Sports- Soccer Snobs
posted in Sports |Last night Kat, Fen and I went to see an exhibition match between DC United and Real Madrid at Qwest Field. It was packed- the reports
are that 60,000 people showed up at a soccer game which is pretty amazing for the United States.
Overall the game was good and Fen even seemed to enjoy it. I do have two critiques. The first is that they were really poor at providing
information on the players. Here we had two out-of-town teams playing. There was no program for sale (that I saw). Even a photocopied piece of
paper listing the players names and #s would have been great. Or some more regular use of the score-board displays to give us information
(rather than just showing ads all game long). Our seats were way up high which was great for watching the plays develop but to be honest I had
no idea who was down there on the field.
The other thing I noticed were the soccer snobs. There were some people sitting near us derisively talking about other attendees
who didnt know everything there was to know about each player or the sport in general. Ive seen this same “more obscure than you” thing in many of my interest
areas (although thankfully I havent seen it play out much among my friends at all). You meet the wine people who make fun of you if
you admit to liking California Cabernets or wines from Bordeaux- if you cant appreciate (and know all the details about) some obscure
region in Spain you are clearly not a true wine aficionado. Alternative Music gets the same thing- to quote an Art Brut
song My Little Brother- “He no longer listens to A-sides. He made me a tape of bootlegs and B-sides.”
Sure I love a good soccer match, a nice obscure wine and a cool B-side, but dont give me attitude for liking Song 2 or a bottle of Shafer
Cabernet Sauvignon. I hope I’ve never come off as that snob myself and apologize if it ever seemed that way.
On the topic of Soccer, here is a schedule for the Seattle Sounders- we may try to catch a game or two in the remainder of the season. US Music Festival schedule.
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