The Sports Bizzo

By Jon…

One of my favorite movies, High Fidelity, begins with the line, “What came first, the music or the misery? Do I listen to pop music because I’m miserable, or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?”

That line, in all its brilliance, makes for a perfect segue into my post today. What came first, the interest or the video game? Did I start watching soccer because I bought FIFA 08, or did I buy FIFA 08 because I started watching soccer?

I still really don’t know the answer but, either way, it’s happened. What I do know is that they compliment one another well, the game and video game. I bought the video game on a whim the other day while Ed was buying “The Deadliest Catch” video game. I had just started my new job which puts cash in my pocket on a nightly basis. I was there. The game was there. And sure as hell, there was $50 in my pocket.

So I bought it. It just so happened that my purchase coincided with the Group stage of Euro 2008. The game is frustrating in a number of ways, mainly the lack of a career mode, a staple in most sports games. The other frustrating part: I have no clue how to play soccer. Okay, I know how the game is played. I know what offsides is, I know the rules, but I haven’t clue how the game is actually played. Strategy. Plays. Substitutions. The nuances of the game. It makes for frustrating gameplay, for sure. I was getting routinely smoked on the Amateur skill level.

So I put it down for a few days.

In my time away from the game, I found myself thinking about how to get good at FIFA 08. I kept seeing the game in my head. It was eerie. It was like when I played Scrabble or Yahoo! Literati for a solid few months in college. I found myself zoning out on the road trying to rearrange the letters of the signs on the freeway. But that’s Scrabble. That’s words. I like words. I don’t like soccer.

Do I?

It started with a few Sportscenter Top Plays. “Well, that looked pretty nifty,” I thought. And then I found myself logging on to ESPNsoccernet.com, and reading up on Euro 2008, until finally I said, “Screw it, I’m watching Croatia-Turkey and I don’t care who knows it.”

I tuned into the game around the 18th minute. Nil-nil. “Alright, it’s early. Of course, they haven’t scored yet. No worries. Just tune in and learn.” And I did. I learned some of the nuances of the game, like when looking for someone to pass it to, find the guy who has the most space to run. And, just as in American football, you don’t pass it to the guy, you pass it to where he’s going to be, or where you’d like him to end up.

Sounds simple, I know, but these are things that escaped me when thinking about Soccer. You have to understand, I swore off soccer in Kindergarten. I played one year, and I’d say on the low end, I got hit in the face with the ball 10 times. Granted, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I definitely didn’t like getting hit in the face with a soccer ball.

Back to Croatia-Turkey, though. It went through all of regulation, and the first extra period. Nil-Nil. I’m not gonna lie, for about half of that time, I was outside on the phone. Kinda bored, catching up with old friends. But I came inside just in time. It was at the 115′ mark in the second extra period (At some point during the game, I decided I was a Croatia fan. They had a young coach who looked like a cool, British dude I went to college with. That’s seriously why I decided to root for Croatia).

In the 118th minute, the Croatians had a scoring chance that looked like it may have been thwarted, but then the Turkish keeper came way out to make a play on the ball. The Croatians made an extra pass, catching the Turkish keeper way out of position, and scored. The Croatian faithful went crazy. Their coach was sprinting down the sidelines, hands in the air, in a suit that looked strangely similar to the one I wore for First Confession in the 2nd grade.

Stranger still, I was smiling with my hands in the air because the Croatian national team scored. I’m not even entirely sure where Croatia is. I know it used to be part of Yugoslavia, but I’d have trouble pointing it out on a map. And yet, here I was cheering for them like I was from there.

And then a funny thing happened. With two minutes left, and the commentators all but proclaiming a Croatian victory, the Turkish goalie booted it 3/4 of the way down the pitch, bounced off one guy, right to a Turkish player, who turned, fired and scored.

Oh my God, I’ve been watching this for two hours and nothing happened. And then in the the last two minutes, both teams scored. And the Turks literally scored with almost no time left. It was like a buzzer beater in basketball, except you have no idea when the buzzer is going to go off.

Sadly, my Croatian brethren squandered the match when it went to a shootout. Two of their top players shanked their attempts, and the fourth one had his shot blocked by the Turkish keeper to seal the victory for the Turks.

All in all, it was totally worth the two hours I spent watching it. As an added bonus, I was able to apply some of my new found knowledge of soccer in a couple games of FIFA 08.

Granted, I still have it set to amateur, but, hey, you gotta start somewhere.