With whiskey in hand and a mouth like a brawl;
She’d outdrink the sailors, outcurse the men
And fart in confession just to do it again.”
I hate to admit it, but I’ve been watching soccer a lot lately due to the bizarre spectacle know as the World Cup. I think those bagpipe-playing Scotsmen started it by bouncing down the street by the thousands to Fenway Park to watch a Red Sox game, delighting all the gawking Bostonians in their path with sterling renditions of Flower of Scotland and Scotland the Brave and The Bawdy Ballad of Granny McGee. After that, they drank up all the beer in Beantown and went out to celebrate at Waffle House.
Before we could say, “Yer head’s full o’ mince,” here came the Norwegians, pretending to be Vikings and rowing up escalators. The Germans have referred to a visit to Raising Cane’s (not the Grand Canyon) as “life-changing” and were treating places like Walmart and Costco like giant theme parks, marveling at the endless aisles. Fans from Uzbekistan embraced their heritage by trotting on horses in full armor through downtown Houston before their match with Portugal. The U.S. State Department estimated that just under 10 million visitors traveled here for the World Cup and half that many hit all three Cup countries (USA, Mexico and Canada).
The visit to Massachusetts was such a smashing success, Glasgow and Boston have become sister cities and New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft is hitting up the NFL Commissioner to schedule a game in Scotland. The visitors said they were wary of how they’d be greeted after all they’ve been reading lately about America, but the natives treated them like long-lost relatives, especially in the saloons. Alas, the Scotch soccer team wasn’t as spectacular as its fandom and they headed home with but a single meager win. Still, after 28 years of non-participation in the Cup, things are looking up not only for soccer but also Scotland’s tourist industry. The hotel phones are ringing off the hook daily now with eager New Englanders booking rooms with a view on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.
The Big Show
Now, if you were to ask the average man in the street what he thought about soccer pre-Cup, he’d likely close his eyes and pretend to be sleeping. But just about everybody likes The Big Show, whether it’s Taylor Swift’s wedding, the World Cup or Rodeo Week in Vegas. At the Olympics, people watch synchronized swimming and ballroom dancing and curling, where two men with brooms try to beat a large stone down a runway of frozen water droplets. These are things most observers equate with watching paint dry or tolerating untimed chess under ordinary circumstances, but when national pride is at stake…when it’s The Big Show…they are rapt with attention, even for soccer.
Soccer is frustrating. It’s like hockey without the brawls, a frustrating back-and-forth on an oversized football field where teams score about as often as Trump leaves a tip. For anyone with a dog in the fight, this is okay, maybe even exciting, but for everyone else it’s like watching milk curdle. People like offense…home runs, three-point shots, punt returns for touchdowns. Most can even live with a nice pitchers’ duel or a courageous goal-line stand. But 90 minutes-plus of slogging east and west, painstakingly inching forward with tiny little kicks to a neighbor five feet away and waiting for the slightest opening, only to invariably have the ball stolen and taken in the other direction is trying one’s patience to the hilt. The whole affair is strangely remindful of a date with a Catholic girl in 1955…probe, probe, probe, overstep an inch and the evening is going the other way before you know it.
Then there’s the falling down, pretending to be mortally wounded in the hope that a naive referee will take pity and hand you a bon bon. People are falling down willy-nilly on virtually every play in a soccer match…like defenseless tenpins at the World Series of Bowling. Oh, the inhumanity! Every injury is, of course, a horrendous wound, a threat to life and limb reflected by long-practiced expressions of agony on twisted faces. Only the death scene from King Lear can compare. The officials are a solemn, unsympathetic lot, but great showmanship occasionally wins the day, earning a yellow or even a red card for the dastardly villain who perpetrated such mayhem. The card is hardly out of the ref’s pocket when the pulverized soldier jumps up and returns to the game smiling.
On the rarest of occasions, after hours of fan frustration and reluctance to go to the bathroom, a mighty goal is scored, a feat that shatters the air with deafening celebrations which climb up the hillsides and explode windows five miles away. The supporters of the scoring club, many dressed for maximum tribal identity and weatherproofing, are overcome with the emotion of five straight orgasms and are liable to break into songs like You’ll Never Walk Alone (Gerry & The pacemakers, 1963) or Vindaloo (Fat Les, 1993).
“The Beautiful Game” has been growing over the years in the United States, whose women’s teams invariably challenge for Olympic and World Cup glory and have often won the prize. The men, alas, seem to have trouble getting out of their own way. After an encouraging start in 2026 and playing at home in deafening Seattle against Belgium, the U.S. lads played a timid first half but showed some resilience early in the second, keeping the ball in Belgium’s end the majority of the time. That’s when the American goalie suddenly remembered he was actually Elmer Fudd and let a wicked wabbit steal the ball away from him and plunk in goal number three for an insurmountable 3-1 visitors’ lead in a contest that will be forever titled “The Belgian Waffle.”
That’s okay, American soccer fans. We’ll always have that win over Paraguay and the Fenway bagpipes blasting out the lurid strains of Granny McGee. By the way, how long can you amateur soccer announcers stretch the celebratory announcement “G-O-O-O-O-O-AL?” Romanian sports commentator Ilie Dobre sustained a shout for 1 minute and 8 seconds on a single breath during a match with Hungary in 2013. The impressed listeners presented him with a bouquet of peonies, some plum brandy and a meat pie. Who says soccer doesn’t have its moments?
They Came For The Soccer But Stayed For The Ranch Dressing
Tens of thousands of soccer fans landed in the USA on July 4, 2026, our country’s 250th birthday. They came for the football but got bully jet flyovers, drone shows and fireworks. Eighty thousand people from 100 countries sang “Country Roads” like a knockout-round anthem. They were everywhere, marveling at the free ice dispensers, reverently filming Taco Bell menus and learning the importance of discussing the weather with Americans.
Often portrayed as staid observers, the Germans took a walk on the wild side. One of them loved Walmart so much he had the logo tattooed on his leg. Another named FreddyLA7 was so flabbergasted by the size of a Buc-ees, he filmed himself yelling, “DUDE, THIS IS A GAS STATION??” German fan Sebastian Krause broke down crying on Boston TV because strangers gave him a ride to his hotel. He said American hospitality shattered every expectation he’d formed from foreign news coverage.
Swedish fan Elsa, like several compadres, went nuts over Ranch dressing in Indiana. “Why did noone tell us Ranch sauce is like crack? Europe, get us some Ranch ASAP!” Many Italians were blown away by free soda refills (France banned them in 2017). One boisterous Roman gleefully exclaimed, “I ordered a medium coffee and received what we Italians would classify as a bucket.” A disbelieving Britisher called a 2-litre Big Gulp “One of my favorite things I’ve discovered in America.” And then there was the astonished Japanese traveler who couldn’t get enough of Waymo driverless taxis. “I rode in them in Dallas, Houston and L.A. You can get one from an app without speaking a word of English!”
The soccer, all agreed, was first rate. But the football couldn’t compare with the condiments.
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
