The Aztexan

Check out that picture. That’s a flyer that was left on the windshield of my car during Wednesday night’s Aztex-Timbers game. The significance, if you’ll allow me: scant months after my fellow Aztex fans and I wondered whether there were any bars other than Cuatro’s where we wouldn’t be treated like second-class citizens, here is this (baseball-named!) chain of sports bars actually spamming me with paper flyers about how soccer-friendly they are.

That, my friends, is the World Cup for you.

It can’t help but make me think of the question that comes up so often in American soccer. It comes in different forms, but it boils down to: will soccer “make it” in the U.S., and if so, when? I like how Steve Davis put it in this post last summer, Stupid questions about soccer:

This business of “Has soccer arrived?” and “What’s it gonna take … ” they represent the laziest of cliched, journalist default questions. Seriously, what do those questions mean?

I mean, has Thai food “arrived?” Has yoga “arrived?” Has Gabriel Garcia Marquez “arrived?”

See what I mean? It’s a silly question. Things are what they are.

Soccer? As a professional enterprise, it’s clearly not as popular in the United States in 2009 as football, baseball and basketball. It’s more popular than hockey (no matter what anybody wants you to believe.) As a participant sport, it’s widely accepted and unquestionably popular. And that’s it. Why does everyone always want to explore where soccer will go? What’s with the obsession over where soccer will land on the pop culture continuum?

From my perspective as a fan of a still-new team in a league that’s had some amount of turmoil since, well, forever, I can’t be quite that blithe about the question. To continue Davis’ Thai food analogy, I’m a big fan of this new Thai restaurant in town, and I want it to do well enough to stay in business. I want Thai food to have “arrived”, especially here in Austin, at least that much.

Now, back to the World Cup. I personally could hardly be more excited for it. I’ll be watching as many games as I can get away with without getting fired or divorced. And seeing soccer here, soccer there, soccer everywhere; having coworkers who usually couldn’t care less tell me to Google for “world cup” and look at the bottom of the page; all of that stuff, it just adds to the fun.

But at the same time, I’m sure there will be plenty of jokes at soccer’s expense, too. Like the Onion story about “the nation’s soccer fan” (note the singular, “fan”). I’m not saying that’s not funny; I love The Onion, and that is funny. But it’s based on the kind of tired old junk that U.S. soccer fans have put up with for years, so it also kind of touches a nerve. And there’s bound to be plenty more backlash where that came from, between now and July 11.

In anticipation of that negativity, here’s my resolution: I won’t care, and I won’t fight.

I love soccer. And for the next month, I’m going to unapologetically geek out on it, and have an absolute blast, and nothing anyone says will be able to put a dent in that. I’m not going to get into goofy defensive arguments, or lecture anyone about how the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, blah blah blah. For the next 30 days, everyone’s going to have more than enough exposure to the game. Let them fall in love with it like I have — or not — on the game’s own merits. It has plenty of ‘em.

I’m sure my local Thai restaurant, er, soccer team (which thankfully seems to be doing good business this year already) will pick up some new fans this summer, which will be fantastic. But some people will try what’s on the menu and not care for it; others, who decided long ago that they hate it, won’t even taste it (but will keep on hating it). That’s okay, too. To each their own.

As for me, I’ll be pigging out.