On Patriotism Through Athletic Competition

In which we take an anecdotal look into the love of sport and country.

Something you may not know about my friends is that we love a good chant.  Not in a Gregorian sort of way, more in a goofy, obnoxious sort of way.  For example, if you walk into a room with a large group of us hanging out there is a good chance we will start chanting, “Tim, Tim, Tim…¹”

This past weekend I had the honor being an usher at my good friends’ wedding².  At both the bachelor party and the wedding reception we got some fantastic chants going.  The best, however, came right before Brett and Jenny left the reception.  All the guests that were left had been chanting a ten second countdown in an effort to force the happy couple to appear, but to no avail.  Too keep the crowd into we switched chanting the ABC’s.   As we approached the last quarter of the infamous song I whispered to my fellow ushers.  The result was the following:

“…R…S…T…USA…USA…USA…”

Everyone around us quickly jumped on board, it was glorious.  The USA chant us one of our favorites and had been used as both the wedding and bachelor party multiple times.  But what was the cause of this sudden, and raucous outpouring of national pride?   A little thing I like to call the glory of sport³.

In case you haven’t heard the World Cup (in which either soccer or football is played depending on where you live) is currently going on in South Africa.  It’s only the most watched sporting event in the world, if you don’t count yourself among those that do watch you should probably get on that.  There have already been some memorable moments for the good ole US of A.

In game one versus England the US was down one-nil⁴ early on and things were not looking good.  Until the Americans had a strong shot on goal.  It seemed like England’s goal would field the ball cleanly until.




Whoops! USA…USA…USA!  Final score 1-1 (+10 national pride points for hanging with the limey brits).
Game two versus Slovenia was one that we absolutely couldn’t lose if we wanted to move on.  Slovenia jumped up to a seemingly insurmountable 2-0 lead.  But the scrappy Americans clawed their way back in and tied it up at 2-all (+7 national pride points for hanging tough New Kids style).  Then, out of no where, on a free kid the US scored a third goal taking the lead.


USA…USA…USA! But wait, the head ref call a penalty on the US and waves the goal off.  However, on replay there was no foul to be seen.  Commentators and pundits around the world can’t believe it.  Even Fifa benches the ref that made the call.  Final score 2-2, the Americans are officially robbed of a win (+20 national pride points for getting royally boned).

The final game of group play against Algeria has now become a must win game.  They manage to break the “fall behind early” streak that plagued them in the first two games.  Unfortunately they were not able to break the “mystery penalty that costs them a goal” streak and so the game remains tied at 0-0 for all 90 minutes of regulation. 

Then, in the second minute of stoppage time⁵, a ball is shot and bounces off the Algerian goalies hands setting up a shot for Landon Donovan, one of the US’s best and most well known  players.


USA…

 USA…

 
USA…


 USA!

Final score 1-0 (+15 national pride points for edge of your seat, last second heroics). So the US wins in spectacular fashion and moves on to the second round of the World Cup.  Which is great because now Americans cared about soccer for at least another week.

Yesterday, however, the hopes of our national team were dashed as they exited the tournament, losing to Ghana by a score of 2-1.  However, they fought bravely and forces an overtime period.  Hopefully the national interest in soccer will continue and in four years we will be ready to compete again on the world-wide stage.  For now I’m just happy that people are watching and me and my idiot friends⁶ get to chant “USA…USA…USA!”
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¹ Or whatever your name happens to be.
² Technically I was asked to be an usher, then forgotten about before I reminded Brett and was made an usher again.
³ It could have also been the beer consumption at the reception.
⁴ Nil is a limey soccer term for zero.  Other phrases include “the pitch was slippy".”
⁵ The time added to the game as a result of any penalties or injuries.
⁶ I apologize if you are one of those friends, I love you dearly.  Except for Tim (Felton) who never reads my blog anyway.  You don’t get an apology you buster.