Ireland & USA: Little Differences #2
SEATS AT THE HALFWAY LINE
I don’t care how FIFA does its world rankings weighted over eight years. I don’t care how high the USA national soccer team ranks. I don’t even care if the US wins the World Cup. I won’t believe the US knows how to play football until it knows where to watch it from.
All over the world, from the tiniest little stadiums that hold 200 people right up to the Bernabeu and Azteca stadiums, people fill the best seats first - in an effort to get the best possible view of the game.
Maybe if you’re sixteen and want to call the opposite goal-keeper names - or your own keeper (well you are sixteen) - you might go directly behind a goal as a first choice. But you do not spread out all over the stadium to find your personal space anti-socially away from everybody.
You are there to watch the game. To get the best view you sit in the best seat available. The best seats are level with the half-way line. The next best are right beside them. And so on.
Every single time I have gone to Arrowhead to watch the Wizards, I have been able to walk in at kick-off, in crowds of from 18,000 to 30,000 and walk past thousands of people to sit on one of the many vacant seats level with the half-way line. This makes no sense.
Maybe this is not the case in New York or L.A. It could be just a Kansas City thing. But since this is the day of the European Champions League Final, I’ll carry on.
It also makes no sense that while the game is going on, everybody in Kansas City is eating, drinking, and talking - or entertaining the kids. That would be akin to taking kids to the movies but providing clowns in the theatre because, well the kids might get bored with the movie. What’s wrong with letting kids learn how to cope with boredom? Heck, how bad is it if they don’t even learn?
And while I’m at it, corner kicks and players should not have theme tunes. And the loudest cheers of the night should not be for the 60 seconds when if somebody scores in that minute everybody in the crowd gets a free slice of pizza. And the players should not be trying harder in that minute so I can have a free slice of pizza. They should already be trying their hardest.
So I stopped going to watch the Wizards. Well it was too crowded and I never got any free pizza.
More on Soccer:
• Meeting Diego Maradona
• Irish Lose: O Dear, O-dear O-dear O-dear
• Watch The FA Cup Final on TV in Kansas City
See Other Little Differences Between the USA & Ireland:
• Irish Fests and the Definite Artiicle
• Robins
• Pharmaceuticals
• All the Little Differences
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