Soccer

 Right now, in Qatar the 2022 soccer World Cup is on. There are 32 teams in Qatar and they come from all parts of the world. Soccer or football is the most popular sport in the world. The only place where it is struggling for survival is the US. Here baseball, (American) football and basketball rule. I can not understand.

This country is filled with immigrants, most of them came from soccer countries yet, soccer is struggling for air. This is to show that Americans are just not smart enough to understand and appreciate a good soccer game while the rest of the world is. Soccer can work the fans into a frenzy. Frenzy that is not present at any baseball game or football game.

Baseball fans sit through 4-5 hour games munching on hot dogs and drinking beer. There might be a small amount of excitement if there is a home run, but nothing compared to what goes on at a soccer game. Football consists of separate plays. Each one lasts maybe 15 seconds then everything stops. Hard to get excited at that either. So, we are back at soccer. This is a 45minute non-stop activity that one can not help but enjoy even if he is not a fan.

The rule of this World Cup tournament is that members of each national teams must be citizens of that particular country. This is very interesting because most of their local clubs are filled with foreign players. Now they can not be used because the participating countries must use their own nationalities. But within certain professional sport circles citizenships are easily obtainable. Just have to be an excellent athlete.

So now I am watching a lot of football (soccer). All nationalities many different countries. Argentina, Spain, Brazil and Portugal have the most famous football players in their teams and that makes it interesting to watch. But tournaments like this are filled with surprises regardless of their stars. Like Argentina losing to Saudi Arabia 2:1 and Japan beating Spain 2:1. 

The lesser countries make tremendous efforts in trying to win. Like Iran. They have no international players, and I guess public opinion is against them. But they put on a good game and beat Wales 2:0. Can't help but admire those guys. Wander what would happen if they would play Israel.

In the 1956 Olympic games the Hungarian water polo team played against the Soviet team. They said and I did see videos of it that it was a blood bath. The animosity between the two teams reached historic heights. This was after the Soviets attacked Hungary after the October uprising. 

So, Israel against Iran would probably be similar. 

Interestingly, US played against Iran and there was tremendous hype about this game. End result was 1:0 in US' favor. I saw the game and critics noted that there was no unnecessary rough stuff, and the game was fairly played.

This world is full of surprises.