{"id":271,"date":"2002-06-21T16:28:52","date_gmt":"2002-06-21T16:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/?p=271"},"modified":"2002-06-21T16:28:52","modified_gmt":"2002-06-21T16:28:52","slug":"national-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/?p=271","title":{"rendered":"national pride"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, by now if you care (or even if you just frequent ESPN’s website), you know by now.<\/a> I watched it, as I’ve done all the games for us this time around. I have to say, I’m really proud of this team.<\/p>\n

<Soapbox>
\nA lot of people don’t care a lick about soccer. And I can understand that. After all, it’s never been very popular here; we’ve got other major sports to fill all the days in the calendar year, all much more popular than soccer. A lot of people think it’s a boring game (and I’ll admit, I was in this camp for a long time before I saw a few games) because there isn’t a lot of scoring.<\/p>\n

That being said, this is the most important sports event in the world. It blows the Super Bowl out of the water. Don’t believe me? Find out just how many people will watch it worldwide. Don’t be surprised if the total’s close to two billion – roughly one-third of the world’s population.<\/p>\n

If you just can’t see yourself getting into soccer full-time, that’s okay. Treat it like the Olympics. After all, how often do we watch track and field or gymnastics (Alabama and Georgia college fans notwithstanding) other than every four years? But we’ll cheer the U.S. and its players on like we were foremost experts in whatever the event happens to be.<\/p>\n

This team outplayed the three-time champions of the game for most of the game. Even someone like me, who doesn’t understand many of the nuances of the game could see that. We like the underdog here, even if we don’t get a chance to be it very often as far as sporting events are concerned. After all, this country was founded by some of the biggest underdogs.<\/p>\n

My point is, when the tournament comes around again in 2006 (and in a little bit better of a timeslot for us, considering it’ll be in Germany this time instead of Asia), at least tune it in for a little while. I bet you’ll find yourself cheering the team on. And who knows? You may actually get to like the game.
\n<\/Soapbox><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, by now if you care (or even if you just frequent ESPN’s website), you know by now. I watched it, as I’ve done all the games for us this time around. I have to say, I’m really proud of this team. <Soapbox> A lot of people don’t care a lick about soccer. And I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}