Any fan of sport has had to have heard of the world’s outrage du jour, aka the US Woman’s team scoring 13 goals against Thailand, and gasp, celebrating those goal with too much verve. Fuck you very much world. I’m not having it.  If we are gonna have an outrage contest. Then I’m running up the “eff yous” well past 13, and I’m not going to be sorry. 

One could make all the points in the world about how long it takes a soccer player to ascend to one of the 20 or so slots on the US National team. The decades of work. The sacrifice. This doesn’t matter. Apparently in games we shouldn’t win by more than 3? 5? 1?  Then we play keep away for 63 more minutes?

If contest is the measurement and scoring more points than the other team wins the contest, then either prevent a team from scoring or shut it. It’s a pretty simple contract. 

Someone is sure to point out that it wasn’t the goals but the celebrating  of said goals. To which I’ll say this. This is the world championship, it may be the last time you’re there. You may never score for the rest of the tournament. Enjoy it. 

Of course they could score and not celebrate. But sport brings out emotion. And emotion is instinctual. You score. It’s exciting. You’re on the worlds biggest stage. You made it here. You celebrate. 

I coach high schoolers as well as my own kids and I’m by no means condoning poor sportsmanship. I of course want to teach them to win and lose gracefully and some people will argue these players didn’t do that. I’d argue playing keep away from the other team is more insulting.  Would we be bashing a runner who was winning a marathon by 20 mins?  Would we tell them to slow down and wait?  That’s ludicrous. 

Finally, we are in perpetuity, the ugly Americans.  We are too loud, too fat, too obnoxious, too everything. We might as well own it. 

#hugsandhi5s