then one day come into your vicinity like Halley’s comet, for a brief moment before it goes off again, not to return in your lifetime.

My first live World Cup was almost one of those experiences. This comes around only once every four years, where the best national soccer/football teams in the world compete to become the world champions. It happened during my postgraduate school days at Stanford. I had watched the occasional game on TV before, and had even been caught up in world cup fever before, or so I had thought. In places like Malaysia or Singapore, world cup fever is about a month or so of watching games on TV at funny hours, then getting together for drinks with friends and reliving together the thrills of great goals or commiserating together on near misses and on the effects of sleep deprivation. Considerable bonding and camaraderie may develop during this time. It’s like the bonding that may occur between a group of wanna-be soldiers on a paintball field – not quite the real thing, but something close enough so that you don’t thirst for the real thing. So anyway, the World Cup was coming to the US and some games would play at my doorstep, in Stanford Stadium, and I was just happy that the matches would be televised live in the daytime.

The World Cup was in 1994. Towards the end of 1993, I became vaguely aware that people were buying tickets for world cup matches. It was only when one of the original ticket buyers couldn’t make it, and needed to sell her tickets, that I even considered buying tickets. Furthermore, those were first round tickets but once I got them, my mind started the crucial psychological shift. Therefore, when another friend posted his announcement of sale of 2nd round tickets, I jumped. He had a pair of tickets for the July 4th match in Stanford stadium.

My first match, though, was Brazil versus Russia on June 20th in the first round. It was a hot and dry day. The area outside of Stanford stadium was a bazaar of sound and colors, rhythm and painted faces. The section of El Camino Real just outside the campus, and the road from there in towards the stadium, had both been blocked off and were filled with streams of people. They were loud and energetic, extremely looking forward to an afternoon of live entertainment. Drums and samba mingled with the crowds. Some people sang. Some people chanted. Some people danced. It was a foreshadowing of the Carnival I might have seen in Rio De Janeiro 5 years later, except that I didn’t because it was the wrong time of the year when I went (but that’s another story). There were lots of beautiful women (and some not so beautiful women too) clad in tight T-shirts, bikini tops and so on.

There is a mystique about the Brazilian team. They are known for playing “the beautiful game” – superb ball handling skills, dribbling and passing, with numerous crowd-pleasing moves and tricks. However, they are sometimes criticized for unnecessarily showy moves and a lack of focus on defense. Brazil is said to be the team that is everybody’s second favorite team – after their own team. Now, if you come from a country whose national team has never before made it into the World Cup (I won’t name names here, but you can rest assured that you’re in good company), then you can comfortably support Brazil without agonizing of the sort “Well, I really should be supporting the other team, but Brazil is more fun to watch”.

A cynic has said that soccer is about twenty two grown men chasing a silly ball around a big field. That's blatantly wrong! There're only twenty of them since the goalkeepers don't count. Seriously, though, the players debated powerfully (with their play) against that myth that day. Suddenly, Brazilian striker Romario was charging towards the Russian goal. He had two Russian defenders running at his sides, both trying to stop him. Yet, amazingly, he powered on, with the ball seemingly glued to his feet. Before we knew it, he had gotten off a shot that went by the goal keeper and into a corner. There were many other moments of beauty like this during the game.

After the game was over, the real partying began. Drums, singing, and dancing kept the samba beat going and going, as if it the energizer bunny had gone wild. People were reluctant to disperse and go home. Some friends and I followed the people into a big open tent where the samba lived on. This was totally different from a television experience.

Despite all I have had to say about the pleasures of watching a game live, I will admit that one of the most memorable experiences of the 1994 World Cup was a TV experience. People started noticing that the coverage of the World Cup on regular English TV was but a pale shadow of the coverage on the Spanish network. Watching the regular networks, you would see a player make a move to get out of a corner and hear the commentary explain what just happened (in case you didn’t realize it). The next minute would be filled with apologetic remarks – yes, unfortunately you didn’t see many goals but you did see moves like that, so – (drum roll, added by me) – “that’s why it’s exciting!” They would look at one another and nod slowly, their brows furrowed as if pondering the thought. Then you would surf over to the Spanish channels and it’d be like in the movie Titanic going from the very proper and restrained after-dinner entertainment of the upper crust to the unfettered exuberance of the 3rd class party. You wouldn’t understand a word, except for one – GOOOOAAAAAAAL – and that word would tell you all you needed to know. When a goal was scored, you would not be told how exciting it was. Instead, the next minute would be filled with screaming – GOOOOAAAAAAAL … GOOOOAAALL … GOOOOOOOOAAL

Those were memorable days. Those were days of photo-taking. Normally a cautious photographer, I was not myself those days and I used rolls upon rolls of film to preserve the memories. Now, if only I could remember where those stacks of photos have ended up …