You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Watching a world cup with someone who bleeds cup, breathes corner kicks, understands offsides.
It’s 5pm Saturday afternoon, do you know where your Italian Soccer fan-club is?
I do.
He’s sitting next to me at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Franklin, Tennessee.
A hundred screens are tuned in to the big game of Saturday evening; England vs Italy.
The restaurant is typically packed with families wearing Tennessee Vols or Titans or Vandy jerseys.
Tonight, it’s red white, blue and a touch of green, the combined colors of England and Italy.
These two traditional soccer powerhouses play each other in a rare 1st game match in Brazil.
Buffalo Wild Wings is a sports establishment known more for the caloric frequency of hot wings than international soccer. Tonight? The world’s ethnicity is on display.
The man I’m sitting with knows Italian soccer better than he knows the covenants of his divorce decree.
He knows the players nicknames. He knows what set pieces the Italians run in certain situations. He knows one of the players pulled a left testicle and more sadly he knows how and where.
The Italian fan stands when a shot sails over the cross-bar.
He curses in Italian and waves his cupped hand backward at the gigantic screen.
He looks at me staring at him.
“Italians talk with their hands,” he says using perfect English.
3 men sit beside us.
They smile each time my Italian friend shouts something that sounds like taffy stuck to the roof of your mouth.
The Italians at the neighboring table shout back in the lyrical language of love as if there is a secret global bond between our two tables.
On the other side us, a table sporting the colors of the Union Jack.
My friend strikes up a conversation with the displaced Brits.
Their accents are rich and full as if they just flew in from Heathrow.
They talk about living in Tennessee and their children playing in a local soccer league, but their accents scream Big Ben, Parliament and bad teeth.
It’s a friendly neighborhood of tables, even though my Italian friend blurts out “I won’t berate you if we win.”
The Brits smile a toothy grin. I guess deep down this is war separated by a Channel.
Making this even more fun; We are watching with 2 women who don’t claim to know much about sports.
The nuances of football and baseball push them to the limit. So just imagine a sport as obscure as Soccer.
The poor girls are lost. The concept of world cup is confusing like a child learning to tie their shoes in a wind storm.
Why does the time keep going up?
Can he use his head like that?
Why is the man spraying the field with paint?
The questions are good questions.
Soccer is simple, but it’s also complicated.
Corner kicks and off sides and goal kicks.
The Buffalo Wild Wings has become a sports laboratory where soccer is the main ingredient in a world cup concoction.
While the girls scratch their pretty heads, the Italians root vociferously, like they are yelling for a pizza from a 2nd story window.
To the fans filling this hot wing emporium, the world cup is a game that is life, it is passion fed intravenously into their souls.
The women give up trying to understand the nuances of the beautiful game. Instead, they make a deal.
“We’ll watch soccer if you guys go and get a manicure with us.”
Soccer one night. Mani/Pedi the next?
Seems like a fair world cup transaction does it not?
So the game rolls forward and the excitement is palpable.
The wings are hot, the beer is cold, and the passion thick like cold tomato paste dripping from the rafters.
Italy scores first.
The Italians jump up and clap. They don’t hug physically, but they look at each other and telephathically make love to one another.
Within minutes, England counter punches and it’s tied 1-1.
The English fans are subdued, clapping politely as if taxes have just been raised by parliament.
The Italians jump up from both tables and moan aloud, as if there is a mob hit in the back of the restaurant.
The two women with us look up from their manicure comparison.
“What? Did someone score.”
By the excitement of the Italian beside me, you would think that the restaurant has been taken over by a SWAT team.
And so it goes, as the adult beverages are consumed, the wings ingested, the excitement level growing.
At 90 minutes, the board flashes extra time.
“What’s that?” the women ask.
Again, another great question.
Again soccer is a game that is hard to explain. How many sports end but the clock keeps running and extra time is put up based on a secret code kept by an on field referee.
Time stoppage is just one of the many unusual nuances of soccer that is hard for the normal fan to understand.
The game ends and Italy is victorious.
The Italians smile and do backward hand gestures to one another.
It is love without actually touching.
“Who plays next?” One of the women asks.
I am not sure, but I bet it’s Japan against someone.
“Really? How do you know that?” she says.
I point to a table below the monitors. There are 50 Japanese people holding menus and ordering beers.
“I don’t think they are here to watch the Red Sox” I say with a grin.
The women beside me don’t understand the nuances of the game. But they leave the Buffalo Wild Wings knowing that world cup is more than just a little sporting event in Tennessee.
African villages stop fighting during the World Cup. Towns come to a screeching halt in Europe during the World Cup.
Only in America, does a boss blurt out fatuously, “Nobody cares about soccer.”
The beautiful game. In many ways, it is a simple game. In many ways, it’s a difficult game to pick up. It’s loved by a planet and mostly disregarded by an ignorant populous that sings the Star Spangled Banner.
World Cup Soccer
Go USA.
Life’s Crazy™