If you're counting, and you probably are, the World Cup is now less than ten days away. Single digits on the giant hand-operated flip board we all hold in our minds means things are getting really, really real; if you have a vested rooting interest, your nerves are likely headed rapidly towards "shot" status, your mind is conceiving of every possible result for your team, and your nights are filled with glorious dreaming moments of goal-inspired exultation.
If you're just a general unattached fan, anxious for the month-long soccer party to commence for no other reason than that it's the World Cup for pete's sake (perhaps you're Canadian, for example), your footy molecules are vibrating, your attention for anything non-soccer is short, and all the anticipation built up over the past four years is ready to explode.
Which means, for many in both camps, that World Cup madness is taking hold. People are losing themselves in minutiae, obsessing over things like tactics and form, and squeezing every possible drop out of any topic somewhat related to what will happen in South Africa beginning on the 11th. Hucksters are pitching products with the gusto of Viking berserkers. Blogs are launching special coverage, new designs, clever World Cup-themed series and more lists than you can shake a stick at. Stories and opinion pieces are flooding the soccer corner of the web, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. It all makes the typical European silly season look rather pedestrian.
The American flavor of this madness is an interesting one. Our passionate and widespread soccer-loving culture is only now beginning to coalesce after years of living on the fringiest of the fringe. "Community" has no real historical meaning in terms of the U.S. National Team; it's a new(ish) concept, and one that has taken shape almost wholly in the digital age. This means the madness spreads rapidly and virally, through anonymous, semi-anonymous, and almost always faceless communication. Instead of a like-minded friend at the bar lamenting that the U.S. back line is a disaster waiting to happen, it's the guy you follow on Twitter whom you've never met, the blogger living three thousand miles away you just became aware a few weeks ago, or the commenter on said blog posting under the pseudonym "USASucks245".
It's enough to drive anyone mad, World Cup looming or not.
What does it mean exactly, that America's collective fandom lacks significant analog roots? Is it good, bad, or none of the above?
This is eye-of-the-beholder stuff. Instantaneous communication has allowed physically isolated pockets of fans to connect in ways not possible before. The result is an accelerated growth and strengthening of the community, with the Internet serving as a digital replacement for the bars, pubs, and similar gathering places that helped solidify bases of support of other nations around the world.
With madness extending its insidious (or should that be intoxicating) web across soccer fans American and otherwise, individual and rational thought will wave a brief goodbye. Thirty days of pure lunacy approaches, and the descent has clearly begun.
Kick the tires and light the fires, nine days until the World Cup!
