is all the space(time) required. Look at Germany’s third goal here. (ESPN has requested that the video not be embeddable, yet you can watch it on YouTube…). Had Lugano jumped up to defend with his head, rather than clumsily trying to use his leg to kick the ball away, would Khedira have scored? Soccer, or football if you like (I do), is replete with such decisive moments.
Americans who complain that soccer is a dull game just aren’t listening with their eyes, perhaps because in American sports — basketball certainly, American football, baseball even — more points are scored than in soccer. As a country of more, looking for the bang — think Westerns, “shock and awe”, etc. — we have trouble finding pleasure in subtlety, in the small degrees of spectacle. We just want the bang, again and again like a heroin junkie. That physicality and coarseness that Walt Whitman celebrated as the American grain, still sustain. The corn feeding our red-blooded beef with the lack of quantity…
Today’s final will see many such moments, half a second or less. Watch for them!
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