Soccer Fans!

The past weekend was a little crazy, what with the World Cup on. I've never been a big soccer fan before but, to quote Seinfeld, "I enjoy any sporting event where nations get involved."

I like the egalitarian nature of soccer, though. Watching the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, it's a little depressing to notice the huge disparity between the nations' sports programs - a gap usually based in wealth. Especially in the winter olympics, many sports are impossible to be competitive in without significant financial backing. Though we think of the Olympics as this great opportunity for countries to compete, there isn't actually much  equal footing.

Soccer, on the other hand, has always had little financial barrier to entry. Granted, I'm sure at the international level, soccer teams are pretty monetarily well-supported, but it's still heartening to see that Paraguay and Honduras are among the qualifying 32 teams and America is still kind of sucking it up.

On Friday, I went out with some South African friends to watch the opening ceremony and the opening game, South Africa vs. Mexico. Since South Africa is hosting and they are also the first African country ever to host a World Cup, my South African friends are pretty excited. To promote the games, South Africa has produced some pretty cool pop songs in collaboration with American artists, actually. My favorite is Shakira's cover of "Waka Waka."

I'm curious if this is popular in the U.S. considering that the World Cup itself usually seems to pass by without much notice.

Anyway, soccer is a big deal in Korea too, even if South Korea's prospects look grim. There's even an official song for the World Cup by the very popular 13-member Korean boy band, Super Junior, called "Victory Korea."

Daehan Minguk = "Republic of Korea" 

I think it's hilarious that most of this video was filmed in Paju English Village, the fakest place in Korea. I hope they weren't trying to make people think that this is what Korea looks like.

Saturday was the South Korea vs. Greece game. Even though it was pouring rain, some friends and I made it out to City Hall to watch the game.

Yay, ponchos!

It was pretty exciting to be out there watching as Korea beat Greece 2-0. 

Afterward, we took a cab over to Itaewon to watch the US vs. England match at 3:30 A.M. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite stay up for it. I ended up sleeping through three-fourths of the game, including the kick off and a bar fight. Fail.