Cannon Firing Line

World View
By Ellis G. Cannon
PSR Publisher

I'm going to admit something you can't quite come to terms admitting: I'm enjoying the World Cup.

I don't know if a soccer ball is blown up or stuffed. Actually, I do, if we consider what those 10-year-olds use, but not so if we consider those in South Africa.

Also, don't look for me to sell you on the worldwide craze that is the World Cup or the game. That's a sales job for somebody else. What did motivate this column, however, is just that—the game—and not knowing anything about it. During the early stages of the competition, I found myself checking out the morning television coverage. In particular, the Chile and Honduras match was on while one of those 10-year-olds and I checked it out.

Admittedly, there are vast intervals between viewings for me. In some respects, this event is like the Olympics. It happens every few years, there are a lot of marketing points to it, and I don't watch much else in the years in between. Then again, unlike the endless "sidebar" human interest stories that get in the way of actual Olympic events, they've just televised the actual games during the World Cup.

Besides, it is competition and I like that.

Something hit me, though, as I watched that particular game. I knew nothing about the players, teams or coaches. I didn't know the good guys or the bad guys. I didn't know who was talented or who wasn't. I didn't have any context to what I was watching.

Think about that – it would be like watching an NFL game and knowing nothing about it, not even the rules. Not having any bias or rooting interest; instead, just watching the game. How often do we watch anything—any sport— with no context, without knowing anything other than what you see?

Never.

It worked for me that morning. And it did every morning up until I wrote this column. In fact, watching it became a bit of a routine. And, along the way, I started to figure out what I liked (defense!) and what I didn't. How a field that big filled with world class athletes shooting at or protecting goal areas that big could only produce one or two scores – and how that became intriguing. What style and what type of players I liked.

It forced me, for the first time I can recall, to watch the game, stripped of the personalities and other factors that blur our view. Slowly, I then started to fill in the gaps.

It also made me think a bit, which is no small thing considering the summer programming that normally pollutes the screen – imbecilic "shows" dedicated to best-of lists or other trumped-up nonsense; the type of shows that only dumb us down further.