World Cup Woes

I am not a sports fan. In fact, I don't like sports. I am completely indifferent to sports. Sports is something that takes my husband away from home physically (i.e., Monday night basketball and late-night soccer games in Sao Paulo) or mentally (i.e., planning varsity basketball line-ups while sitting at the breakfast table). My husband will claim that I just don't understand sports. I do.

I played sports. In fact, my only goal as a sixth-grade athlete in rural Iowa was to be a starter on the varsity squad in all four sports my freshman year. Somehow my mom, an avid sports fan but never an athlete, discovered this dream. I will always say that my mom is an excellent "dream nudger"--the person who comes behind you to encourage and spur you on to accomplish big things. As a dream nudger, she's been supportive of a lot of crazy ideas, and I love her for it. But she may have overdone it in the sports department.

I spent my middle school summers with special pitching coaches honing my fast pitch; pitching up against a net-like contraption that flung the ball back to me when I hit the strike zone; climbing through barbed-wire fences to retrieve wild pitches, scarring my back in the process; practicing lay-ups, jump shots, and free throws every single day; and going to various sports camps. A move to Texas and suddenly I'm in club volleyball playing year around. Then, I was out at noon to play tennis in the Texas heat with my younger sister, also on the fast track to sports stardom. I had a little talent and a lot of drive, so sports seemed like a great fit. But by my senior year, I was sick of sports. So, I get it. I do. I know the thrill of the game, but I'm done with sports--especially spectating. I have never, even when I loved to play sports, enjoyed being a spectator.

So, when I write a post about soccer in which I relate how obsessed I've become with the World Cup, you know it is a BIG DEAL. I confess that my passion for the World Cup didn't begin with a passion for soccer; it began with a sticker book. In Brazil, when the World Cup comes around, the newspaper stands start selling the official World Cup sticker book which contains blank spaces for every single player, every single team, every team emblem, as well as countless special spaces for stadium stickers and other attractions. The stickers are purchased separately in packs of five, just like baseball cards. The fun comes in trying to collect all 600+ of them.

We purchased a book for Ethan, and being the Type-A hover mother that I am, I couldn't let him do it alone. We bought a few packs of stickers, then a few more, and soon we were running to the newspaper stand twice daily. The grandparents got in on the act, and Pawpaw even received his own book and started collecting.

We traded with youth group kids, friends, and Pawpaw. Worried that the books weren't sold in the U.S. (as we had heard), we tried to finish as many teams as we could before traveling. Ethan received hundreds of packs from friends to open on the long plane ride. We even threw Ethan a "World Cup" birthday party the day after we arrived in the States. As favors, we gave sticker books and packs of stickers to the cousins who got excited about the World Cup, too.

Then with only seven stickers to go, the World Cup started, and that, unfortunately, is where this post takes a turn for the worse. In our house, we cheer for the U.S. and Brazil--ONLY. The U.S. took us for a wild ride as they came back time and time again to advance past the first round, but then couldn't quite pull it off against Ghana. Brazil did as expected right up until the quarterfinals when they imploded against the Netherlands in a what-in-the-world-just-happened-kind-of-moment.

To establish just how into the World Cup I was, I should mention that I watched the U.S. and Brazil games by myself of my own volition. I might have even run around the room screaming and doing a bizarre victory dance--thank goodness, only the kids were privy to that performance. Multiple times I texted Nathanael who was away studying in Chicago so we could "share the moment" together (he was really impressed with my level of interest). And just like that, it was over. Yes, I know that technically it isn't over, but my involvement is. It's time to put this little sports obsession to rest. Our only consolation is that Argentina didn't win either.