Germany’s soccer players stretching during practice
All photos from fifa.com

A few things I like about the Beautiful Game during the World Cup:

• I like to see everyone — men, women, children — get together and cheer for their favorite team.

• I like to see the fans’ enthusiasm.

• I like that there’s always the opportunity for something unexpected and fantastic to happen — like the team from Ghana making and unpredictable and upsetting win over a favored and more experienced team.

• I like to watch before the start of the game, when the children lead the players out to the field. They come out hand-in-hand. The players are nervous and it’s interesting to see how they react with the children. Some pay attention to the kids, while others ignore them till it’s time to grab their hands and march out into the stadium.

Children and German team

• I like to see some of the traditions the players perform on the field. For example, some kiss the ground when they step on the field for the first time. Others kiss the ground after their team has scored a goal…

• I like to see how excited both players become after they score a goal. All these men hugging and kissing on each other.

• I love to watch how hard each team plays to win.

• I love to watch the opposing teams show good sportmanship when they hug, congratulate each other, and trade team shirts after a game.

Legends Zidane (France team) and Figo (Portugal team)
show mutual respect at the end of game, in which France won

What I hate about the Beautiful Game:

• I hate to see the players spit. Do they have to spit? It’s so disgusting and unsightly! And I don’t know why the cameraman feels the necessity to focus on this gross behavior. Uggh!

• Agressive fans who fight and do and say horrid things. Not cool at all. Very sad!

Paz

Ukraine’s goalkeeper makes a save

Italy fans

French team mate Patrick Viera happy after scoring goal

France vs. Spain fans playing table football

This entry was posted on Friday, June 30th, 2006 at 2:30 pm and is filed under World Cup 2006, Soccer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.