CHANFLES!

We seem to have come across the perfect place to see World Cup matches: a little hole in the wall that offers, get this, free food, free valet parking, free foosball table games, free stadium seating for 250 people, huge screen to see the match, and finally, free beer! though it is bottom of the barrel selections with either Corona or Bud-Light, oh well. But it’s free, I kid you not! Better than that though is the huge main projection screen and lots of other tv’s around the space (they even have one in the bathroom) to keep an eye on the game at all times. How could this be? It turns out to be some Nike sponsored venue (boo, hiss) which I assume must be some temporary marketing scheme, figures. Despite that, even without the freebies, it’s a good place to check out the remaining matches. We got to see France eliminate España (can you believe it?) with a mostly Francophone crowd that buried the notion that only Mexican football fans are louts. Here’s a short video clip after the 3rd goal and after the beer spilling died down. Even though I was rooting for the country that imposed one of its languages on the Americas, giving us countless opportunities for creative mangling, it was still fun seeing the fans of le France get excited about a decent win: the guy next to me was twitching his leg just as fast as I was last week watching Mexico play, nervousness is quite universal.

If you want to check out the spot, here’s the address: Football Club 7018 Melrose Ave. Don’t tell them I sent you, they might not let you in!

What a great start for the Cup games, those power houses that assumed they would waltz over the little guy are having a reality check. England played an unconvincing match and won solely because of an own goal by Paraguay. Somehow the claims that this is England’s year are starting to sound hollow. The beauty of this game is that there is no room for Royalty, no inherited coronation, every win has to be earned. The most exciting match so far was Sweden vs Trinindad-Tobago, despite being a man down Trinidad held their own and came up with an amazing, yes, amazing 0-0 draw. This is where Americans from the USA have a hard time understanding football: how can a 0-0 game be exciting? I’ll put it this way, points win the game but the style of play makes for the entertainment. Sure Kobe Bryant can get 2 points from the free-throw line but wouldn’t you rather see him dash thru the defense and make some fancy hoopty shot? Of course you would. Same thing with football, the lack of goals doesn’t mean there was no fancy plays and shots, the tally at the end rarely represents what happened on the field. The T-T fans were rejoicing in the stands with their draw while the Swedish seemed despondent and shocked, they expected to trounce on the tiny Caribbean nation.

The 3-1 Mexico win over Iran was especially thrilling for me, considering that I do like to eat Mexican food. I caught a glimpse of a whole section of Mexican fans dressed like el Chapulin Colorado, El Chavo’s alter ego and the inspiration for The Simpsons “BumbleBee Man”. It’s kinda crazy how much of an impact the Chespirito characters have made on a few generations, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to end soon. That pic above is like the trinity of fun shit to do: watch Mexico play in a World Cup game, drink liters of fine German beer, and carry around a chipote chillón to pay homage to one of the greatest TV characters ever. Wish I was there.

Yay! It’s World Cup time! Whoo-hooo, party get crazy! Unfortunately, I find myself in the wrong country (yet again) where the sporting event that interests the rest of the world will pass by with nary a gaze from most of the populace and the media, they’ll just put it in their “check out what them crazy foreign people are into” segment. But they’ll let me know about some “French Open”, more baseball scores which make a difference in some limited-to-the-USA “World Series”, maybe even something about basketball finals. Guess futbol fans are on their own, oh well. Some points to consider:

* Did you want to see the opening ceremonies for World Cup 2006? Well you should have turned to channel 18 KSCI as they were the only ones showing it, you could have learned a bit of Korean in the process. Or not.

* Hopefully you did miss the opening ceremonies as it was the dinkiest, low-budget affair ever. You’d expect Germans to have a bit of precision but they didn’t, some of them wore silly hats, and the bit where it looked as if they were fucking giant bells, that was truly odd.

* Separated at birth: the Fifa logo for 2006 is strangely similar to the one for Sabritas, a line of mexican snacks. No wonder the thought of the games made me crave chile y limon.

* If Mexico does well this time around (unlikely) then there will surely be another police-incited mini riot in Huntington Park: make sure to bring your face mask!

* Despite two beautiful goals by Wanchope, Germany beats Costa Rica 4-2, which was expected. But Ecuador beating Poland 2-0? Now that was unexpected! Maybe it was goalkeeper C. Mora’s warrior facepaint that did the trick.

* Que chingados les pasa a los locutores de habla ingles? Parece que ni les interesan los partidos porque nunca se emocionan por las jugadas ni por los goles; un gol lo interpretan simplemente como “un punto”, como si fuera nada. Pobres los que no entienden el español.

There’s a whole month of great games, excuses for skipping work, and opportunities for meeting people from around the world. Instead of bragging how you don’t care about what the rest of the world watches, why not settle in for a match and give it a go? You’ve got nothing to lose but your imaginary borders!