The World Cup is here! I am not a year-round soccer watcher (sidenote: Does the AP style guide have any advice on soccer vs football if writing for an audience that is predominantly American?) but I have such a humongous history with this sporting event.
When I was in elementary school in 1994, my Nicaraguan housekeeper (a mother figure that I still keep in touch with to this day) first lived in our house when she came over because we sponsored her Visa. I used to go to her room to use her TV because I never had one and we would watch the World Cup on her bed. One of the first things I learned in Spanish was the names of the 24 countries that were playing that year as well as terms like "tierra de esquina" (corner kick). And of course, Andreas Cantor's famous "Gooooooooolll!."
In 1998, as I was approaching high school, my parents sent me down to live with my grandparents for the summer in the Florida Keys and we would watch the World Cup every day. There was a language barrier between us because my grandparents were born in Iran which was ironic because the US and Iran played that year. My grandparents also lived in Germany for several years and Germany was in the US-Iran group. I still remember nearly every score and group drawing of that year twenty years later.
In 2002 when the World Cup was in South Korea and Japan, I studied abroad in Mexico which took sports spectatorship to a new level. I would be awakened on days that Mexico played at either 2 or 5 AM with pots and pans clanking and bells ringing as well as people running down the street. The results of every game from the second round on went the exact opposite of the way I wanted them to go. When US upset Mexico to make the quarterfinals, what might have been nice if I was in the US at the time suddenly became tragic. I also hated South Korea, Turkey, England and Brazil and those were the teams that won everything.
In 2010, I was inspired by the World Cup to start playing pickup soccer which became a hobby of sorts for at least a couple years.
I recently wrote two articles previewing the World Cup for the Weekly Standard and have been invited to pitch at Slate and probably can pitch again for the Weekly Standard so let's see if I can write some more.
In the interim, enjoy this quiz I made of players who have scored four or more goals since 1998. It's a good way to catch up on recent World Cup history
