July 18th, 2011
The Czabe puts it all in perspective: Yes, it’s soccer. Yes, it’s women’s soccer. And yes, it’s always better when America wins stuff. But on the other hand, Japan’s victory yesterday is the sports equivalent of Hoosiers meets Rocky meets Silkwood–it might be the greatest underdog story of all time:
Japan reportedly has only 25,000 registered female youth soccer players, compared to more than 1 million in the U.S. The Japanese never had advanced beyond the Women’s World Cup quarterfinals. Several members of the current side personally were affected by the March earthquake and tsunami, including defender Aya Sameshima, who worked part time at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and played professionally for the team sponsored by the company
That is awesome. By the time they were down 2-1, I was actually kind of pulling for them. When their goalie made that unbelievable save on the first penalty kick, it was clear that they were a team of destiny. If you can’t get pumped up by their win, you don’t love sports.
Dr. J. July 18, 2011 at 9:05 pm
I am happy for Japan for the reasons you mention above. I just can’t get into the soccer thing. I played in high school but it it captures my imagination as much as the metric system and Esperanto…