Monday, April 03, 2006

A Staggering Genius of Heartbreaking World Cup analysis

Dave Eggers is mostly right about diving.

He is 100% right about Stallone.

Eggers wrote a
good column for The Observer.

The second and greatest, by far, obstacle to the popularity of the World Cup, and of professional soccer in general, is the element of diving. Americans may generally be arrogant, but there is one stance I stand behind, and that is the intense loathing of penalty-fakers.

...

The second most significant moment came when the World Cup came to the US, in 1994. It is reported that Stallone attended one of the games, and seemed to enjoy it.

3 comments:

D said...

Great title... loved that book. If we can win the McSweeney's crowd over to US soccer, then it's only a matter of time before the rest of the literary critic intellegentsia follows suit. After that... the world...

Anonymous said...

Couldn't disagree more with his "commie" arguement. I really wish people would just accept soccer for what it is in the US. A sport followed by a passionate few that continues to grow each year. No reason to apologize for that.

DF said...

Eggers' book was mediocre and overhyped. His soccer article was pretty decent. But to be fair, it wasn't Eggers' "commie" argument--he was quoting some gym teacher to make fun of the idea.