Well, there you have it

[coneycat]

The octopus has spoken: England will lose to Germany in the round of sixteen.Incidentally, I caught part of a TV spot last week wondering why Canada has never been a soccer "power" and wondering whether it ever would be. I'll tell you why we're not a soccer power: hockey. No, really: to do well at the World Cup, you need either a country with a

Comments

[dewline]

I'd say there's room for at least two Beautiful Games in the nation's heart. With the CFL as a close third.

[coneycat]

I love the CFL, with its shoestring teams and players who rescue their neighbours from fires in the dodgy apartment building they live is and Grey Cup cities who run out of hotel space and locals end up billeting visiting fans. It feels so homemade!

[heleninwales]

Likewise the reason Wales do so badly in football is because of rugby.

When you have a tiny nation whose national game is not football, you can't hope to muster a world class team. :)

[coneycat]

And we're not quite tiny, but our population isn't very big and we have this whole other obsession. When we won the hockey gold in Vancouver, revellers closed streets in other cities all over the country. We have a World Cup-level love of that sport. I say it's best for the World Cup to go to countries that care at that level.

[heleninwales]

Re the octopus, if it's really that good, the zoo ought to be making a fortune on placing bets on the outcomes. :)

[coneycat]

I hope they are! What a fund raiser! :D

[dzuunmod]

Yeah, I made this point to someone at a BBQ last weekend: If our best athletes - our Sidney Crosbys and Drew Doughtys and Scott Niedermayers played soccer instead of hockey, then we might have a hope of competitive national soccer team. But otherwise, we just don't have a shot.

[coneycat]

And given the way the whole nation jumped up and down together over the hockey last winter, I think it's best if the World Cup stay with a country where everyone, and not just isolated pockets, cares at that level. It seems only just!

[syriinx]

Well, I think Canada and the US are in the same boat, only our obsession is American Football. And then there's basketball, and then there's baseball, and then there's hockey before most people even look at soccer!

Which, you know, great. Those are our North American sports, and why not celebrate those? And if the US soccer team can beat everyone else while only a sliver of our population cares? All the better! ;)

[coneycat]

It seems to me that various sports are regionally a great big deal in the US--I've lived in Texas. I've seen the high school and college football thing! And with a very large population you guys can support a big enough slice to care about soccer at that level. But seriously, I hope you only win the World Cup when there's enough excitement generated that people run into the streets and hug each other. I always find it sad when the Stanley Cup is won by a team whose city doesn't much care.

[syriinx]

Yeah, the US is rather regional when it comes right down to it. Football is the overreaching popular sport nationally, but it is the be all and end all in Texas and Western Pennsylvania.

As far as the Stanley Cup, I always get a little annoyed whenever a city south of the Mason Dixon line wins. It just seems unnatural.