Living with Elimination: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Brazil
Chances are, sometime soon or maybe even today, your team will have played its last game of the 2006 World Cup. I hate to bring you this news. I wish the anticipation of seeing your team play and the three-and-four-games-a-day magic could last throughout the entire tournament. But, like Maradona’s sobriety, inevitably it comes to an end.
Perhaps you were a USA fan and tonight’s Ghana game was your last chance at advancing to the knockout round. Several options remain for the rest of your World Cup experience. You can go back to working while at your job, paying attention to your family, and start showering in between visits to this website. The most user friendly option though, if you want to enjoy the rest of the tournament: adopt another team, drape yourself in their flag and cheer for them like the USA never even qualified.
It almost doesn’t matter which country you select, the simple joy of being a fan, scouring the web and debating their chances with other misinformed fanatics is its own reward. But being able to explain to your fellow fans how you arrived at that decision is crucial.
One option is simply adopting the team that beat your team. They have proven themselves superior on the field and if they go on to win it makes your team look that much better. It also affords you the popular justification: “We lost to the team that beat all the other teams, so in a way, we took second place! Good job us!” This strategy for picking a team is easy, efficient and logical, (favored by the Germans) but problematic for several reasons.
First, upon learning that your team would be facing them on the field, you might have declared your disgust for the other team privately, with your comments of World Cup Blog and to the big guy upstairs (Thank you for this day our daily bread, may the opposing team all break their ankles simultaneously on the pitch, Amen). You may have jeered them as they entered the field and ridiculed their kits. And you have most likely spent at least 90 minutes comparing the players to a pile, piece or sack of some sort of excrement.
This type of cheering makes it tough to stomach adopting that team later on, so you’ll need a different strategy. If you’re in Germany for the tournament, may I suggest choosing the team with the best looking fans.
This strategy is perfectly legitimate, especially when your proximity to them affords you the opportunity to yell out your new country’s name at the top of your lungs in a crowded public square. It’s like a mating call for football addicts.
The only problem is that Brazil’s fans are easily easiest on the eyes and with the team’s popularity and dominance, it may be overcompensation and seem grossly unoriginal. Nothing takes the vinegar out of your piss at a fan festival like seeing a horde of preteen girls cheering Brazil because they think the yellow shirts with the planet on them are like totally cute.
The best way to distinguish yourself from these posers is to learn the songs of your new team and sing them as enthusiastically. This can be difficult as the songs are often in a foreign language and the lyrics slurred as they celebrate a victory.
A quick remedy seems to be learning the first few lines of several songs and surrounding yourself with hardcore fans. I watched a guy win over a sardine can of a bus yesterday without ever singing more than the first line of any German song. He made sure he sang the first line loud and proud, then let the native fans take over. He could have been an England fan and no one would have known the difference.
But most of you are not in Germany, so you need a different way of picking a team. Some people choose to root for the underdog in a match they are neutral in and I admit that hope in the face of certain defeat has its charm. But you can only switch teams so many times. So pick a decent team, with a fair number of fans in your area and established traditions in which you can immerse yourself. Pick a team that is going to make it through several rounds and then revel in their victories. Dance to their drumbeats, drink their beer and flirt with their women.
Then, if that team loses, you are obviously bad luck. So just lay low with us here at World Cup Blog.
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Comments
By Louise | June 22nd, 2006 at 1:13 pm 
Jessie, I think the team with the best looking players is Italy. But I don’t think I can support them (the lethal elbows, the flopping).
Suggestions for other attractive teams are welcome. (Maybe the Australians…they’re usually good looking and they’re underdogs.)
Posted from 
United States
By Razzle | June 22nd, 2006 at 6:03 pm Yes I am a USA fan and beating Ghana was the last chance. Sigh. The world (cup) is over. 
Posted from United States
By Jessie | June 23rd, 2006 at 12:29 am Or, pick the team with the best looking players … which with soccer players being so damn fit … may be a difficult choice. Anyone out there have an opinion on the team with the best looking players?
I’m going to have to think on this one for a bit …
Posted from United States
By cat | June 23rd, 2006 at 1:15 am definitely england….yeah beckham is fit but have you taken a good look at michael owen…he’s just droolworthy, injured or not
cmon england!!!!
Posted from United States
By Luis Paulo | June 23rd, 2006 at 1:16 am As a Brazilian, my second team(Czech Rep) was desqualified today. Now, my second second team is Portugal. FORÇA PORTUGAL.
By Empress | June 23rd, 2006 at 1:44 am The team with the best looking players is what us women are looking for and that just may be Italy. But while they are cute and in my top picks (along with ARG, NED and GHA), I suggest looking for the side with the best looking kit. After all, if you are gonna run around jeering at other teams and annoying hardcore football fans, you should do it stylishly 
.
P.S. It just so happens that all my teams have sexy kits. Go figure!
By Stuart | June 23rd, 2006 at 2:18 am As an American, first and foremost my team is our team, but alas we again were not up to the challenge of the World Cup. I’m pretending to be over it, but the bright side is that being American means that you’re from somewhere else orginally (you may have to go back a few generations to get there). My mother’s family is from the Black Forest region of Germany, and my father’s family comes from the border country of Scotland, so I at least have one ancestral dog in this fight (one day Scotland will qualify again!). Truth be told, it was the German win in ‘74 when I was just 11 that really set my love for the game (it also gave me a strong affinity towards the Netherlands style of play as well). I just can’t bring myself to root for Brasil. Yes, they’re amazing when they’re on, but I liken them to the New York Yankees of American baseball. You have to give them their due, but I’ll never be a fan, and will always pull for whoever they’re playing. So good luck to everyone that’s still alive, play well, and enjoy this all-to-fleeting moment.
By Yo Mamma | June 23rd, 2006 at 2:32 am How about chosing a second favorite team by the following:
best shoes
best hair styles
best endorsements
most likely to cause a good scene
I guess I should watch more games.
Posted from United States
By Roland | June 23rd, 2006 at 4:12 am Or you could go with coolest kit.
Posted from United States
By Claude | June 23rd, 2006 at 4:47 am Fortunately my team, Deutschland, is still in. However my #2 favorite team is the team that plays Brazil and #3 favorite is whoever plays Argentina. You could say I’d like to see an all European final and if that can’t happen let it be Germany vs. The Socceroos.
Posted from United States
By Euler | June 23rd, 2006 at 7:35 am The title of this post is great! The text is excelent and funny! My second team is Portugal. It would be great to have a Luso-Brasileira final match.
Força Lusitanos! Brasileiros, rumo ao Hexa!
By Bobbio | June 23rd, 2006 at 10:22 am My second favourite team is Brazil because making fun of Ronaldo will never become boring!
Posted from 
Netherlands
By minhoca | June 23rd, 2006 at 10:46 am WTF? Who let a girl onto this forum? The banner on the front page says NO GIRLS ALLOWED!!
Hey I’m just teasing, but seriously I was about to post asking “do any girls ever post to this site?”
Posted from United States
By minhoca | June 23rd, 2006 at 10:57 am FORÇA BRASIL! FORÇA PORTUGAL!
VIVA LA RECONQUISTA!!!
Translation: my favorite teams are Brasil, Portugal, and SPAIN! My prediction: they will all be in the final 4, plus Argentina.
This is the Luso-Brasileiro f-Castellano era! I am in heaven.
SPOILER ALERT… SHIELD YOUR EYES FROM THE NEXT SENTANCE UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO WINS THE WORLD CUP*
***Brasil will beat Spain in the final game.
But don’t feel sad for the Spanish, in their heart of hearts they want to lose… their music has prepared them for it. Brasil would have only the samba to console them, and that is a recipe for suicide.
Posted from United States
By ken | June 23rd, 2006 at 3:05 pm as an england supporter i don’t have to support another team as i already support the future world champions. ahem.
if england do go out (imagine that! impossible) i will watch the matches as a neutral. it’s really not that difficult. especially if its a six-goal thriller between argentina and brazil.
funnily enough, i have had a lot of practice watching world cup finals without a team to support.
cheering on the underdog is clearly a good strategy.
forza ghana! forza korea! forza ecuad… whoops.
Posted from 
United Kingdom
By Euler | June 23rd, 2006 at 4:01 pm Ecuador will win over England 2:0. So you’ll go for Ecuador to win it all, right? 
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