5.25 .06
Pond Scum: Everybody's Got the FIFA
By Steve Finbow
I’d be lying if I said I was unable to think of a subject to write about this week. It’d be like Norman Mailer claiming a penchant for flash fiction or Gary Glitter confessing an addiction to the mature-ladies section of pichunter.com. Of course I could think of a subject – the World Cup. That is something you should know. I’m not going to do a lazy send-up of how Americans don’t understand football/soccer. I won’t take the piss out of Americans’ naïvety about the offside rule. I won’t be sarcastic about how Americans would enjoy the game if teams received ten points for each goal. No. I am above that. I am not going to be rude about Americans. I’m going to be rude about Americans and Australians. Sun lights up the daytime.
By Nicholas Allanach
With apologies to Elmore Leonard – It is an overcast and humid Sunday. I decide to walk from Primrose Hill to Earls Court to meet Gary, a fellow gang member from my teens. I set out at 4pm, allowing three hours to cross London. I plan to stop off in a pub to watch some of the Brazil versus Australia game. I get a FIFA that's so hard to bear. Regent’s Park, packed with people, activates my London mantra: “Om! Get out of the fucking way! Om! Get out of the fucking way! Om! Get out of the fucking way! Om!” I make it through the park without eviscerating anyone.
Marylebone High Street, closed to traffic, is also busy. My mantra becomes louder. Stalls sell organic strawberries, cheese, cider, and beer. I slip into Oxford Street, skirt Marble Arch; walk under the subway and into Hyde Park. A fair. Smells of candyfloss, toffee apples, sweat, and perfume, sounds of screams, laughter, pop music, and vomiting. Along Rotten Row, past Harrods, and on to the Old Brompton Road.
Pubs, FIFA when you hold me tight, bedecked in yellow and green, green and yellow, overflow with people. A pub bearing a version of my surname – The Finborough Arms my eyes light up when you call my name – is closed. I remember a pub from my punk days – The King’s Arms. I order a pint of Stella Artois never know how much I love you and find a place at the back of the bar to watch the game. It’s 0-0. The second half is about to start. FIFA started long ago.
Three Australians in their mid-twenties stand opposite, each has a kangaroo painted on his cheek. They wear Australian football shirts, shorts, and sandals with a bad case of Velcro virus– the sort real-ale drinkers wear in summer. Brazil scores something like four minutes after kick-off. FIFA isn't such a new scene. The Brazilian fans whoop and holler. The Aussies hold their heads in their hands – for about 30 seconds – and then they’re all smiles again. The scene if England had been playing: a shower of invective spit covers the screen, swear words turn the air the colour of Picasso’s guitar player, fans question the England goalkeeper’s parental lineage and remark on his ongoing struggle with onanism.
Harry Kewell (Liverpool never know how much I care and Australia) wellies a few shots over the bar. I can’t help thinking these shots would have earned points in Australia’s beloved game of rugby and I look around and catch fans thinking or believing the same. Statistics appear on screen informing viewers of each team’s corner rate. A woman when you put your arms around me asks her friend if corners score points. Her friend doesn’t know. I want to lean forward and say that yes, they do, in fact, if a team gets ten corners they add up to one goal. But I don’t. I don’t know why.
The Brazilian fans sing. Why does Portuguese sound like Polish or a forgotten dialect of Ultima Thule? The three Australians are slack-jawed from Fosters or stupidity. Probably the latter as Fosters is about as potent as Stephen Hawking’s headbutt. You give me FIFA, when you kiss me. Kewell fires another shot over the bar. The Aussies “ooh” and “ahh,” turn circles in frustration and then come the smiles and jokes. And I realize I’m enjoying watching this game, enjoying the good-natured fans, the humour, and the laid-back attitude. I don’t miss an English crowd’s aggression, mindless chants, and hysteric-paranoia. Two Brazilian girls scarf huge plates of burgers and chips. A man sits on a stool to my left. “Fucking hell,” I think. The man looks like John Updike. The man looks like John Updike if John Updike wore Havaianas, knee-length cargo pants, a Billabong T-shirt, and wraparound mirror shades. The man looks like John Updike, if John Updike could down two pints of Staropramen and two packets of pork scratchings in 15 minutes.
Men play football on a sun-lit pitch with a media screen above. Legs, shouts. The slide and shift of Nike’s on green-grown grass catapults their voices into the dry June air above their heads. 2-0 to Brazil. I walk the half-mile to The Atlas, where I randomly bump into Barbara and Kevin; I have a quick drink with them, and then wait for Gary while reading Don Winslow’s excellent “The Power of the Dog.” Moon lights up the night.
It’s been a so-so World Cup. Best teams – Argentina, Spain, and Germany. The French have reached a grenzsituation. And it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes… damn, it doesn’t take Katie Holmes… to work out America’s contribution – a bad attitude, violence, and a belief that they have a god-given right to dictate what is and what isn’t fair play.
They did, said Colonel García, yes, the gringos did. They spent their lives crossing frontiers, theirs and those that belonged to others…
– Carlos Fuentes “The Old Gringo”
In the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) world rankings coming into the 2006 World Cup, the USA featured above England, Argentina, and Spain. How? It’s because the USA’s qualifying group contains rocky Caribbean outcrops with a population of three – a spavined parrot, a hydrophobic stingray, and a skinny manatee. America’s performance so far, like its invasion of Iraq, has been over the top, tactically naïve, and ultimately pointless. FIFA all through the night. The USA plays against a backdrop of hate, not the ritualized hate of a football hooligan, but the hate of a world turned against it. I’d rather watch Brazil versus Australia 'cause I know you're gonna treat me right than America versus Iraq. Bloody hell, I’d rather watch endless replays of England games, my eyes propped open with toothpicks, my genitals lacerated by corkscrews, than watch the potential world decider between America and Iran.
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© 2006 Me Three
