Much like I lose (even more) respect (than I've already lost) for a manchester united supporter the further past 1998 that he/she/it started supporting them, I hold contempt for all the janey-come-lately US football fans. If they tell me something like 2004, Bokolis will end the conversation. I hold as much contempt for them as I do for all the beaneaters and cow-towners that have infested the Apple.
Call Bokolis a soccer snob, if you will. But, one of the major benefits of having been a fan of the football when it was a cultist thing in this country- as opposed to now, when it is on the fringe of greater consciousness- is that I almost never had to deal with the over-the-top presentation that is epidemic in the major US sports.
Of course, now that the media conglomerates can sell it, they have started to hit us over the head with the coverage style that has ruined the sports more familiar to Americans. Where it particularly bothers Bokolis is where the fuss was made over Jurgen Klinsmann stating that the USA cannot win the World Cup.
While, most of the time, the important things have me wrapped up, when I have time for the unimportant, I immediately turn to football. Still, I figure lacing into the media for complaining about it is a waste of energy. So, Bokolis will explain it thus: When Klinsmann says the USA cannot win, it is not said as a coaching tool to his team; he is coaching the media and he is coaching the public because, in all your entitlement, y'all won't shutthefuck up so the team can breathe.
Klinsmann also knows that, if you can get out of a group of death, you've got at least a puncher's chance of doing damage in the knockout stage.
As far as predictions go, Bokolis will see about dropping group previews. However, aside from the orgy of football it presents, I'm not all that interested in the group stage. Knockout predictions are more certain to appear.
I will be rooting for anyone but Brazil to win the show.
Bokolis- my display above notwithstanding- used to think the Argentines were arrogant about football, as they are with many things, but they are insecure compared to Brazilians. Brazilians take the I'm Brazilian; get out of the way to another level. Where the Argentines will look to cut you down- equal parts petulance and the need for reassurance- if you show that you can better them, the Brazilians don't give a fuck if you get the best of them. Their mindset remains, at the end of the day, we're still Brazilian, but you're not bad, so we'll let you play on our pitch.
At some point during the latter part of the '90s, Bokolis stopped wearing my soccer jerseys as casual wear because all it did was bring attention from guys. Unlike most of y'all, I typically go to bars to get away from people. Dudes would see the jerseys and think it was time for sports talk. It's always a rabid muthafucka, too...and there ain't no muthafuckas rabid about football like Brazilians.
One time, I walked into a bar after the fun job wearing my (Centennial) Flamengo shirt. By that time, of course, it had turned into a loud-music place. Some dude sees the shirt and thinks it's time for Mike and the Mad Dog, introducing himself as Brazilian and, after I tried shoo-ing him away, "not gay." Bokolis isn't worried about those things and I tell him so; I wasn't going to talk football in a noisy bar.
Though he might have made a good wingman, sometimes you have to be a dick. Bokolis' comeuppance may have come when, a few months later, I tried kicking it to a Brazilian bird and she told me, out of the blue, I don't like {redacted}; I like soccer, which she pronounced like suck-her.
I didn't feel like talking about soccer that night, either.
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