Who wants a Brazilian?

Check it out: Brazilian soccer nickname generator! Mine is either "Mallinhosa" or "Elizabeto," depending if I go by Liz or Elizabeth. I think I'll take "Mallinhosa." Either way, it beats this guy's nickname.

Heh, poop.

Oi! Oi! Eh?

All this World Cup broohaha has got me wondering: Why don’t we have hooligans in the United States? Not soccer hooligans, obviously. We barely have soccer. But sports hooligans in general?

Movies and the Internet have taught me that in other countries, especially England, every soccer team has a “firm” of hooligans who get into fights with opposition fans. The US has nothing like this. Raider fans are close, but that’s just one team, and they’re not exactly organized, not the way these hooligan firms are.

I’m really kind of fascinated by this. Here are my theories:

- We’ve got the guns: You don’t see that much brawling in the US because there is always the fear someone’s gonna have a gun and turn a harmless barroom punchup into a massacre.

- We have more than one sport: Soccer is king in most other countries. The US has football, baseball, basketball and hockey to divide our attentions. Having different outlets for fandom keeps the crazy in check.

- Teams are more spread out: The city of London has dozens of pro soccer clubs, including five in the Premiership. This means the fans are rubbing up against one another. Imagine if the Red Sox and Yankees played in the same town.

- We pretend we don’t have a class system: In many cities around the world with more than one club, it’ll be decided that one club is for posh people, another for the proletariat; one is for Protestants, the other for Catholics, etc. The teams are therefore an even greater extension of your identity. In the US, people don’t proudly cling to their class. If anything, it’s the opposite: If you’re rich, you’d want to root for the working class team to prove you’re not a snob. If you’re poor, you’d want to be associated with the perceived team of wealth.

That’s all I can come up with, what do you guys think? Also, do you think its changing in the US? Lakers fans rioted after the win last night, and I may or may not have participated in sports riots after big wins by the Red Sox and Patriots in the last ten years. Maybe we won’t be hooligan free for long.

Raves: June 2010 (World Cup Edition)

How have I not talked about the World Cup yet? I love the World Cup, but in an American-who-knows-very-little-about-soccer kind of way. Here are my Raves about the WC thus far. (And for you haters, stay tuned to the end. I do have a few jeers).

- No ads during games: Having grown up watching American sports that go to commercial every time a player sneezes, I love, love, LOVE watching a game that just goes for 45 minutes at a time. And unlike regular club soccer, most of the players don’t have ads on their shirts during the World Cup.

- Rad Jerseys: Speaking of the players shirts … there is just something so cool about soccer jerseys. This year, my favs are Slovenia, Denmark, Portugal, Spain and France. Sadly, the US jerseys make them look like they’re wearing pageant sashes. Dislike.

- Not banning vuvuzelas: I find the “swarm of bees” sound created by the incessant blowing of vuvuzela horns as annoying as the next non-African, but I’m still glad FIFA hasn't banned them from the stadiums. South Africa has had a rough go of it over the years, and hosting the World Cup is a great celebration for them. Let them party as they see fit.

- Hot soccer players: You knew you weren’t getting through a Gingers is the Watchword post without mention of good looking boyzz! It really does boggle my mind how so many soccer players are just drop dead gorgeous. Why is that? I know they’re all in terrific shape and all that, but so are football, basketball and hockey players, and I don’t find nearly as many of them attractive. Maybe its because they don’t have helmet hair. I'd give specific examples of hotties, but I have no idea who any of these people are.

Hi Steven Gerrard, hiiii!

- Keeps my mind off the Celtics and Red Sox: My basketball team got destroyed in game 6 of the finals last night and is limping into a game 7 on the road against the hated Lakers. My baseball team is 4 games back of two teams that show no signs of slowing down this summer. I need a sports distraction, and this odd little game where you can’t use your hands is just the ticket.

Jeers

OK, there are a few things that bug me about the World Cup ...

- Stoppage time: In soccer, instead of just stopping the clock, the refs keep track of how long play stopped, and tack it on at the end. You never know how much it’ll be until the end of 90 minutes. And sometimes, even if the refs say its 4 minutes extra, they’ll let play continue for 4 minutes and 27 seconds, just to keep things interesting. This drives me batty. Just stop the clock!

- Americans calling it football: I know some people who are trying to seem worldly this month by calling soccer “football.” Listen, we have different words for a lot of things. For example, the Brits call cookies “biscuits,” apartments “flats” and bathrooms “toilets.” Other countries have completely different languages, with different words for everything! Does it make more sense that a sport in which a ball is kicked with a foot is called “football,” as opposed to a sport where the ball is thrown and caught with the hands? Sure. But what’s done is done. In America, we drive on the right hand side of the road, and we call it soccer. This doesn’t make us ignorant or stupid. Just different. And as we all learned in kindergarten, different is OK.

Flopping: The fake injury situation is out of control. You’re trying to win the World Cup lads, not an Oscar.