Like every kid in suburban America, I played a little soccer growing up. Very little. My parents wouldn't let me play football so they made me play soccer until I was old enough to explain to them exactly why I hated the sport. That took until I was nine. After that, I found better stuff to do. Soccer bores me. I realize the athleticism that it takes to play soccer on an elite level. But I also bore easily. So I follow soccer, like most Americans, once every four years in the World Cup. After the US gets eliminated, I then root for my back up country, the Netherlands.
You see, I am 7/8 Dutch. My friend Kevin asked me to explain how I could be precisely 7/8 Dutch and I explained to him, very slowly, that the world gives us all exactly eight biological great grandparents. Seven of mine were Dutch. Therefore, I am 7/8 Dutch. I started to illustrate this on a pie chart but he told me to stop, that he understood. After I was sure he got the concept, I went right back to whatever I was doing (I'm not sure what that was-this was a long time ago-but I am very sure that whatever I was doing did not involve soccer).
At any rate, the Dutch are playing for the World Cup championship (and are doing so, ironically enough, in a country they "helped" create). I don't know how many Africans are rooting for the country that perfected slave trading, but I can't see too many informed dark people really pulling for the Netherlands in this one. I, however, am rooting for my backup team in the most half-assed way possible.
Most Americans, for whatever reasons, have a World Cup back up team. Many of us just pick the team that represents our European heritage. When the Dutch are your backup team, you can usually stop caring about the World Cup pretty early on. But this year, the Orange made it to the finals. So I kind of still have to care.
Kind of.
And that got me thinking about how to adequately define the sort of half-assed rooting I will be doing tomorrow. And then, shortly after the Dutch advanced to play Spain, my father called and we had the following exchange.
Dad: So the Dutch, huh?
Me: Yeah. They may win it all.
Dad: Gotta root for them, huh?
Me: How can I not? I'm a Dutch American.
Dad: Yeah you are. Gotta be proud of that.
Me: I am… hey Dad?
Dad: Yeah, son.
Me: Can you name one Dutch soccer player?
Dad: No. I don't really like soccer.
Me: Me either.
Dad: But we gotta root for them.
Me: Go Orange.
Dad: Wait, the Dutch have the same name as Syracuse?
So tomorrow afternoon, I will be sitting at a bar, wearing an orange shirt and drinking Amstel Light while I stare at a game on a television that may as well be a fish tank for all I understand of soccer. But I will be rooting. And I will care. And if the Dutch win, I will jump up and clap my hands and scream and shout and remind my viewing companions that if they ain't Dutch, they ain't much.
And if they lose, I will still be drunk. So I got that going for me.
And either way, win or lose, it won't change the fact that at the end of the day I am American. I like baseball and blowing stuff up. I like hard cheeses, not soft. And my football involves people who weigh more than most freight elevators can hold. I am, by all accounts, an American through and through.
Except for one two to three hour period tomorrow, during which I'll be as Dutch as Droste's Cocoa.
Go Orange!
I mean, I think that's what the team is called anyway.